Learn Piano Free

When you’re learning how to play the piano, the occasional piano education game can help you take a break and yet reinforce your piano music concepts. Here are some sites that provide free online piano games:

Composers Keyboard (DSO) - A fun piano game that allows you to create your own music by dragging notes onto the staff.

Virtual Piano (Kaboose) - This game uses a virtual piano that lets you play and record your own compositions.

The Piano Player (Funbrain) A game originally meant for kids, this game is actually good for all beginner piano players that helps you to learn how to read musical notes.

Note Name Games (Classics for Kids) - Drag and drop the correct note names of the treble clef!

Key Signature Flashcards (Musicards.Net) - These flashcards use a proven system that will help you learn the different key signatures. Other piano related flashcards are also available.

There are many different questions when it comes to buying a keyboard. How much should I pay, how many keys it needs and so on. A lot of it really depends on the buyer and your own personal preference. The best way to tell if the keyboard is right for you is if it “feels” right. But, in saying that, there are a few simple guidelines that can help you out come purchase time.

One of the great things about having so many different keyboards to choose from is that you can find one at a suitable price. The first thing is you want to make sure the keyboard actually works. The problem with keyboards is that as they get older they tend to decay a bit. So be careful buying a keyboard before you’ve actually played it and checked the keys, all the buttons and so on.

The next step is looking at how many keys it has. I’m often asked “how many keys should I get?” The answer is really down to personal preference and what exactly you’re using your keyboard for. My advice is to get a keyboard with the full 88 keys. But 76 and even 61 will usually be enough. If you have the choice I think either 88 or 76 keys is best. If you were just using a small range of the keyboard and it’s more for recording interesting samples and so on, then fewer keys is fine. Most professionals will use 88 keys.

The next thing to look at is weighted keys or “synth” action. This means what the feel of the actual keys is like. This again really depends on personal taste. Weighted keys: this means that the keys on the keyboard have the same feel and weight as keys on a standard piano. A lot of trained pianists will go this route, myself included. I don’t like to use synth style keys but that’s entirely my personal taste. One of the benefits of playing on a keyboard with weighted keys is that if you never played an acoustic piano before you should easily be able to adjust quickly because your hands will be used to it. Synth style keys also have their advantages. Because they’re not weighted it’s a lot easier to play them faster.

Another important aspect is the velocity and after touch of the keyboard. Velocity refers to whether how hard you hit the keys affects how loud the sound that comes out, so that if you lightly touch the keyboard you will get a nice quite sound. Similarly if you hit down hard you will get a nice loud reaction. After touch refers to the sensitivity to the sound and touch after you hit the note and hold it down. If you play a note and you want it to ring the way an acoustic piano does, after touch is very important. Personally I believe that velocity and after touch is VERY important and any keyboard you have should really have these things catered for.

So there are a lot of things to consider when looking at keyboards. Ultimately I believe a lot of it comes down to personal taste and what your instincts tell you about the keyboard itself. Remember, you want it to be something that you can spend a lot of time on so make sure that you are completely happy with what you end up with.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Ruth Searle is a pianist with years of experience behind her. Playing the piano is her passion, and she is also the drive and inspiration behind Rocket Piano – the Ultimate Piano Learning Kit, and Rocket Piano Gospel Edition. If you want to take your piano playing skills to a new level, you need the Rocket Piano Kit. You get step by step instructions complete with audio and video lessons, and you can instant access by visiting Rocket Piano’s website now.

I often have people ask me about playing a piano “by ear”. What they are referring to of course is learning and being able to play songs just by listening to them.

When I was quite young and still learning to play the piano I remember watching someone listen to a song on the radio and then quickly walk over to the piano and play what was on the radio. It was very impressive. I remember thinking how amazing that was. The thing that I’ve learned since then is that if you spend time with music, listening to it, playing it, paying attention to it, that things start to stick out. By this I mean certain chords start to become familiar, certain melodies that then go along with those chords. Probably the most important aspect of this is that chord progressions that start to stick out. These are the fundamental parts to playing by ear.

One thing that happens quite often with piano is that when someone starts their piano education they are usually taught how to read music first, then to play off sheet music. So when it comes time to play something that isn’t written down they have great trouble. I know, this was how it was for me in the beginning.

To really learn to play music by ear you need to have at least some knowledge about chords and chord progressions. Once you know a little more about chords (major and minor and what they sound like) you can start learning to play by ear. The first thing to do is find a song you really like and would like to play. The second thing is to do is make sure it’s an easy song. (You will probably find out pretty quickly how difficult it is to play!) If there are a lot of chord changes then it might be a good idea to pick another song. The thing about learning by ear, when you first start out, is that it will take a while and you will need to be patient. When I first started it took me quite some time and I had to work through quite a lot of frustrating moments but it’s much more rewarding.

Some people will be able to pick up music by ear much easier than others. This is just a fact of life. Some people’s ears are just more tuned to music than others. Quite often though, these people are the ones who listen to the most music.

The key is to experiment with playing along with music and give yourself time to learn to play by ear. You will find that the more you that, the better at it you will become, and after a while it will come naturally and you will be able to play with whatever is on the radio.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Ruth Searle is a pianist with years of experience behind her. Playing the piano is her passion, and she is also the drive and inspiration behind Rocket Piano – the Ultimate Piano Learning Kit, and Rocket Piano Gospel Edition. If you want to take your piano playing skills to a new level, you need the Rocket Piano Kit. You get step by step instructions complete with audio and video lessons, and you can instant access by visiting Rocket Piano’s website now.

This is a review of Rocket Piano. I thought I’d write a Rocket Piano review because it’s the first online piano lesson package that I bought, so read on if you want to know if Rocket Piano is worth it!

When I first started out learning how to play the piano, I wasn’t sure if I was going to stick to it for long, so I surfed the Internet for information about piano lessons first. What I found in my research was that there wasn’t any compelling piano lessons online — until I discovered Rocket Piano by chance because of some comments being left about it.

So I popped over to the Rocket Piano website to check things out. I almost closed the page on Rocket Piano because it was a paid piano lesson package, but I stopped myself and decided to give Ruth and her package a chance after discovering that it was less than $40, and came with a money back guarantee.

“There’s no risk, what’s the worst — I’ll just ask for a refund,” I thought to myself. And I’m glad I gave MYSELF that chance, because Ruth’s Rocket Piano package turned out to be amazing in value. That’s Ruth’s picture, and she’s a classically trained pianist (Grade 8 in Solo Piano) and has more than 15 years experience playing the piano, with a Bachelor of Media Arts majoring in Commercial Music. She even received an Australasian Award for Composition! Classical piano is her specialty, but she also has extensive experience playing and performing Jazz, Pop, Blues, Rock, and Gospel.

I can only say that the price is more than worth it. I hope Ruth sells more, because I think she’s hoping to recover her cost in volume. With such content, Ruth really overdelivers — I would have been satisfied with just half of the stuff she puts in her Rocket Piano package.

Basically, Rocket Piano teaches you how to play the piano with step-by-step piano lessons supported by ebook, video and audio files. Rocket Piano is organized into 3 high quality books taking you on a journey from beginner to advanced in your piano playing. The Rocket Piano lessons package will teach you how to:

• Learn to play virtually any song you hear
• Train your musical ear
• Recognize chords
• Play with rhythm and with the correct techniques
• Read music
• Adapt your playing style for classical, jazz, blues, rock, pop or gospel music
• Perform the trickiest of piano skills

When you have mastered the above, you will be able to play most popular songs on the piano, or even compose your very own music.

If you are like me and are not sure if you have a talent for playing the piano, it is a good idea to try out Rocket Piano before committing to a full course of lessons with a private piano teacher or a music school.

In addition to these, the video lessons that come with Rocket Piano are amazing too. They have been professionally recorded and edited and are guaranteed to be more stylish and useful than anything you will find. There is no substitute for seeing and hearing how something is supposed to be played. You’ll discover the most effective ways to practice so that you master new material quickly, without developing bad habits. Learn to play the piano smoothly and flawlessly, while cutting your learning time in half!

I really found the videos useful, because I’m naturally very shy, and with these lessons, I could learn and try to duplicate what the teacher was doing right in the comfort of my own home, without other people watching.

You will also discover how you can train your ear to identify all the various piano notes, simply by playing the computer game that comes with Rocket Piano called “Perfect Your Pitch Pro”. Training your ear by playing “Perfect Your Pitch Pro”, is not only fun, it will fast track you to playing your favorite songs by ear!

I love Rocket Piano because it saved me hundreds, if not thousands of dollars on expensive piano lessons when I was just starting out. Through Rocket Piano, I learnt the tips and tricks of playing the piano through an experienced piano teacher in the comfort of my own home, at my own pace. You even get sounds files (AND video) so you can play along. And, unlike a piano teacher, you can repeat each song or riff over and over again until you get it correct and professional sounding. This was very important to me because I HATED the feeling of being under pressure and being afraid that the piano teacher might get impatient with me as I know I take longer to master things.

But the learning the basics is not the only thing you’ll learn with Rocket Piano because you’ll also discover how to perform the trickiest of piano skills. That’s over ten years worth of expensive and hard-won information in a simple and easy to follow format presented by Ruth - all her comprehensive knowledge at your finger tips!

Ruth also shares an advanced piano learning technique, developed by a university psychologist (originally for guitarists, and adapted successfully for pianists), for training your fingers to automatically remember all the chord shapes, in 1/3 the time. And, you’ll learn all about how your brain processes information, and how to maximise your piano practice time… (nine out of ten people are absolutely floored by this secret!)

Ruth also tells you how to decide whether you should learn to play piano on an actual piano, or whether you should use an electric keyboard. Her package includes Metronome, which will also allow you to learn how to play with exceptional speed and timing.

By the way, if you’re into Jazz, you’ll be pleased to know that you can discover how to play jazz piano, step-by-step with a specialist how to play jazz piano book! This book is part of the Rocket Piano package too, and in it you’ll gain a comprehensive grounding in jazz, including history, distinctive rhythms, underlying qualities, rhythmic movements, common jazz chords (and how to play them in different jazz arrangements), how to break jazz songs down and play them and much much more! For those of you who are particularly interested in jazz piano, this book is the best place to start!

Rocket Piano is THE BEST piano course on the market for its price. I highly recommend it, and you should definitely get it to improve your piano playing skills. This is without risk too, as Rocket Piano offers a risk-free refund policy. So if it does not live up to your expectations you can get a 100% refund.

Official Rocket Piano Website

Moving a piano is a complicated process. There is risk to the piano, risk of bodily injury to the movers and others and risk to other property. Although moving a piano may appear to be a simple process, hidden factors compound the task. Pianos are complicated to move and should only be moved by professionals who are careful, properly trained, and insured. They must also have the proper equipment.

Vertical / Upright Pianos

These pianos are the most common and the easiest to move. They are moved by tipping the piano and sliding a piano movers’ dolly underneath or lifting the piano up onto the dolly. The dolly has a strong frame for moving and large rubber wheels for ease of moving and not scratching the floor. The piano is transported to its new location and removed from the dolly. The piano should be covered to avoid scratching or damaging it.

The wheels attached to vertical pianos themselves are rarely designed for moving, and are primarily used for cosmetic effects. With studio pianos that have larger, double wheels, they are designed for short moves. When moving studio pianos beyond the immediate room or for more than just a few feet, a dolly should still be used.

Grand Pianos

They are moved by covering the piano, removing the left leg, and gently lowering the piano over onto its straight side. The piano is then lifted up onto a flat, padded board called a ’skid board’. The lid is allowed to overhang the side so as to not pressure it. The piano is blanketed, strapped down and the other legs and pedal lyre are removed. (*NOTE: The "pedal lyre" should be removed first before removing the left leg, since it does not support any weight) Additional care should be added to insure that the piano parts that can rub together and scratch must be secured. The skid board with piano is tipped and a piano movers dolly is slid underneath for transport to its new location, where the procedure is reversed.

Contrary to popular legend, proper piano moving does NOT affect the tuning. Tuning is affected by changes in climate such as temperature and humidity. If a piano is properly covered during the move, it will not feel the environmental changes such as going from indoors to outdoors and back indoors again. The piano WILL go out of tune if exposed to a climate change such as going from a dry home to a humid home.

Pianos need regular tuning to keep them up to pitch, which is usually the internationally recognized standard concert pitch of A = 440 Hz. The hammers of pianos are voiced to compensate for gradual hardening, and other parts also need periodic regulation. Aged and worn pianos can be rebuilt or reconditioned. Often, by replacing a great number of their parts, they can be made to perform as well as new pianos. It is often felt, however, that older pianos are more settled and produce a warmer tone.

Piano moving should be done by trained piano movers using adequate manpower and the correct equipment for any particular piano’s size and weight. Pianos are heavy yet delicate instruments. Over the years, professional piano movers have developed special techniques for transporting both grands and uprights which prevent damages to the case and to the piano’s mechanics. Learn how to move a piano the right way.

Humidity

Much of a piano is made of wood, and pianos are therefore extremely sensitive to the fluctuations in humidity. The piano’s wooden soundboard is designed to have an arch, or crown. The crown increases or decreases with changes of humidity, changing the tension on the strings and throwing the instrument out of tune. Larger fluctuations in humidity can affect regulation, and even cause parts to crack. If humidity changes are extreme, the soundboard can warp so much that it collapses and loses its crown, which may require rebuilding or replacement of the instrument.

Piano owners can prevent these problems by controlling humidity. Most technicians recommend an indoor relative humidity in the range of 30% to 50%, kept as constant as possible. Keeping the piano away from air vents, heaters, open windows, open doors, direct sunlight, and the kitchen can help prevent damage, since all these are potential sources of sudden changes in humidity. However, even with these precautions, changes in weather will affect indoor humidity. Ideally, a piano owner would use a hygrometer in conjunction with a humidifier and dehumidifier and/or air conditioner to keep the humidity of the room housing the piano constant year-round. In cases where controlling room humidity is impractical, an in-piano humidity control system (such as the Dampp-Chaser) may help, though there is some controversy among technicians about the efficacy of these systems.

Contaminants

Pianos are easily damaged by liquids. Liquid spills may only damage the exterior finish; however, a spill which reaches the inside of the piano can cause costly damage to the action or soundboard. Piano owners should protect their instruments by keeping liquids away from the instrument. Dust in between the keys can interfere with the action but can be minimized by keeping the lid closed when the instrument is not in use, however, the lid should be opened at times to ensure air circulates to prevent mould from growing. If a spill occurs, immediate action should be taken by removing the keys, cleaning them in a grease cutting solution and allowing them to dry. Careful disassembly, and reassembly should be taken if done by anyone other that a technician

Appearance

Pianos are fine furniture, and in this role they benefit from cleaning and polishing, done carefully to avoid introduction of any fluids into the piano’s interior. For many piano finishes, dust removal is better done with a feather duster than a cloth, which minimizes the abrasive effect of the dust. A piano technician should be consulted for recommendations on cleaning and polishing products suitable for a piano.

Materials

Many parts of a piano are made of materials selected for extreme sturdiness. In quality pianos, the outer rim of the piano is made of a hardwood, normally maple or beech. According to Harold A. Conklin, the purpose of a sturdy rim is so that "the vibrational energy will stay as much as possible in the soundboard instead of dissipating uselessly in the case parts, which are inefficient radiators of sound."

The rim is normally made by laminating flexible strips of hardwood to the desired shape, a system that was developed by Theodore Steinway in 1880. The thick wooden braces at the bottom (grands) or back (uprights) of the piano are not as acoustically important as the rim, and are often made of a softwood, even in top-quality pianos, in order to save weight. The requirement of structural strength, fulfilled with stout hardwood and thick metal, makes a piano heavy; even a small upright can weigh 136 kg (300 lb), and the Steinway concert grand (Model D) weighs 480 kg (990 lb). The largest piano built, the Fazioli F308, weighs 691 kg (1520 lb).

The pinblock, which holds the tuning pins in place, is another area of the piano where toughness is important. It is made of hardwood, (often maple) and generally is laminated (built of multiple layers) for additional strength and gripping power. Piano strings (also called piano wire), which must endure years of extreme tension and hard blows, are made of high quality steel. They are manufactured to vary as little as possible in diameter, since all deviations from uniformity introduce tonal distortion. The bass strings of a piano are made of a steel core wrapped with copper wire, to increase their flexibility.

The plate, or metal frame, of a piano is usually made of cast iron. It is advantageous for the plate to be quite massive. Since the strings are attached to the plate at one end, any vibrations transmitted to the plate will result in loss of energy to the desired (efficient) channel of sound transmission, namely the bridge and the soundboard. Some manufacturers now use cast steel in their plates, for greater strength. The casting of the plate is a delicate art, since the dimensions are crucial and the iron shrinks by about one percent during cooling. The inclusion in a piano of an extremely large piece of metal is potentially an aesthetic handicap.

Piano makers overcome this handicap by polishing, painting, and decorating the plate; often plates include the manufacturer’s ornamental medallion and can be strikingly attractive. In an effort to make pianos lighter, Alcoa worked with Winter and Company piano manufacturers to make pianos using an aluminum plate during the 1940s. The use of aluminum for piano plates, however, did not become widely accepted and was discontinued.

The numerous grand parts and upright parts of a piano action are generally hardwood (e.g. maple, beech. hornbeam). However, since World War II, plastics have become available. Early plastics were incorporated into some pianos in the late 1940s and 1950s, but proved disastrous because they crystallized and lost their strength after only a few decades of use. The Steinway firm once incorporated Teflon, a synthetic material developed by DuPont, for some grand action parts in place of cloth, but ultimately abandoned the experiment due to an inherent "clicking" which invariably developed over time. (Also Teflon is "humidity stable" whereas the wood adjacent to the Teflon will swell and shrink with humidity changes, causing problems.) More recently, the Kawai firm has built pianos with action parts made of more modern and effective plastics such as carbon fiber; these parts have held up better and have generally received the respect of piano technicians.

The part of the piano where materials probably matter more than anywhere else is the soundboard. In quality pianos, this is made of solid spruce (that is, spruce boards glued together at their edges). Spruce is chosen for its high ratio of strength to weight. The best piano makers use close-grained, quarter-sawn, defect-free spruce, and make sure that it has been carefully dried over a long period of time before making it into soundboards. In cheap pianos, the soundboard is often made of plywood.

Piano keys are generally made of spruce or basswood, for lightness. Spruce is normally used in high-quality pianos. Traditionally, the black keys were made from ebony and the white keys were covered with strips of ivory, but since ivory-yielding species are now endangered and protected by treaty, plastics are now almost exclusively used. Also, ivory tends to chip more easily than plastic. Legal ivory can still be obtained in limited quantities. At one time, the Yamaha firm innovated a plastic called "Ivorine" or "Ivorite", since imitated by other makers, that mimics the look and feel of ivory.

Modern pianos come in two basic configurations (with subcategories): the grand piano and the upright piano.

Grand

Grand pianos have the frame and strings placed horizontally, with the strings extending away from the keyboard. This makes the grand piano a large instrument, for which the ideal setting is a spacious room with high ceilings for proper resonance. There are several sizes of grand piano. Manufacturers and models vary, but a rough generalisation distinguishes the "concert grand", (between about 2.2 m to 3 m long) from the "parlor grand" (about 1.7 m to 2.2 m) and the smaller "baby grand" (which may be shorter than it is wide).

All else being equal, longer pianos with longer strings have better sound and lower inharmonicity of the strings. Inharmonicity is the degree to which the frequencies of overtones (known as partials, partial tones, or harmonics) depart from whole multiples of the fundamental frequency. Pianos with shorter, thicker, and stiffer strings (e.g., baby grands) have more inharmonicity. The longer strings on a concert grand can vibrate more freely than the shorter, thicker strings on a baby grand, which means that a concert grand’s strings will have truer overtones. This is partly because the strings will be tuned closer to equal temperament in relation to the standard pitch with less "stretching" in the piano tuning. Full-size grands are usually used for public concerts, whereas smaller grands, introduced by Sohmer & Co. in 1884, are often chosen for domestic use where space and cost are considerations.

Upright

Upright pianos, also called vertical pianos, are more compact because the frame and strings are placed vertically, extending in both directions from the keyboard and hammers. It is considered harder to produce a sensitive piano action when the hammers move horizontally, as the vertical hammer return is dependent on springs which are prone to wear and tear. The grand piano hammers return by gravity, hence their return will always remain more consistent than the vertical hammers, thus giving pianists better control of their playing. However, a well-regulated vertical piano will probably play smoother than a grand piano that has not been regulated for years, and the very best upright pianos now approach the level of some grand pianos of the same size in tone quality and responsiveness.

One noticeable advantage that the grand piano action has over the vertical action is that all grand pianos have a special repetition lever in the playing action that is absent in all verticals. This repetition lever, a separate one for every key, catches the hammer close to the strings as long as the keys are played repeatedly and fairly quickly. In this position, with the hammer resting on the lever, a pianist can play repeated notes, staccato, and trills with much more speed and control than is possible on a vertical piano. Because of this, piano manufacturers claim that a piano player trill notes faster on a grand than on an upright.

Other Types of Pianos

Toy pianos began to be manufactured in the 19th century. In 1863, Henri Fourneaux invented the player piano, which "plays itself" from a piano roll without the need for a pianist. The player piano is a piano that records a performance using rolls of paper with perforations, and then replays the performance using pneumatic devices. A modern equivalent for the player piano is the Yamaha Disklavier system, which uses solenoids and midi instead of pneumatics and rolls. Silent pianos, which allow a regular piano to be used converted to a digital instrument, are a recent innovation and are becoming more popular.

Irving Berlin played a special piano called the transposing piano, which was invented in 1801 by Edward Ryley. It had a lever under the keyboard used to alter the music to any key. One of Berlin’s pianos is in the Smithsonian Museum. For much of his career, Berlin only knew how to play the black keys. But with his ‘trick piano’ he was no longer limited to the key of F-sharp.

A relatively recent development is the prepared piano, which is used in contemporary art music. A prepared piano is a standard grand piano which has had objects placed inside it before a performance in order to alter its sound, or which has had its mechanism changed in some way. The scores for music for prepared piano often instruct the pianist to insert pieces of rubber or small pieces of metal (screws or washers) in between the strings. These added items either mute the strings or create unusual vibrating sounds.

Since the 1980s, digital pianos have been available, which use digital sampling technology to reproduce the sound of each piano note. The best digital pianos are sophisticated, with features including working pedals, weighted keys, multiple voices, and MIDI interfaces. However, with current technology, it remains difficult to duplicate a crucial aspect of acoustic pianos, namely that when the damper pedal is depressed, the strings not struck vibrate sympathetically when other strings are struck, as well as the unique instrument-specific mathematical non-linearity of partials on any given unison. Since this sympathetic vibration is considered central to piano tone, digital pianos do not sound the same as the best acoustic pianos. Progress is being made in this area by including physical models of sympathetic vibration in the synthesis software.

In the period lasting from about 1790 to 1860, the Mozart-era piano underwent tremendous changes, which led to the modern form of the instrument. This revolution was in response to a consistent preference by composers and pianists for a more powerful, sustained piano sound. It was also a response to the ongoing Industrial Revolution, which made available technological resources like high-quality steel for strings and precision casting for the production of iron frames. Over time, the tonal range of the piano was also increased, from the five octaves of Mozart’s day to the 7⅓ (or even more) octaves found on modern pianos.

Early technological progress owed much to the English firm of Broadwood, which already had a reputation for the splendour and powerful tone of its harpsichords. Broadwood constructed instruments that were progressively larger, louder, and more robustly constructed. Broadwood sent pianos to both Haydn and Beethoven, and was the first firm to build pianos with a range of more than five octaves: five octaves and a fifth during the 1790s, six octaves by 1810 (Beethoven used the extra notes in his later works), and seven octaves by 1820. The Viennese makers followed these trends. The two schools, however, used different piano actions: Broadwoods were more robust, Viennese instruments were more sensitive.

By the 1820s, the center of innovation had shifted to Paris, where the Érard firm manufactured pianos used by Chopin and Liszt. In 1821, Sébastien Érard invented the double escapement action, which permitted a note to be repeated even if the key had not yet risen to its maximum vertical position. This facilitated rapid playing. When the invention became public (as revised by Henri Herz), the double escapement action gradually became standard in grand pianos, and is still incorporated into all grand pianos currently produced.

One of the major technical innovations that helped to create the sound of the modern piano was the use of a strong iron frame. Also called the "plate", the iron frame sits atop the soundboard, and serves as the primary bulwark against the force of string tension. The increased structural integrity of the iron frame allowed as thicker, tenser, and more numerous strings to be used (in a modern grand the total string tension can approach 20 tons). The single piece cast iron frame was patented in 1825 in Boston by Alpheus Babcock, combining the metal hitch pin plate (1821, claimed by Broadwood on behalf of Samuel Hervé) and resisting bars (Thom and Allen, 1820, but also claimed by Broadwood and Érard). Babcock later worked for the Chickering & Mackays firm which patented the first full iron frame for grand pianos (1843). Composite forged metal frames were preferred by many European makers until the American system was fully adopted by the early 20th century.

Other innovations for the mechanism included the use of felt hammer coverings instead of layered leather hammers. Felt hammers, which were first introduced by Henri Pape in 1826 were a more consistent material, which permitted wider dynamic ranges as hammer weights and string tensions increased. The sostenuto pedal, invented in 1844 by Jean Louis Boisselot and improved by the Steinway firm in 1874, allowed a wider range of effects.

Other important technical innovations of this era included changes to the way the piano was strung, such as the use of a "choir" of three strings rather than two for all but the lower notes, and the use of different stringing methods. With the over strung scale, also called "cross-stringing", the strings are placed in a vertically overlapping slanted arrangement, with two heights of bridges on the soundboard, rather than just one. This permits larger, but not necessarily longer, strings to fit within the case of the piano. Over stringing was invented by Jean-Henri Pape during the 1820s, and first patented for use in grand pianos in the United States by Henry Steinway Jr. in 1859.

Some early pianos had shapes and designs that are no longer in use. The square piano had horizontal strings arranged diagonally across the rectangular case above the hammers and with the keyboard set in the long side, it is variously attributed to Silbermann and Frederici and was improved by Petzold and Babcock. Built in quantity through the 1890s (in the United States), Steinway’s celebrated iron framed over strung squares were more than two and a half times the size of Zumpe’s wood framed instruments that were successful a century before, their overwhelming popularity was due to inexpensive construction and price, with performance and sonority frequently restricted by simple actions and closely spaced strings.

The tall vertically strung upright grand was arranged with the soundboard and bridges perpendicular to keys, and above them so that the strings did not extend to the floor. Diagonally strung Giraffe, pyramid and lyre pianos employed this principle in more evocatively shaped cases. The term was later revived by many manufacturers for advertising purposes.

The very tall cabinet piano introduced by Southwell in 1806 and built through the 1840s had strings arranged vertically on a continuous frame with bridges extended nearly to the floor, behind the keyboard and very large sticker action. The short cottage upright or pianino with vertical stringing, credited to Robert Wornum about 1815 was built into the 20th century. They are informally called birdcage pianos because of their prominent damper mechanism. Pianinos were distinguished from the oblique, or diagonally strung upright made popular in France by Roller & Blanchet during the late 1820s.The tiny spinet upright was manufactured from the mid 1930s until recent times. The low position of the hammers required the use of a "drop action" to preserve a reasonable keyboard height.

Today’s upright, grand, and concert grand pianos attained their present forms by the end of the 19th century. Improvements have been made in manufacturing processes, and many individual details of the instrument continue to receive attention.

Keyboard

Almost every modern piano has 88 keys (seven octaves plus a minor third, from A0 to C8). Many older pianos only have 85 keys (seven octaves from A0 to A7), while some manufacturers extend the range further in one or both directions.

Some Bösendorfer pianos extend the normal range downwards to F0, with one other model going as far as a bottom C0, making a full eight octave range. Sometimes, these extra keys are hidden under a small hinged lid, which can be flipped down to cover the keys and avoid visual disorientation in a pianist unfamiliar with the extended keyboard, and on others, the colours of the extra white keys are reversed (black instead of white).

The extra keys are added primarily for increased resonance from the associated strings; that is, they vibrate sympathetically with other strings whenever the damper pedal is depressed and thus give a fuller tone. Only a very small number of works composed for piano actually use these notes. More recently, the Stuart and Sons company has also manufactured extended-range pianos. On their instruments, the range is extended both down the bass to F0 and up the treble to F8 for a full eight octaves. The extra keys are the same as the other keys in appearance.

Small studio upright type acoustical pianos with only 65 keys (which are called "gig" pianos) have been manufactured for use by roving pianists. Even though they contain a cast iron harp, they are comparatively light weight so they can be easily transported to and from engagements by only two men. Because their harp is longer than that of a spinet or console piano they have a stronger base sound which to some pianists is well worth the trade-off in range that a reduced key-set leaves them.

Pedals

Pianos have had pedals, or some close equivalent, since the earliest days. (In the 18th century, some pianos used levers pressed upward by the player’s knee instead of pedals.) Some cheaper instruments have only two pedals; but every piano has at least a damper pedal and a soft pedal. Most pianos with three pedals add the sostenuto pedal to that basic pair.

Damper pedal

The damper pedal (also called the sustain pedal or, erroneously, loud pedal) is often simply called "the pedal", since it is the most frequently used. It is placed as the rightmost pedal in the group. The mechanism for each note, except in the top two octaves, includes a damper, which is a pad that prevents the note’s strings from vibrating. Normally, the damper is raised off the strings whenever the key for that note is pressed. But when the damper pedal is depressed, all the dampers on the piano are lifted at once, so that all the strings in the instrument are free from contact with dampers. This serves two purposes. First, it assists the pianist in producing a legato (playing smoothly connected notes) in passages where there is fingering that will enable legato. Second, raising the dampers leaves all the strings free to vibrate sympathetically with whichever notes are being played, which greatly enriches the piano’s tone.

Sensitive pedaling is one of the techniques a pianist must master, since piano music from Chopin onwards tends to benefit from extensive use of the sustain pedal, both as a means of achieving a singing tone and as an aid to legato. In contrast, the sustain pedal was used only sparingly by the composers of the 18th century, including Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven in his early works; in that era, pedalling was considered primarily as a special coloristic effect.

Soft pedal

The soft pedal or "una corda" pedal is placed leftmost in the row of pedals. Soft pedals on some pianos are designed to lock in place, sustaining the effect without the musician applying constant pressure to the pedal. On a grand piano, this pedal shifts the whole action including the keyboard slightly to the right, so that hammers that normally strike all three of the strings for a note strike only two of them. This softens the note and modifies its tone quality. For notation of the soft pedal in printed music, see List of musical terminology.

The soft pedal was invented by Cristofori and thus appeared on the very earliest pianos. In the 18th and early 19th centuries, the soft pedal was more effective than today, since pianos were manufactured with only two strings per note, and just one string per note would therefore be struck. This is the origin of the name "una corda", Italian for "one string". In modern pianos, there are three strings per note (except for lower notes, which have two, and the very lowest, which have only one). The strings are spaced too closely to permit a true "una corda" effect — if shifted far enough to strike just one string on one note, the hammers would hit the string of the next note.

On many upright pianos, the soft pedal instead operates a mechanism that moves the hammers’ resting position closer to the strings. Since the hammers have less distance to travel this reduces the speed at which they hit the strings, and hence the volume is reduced, but this does not change tone quality in the way the "una corda" pedal does on a grand piano. When this pedal is depressed on the vertical piano, it changes the action creating what is called "lost motion": that is, the jack is now further from the hammer butt, and now has to travel further to engage the hammer. This lost motion changes the touch and feel of the playing action, and as a result many pianists never use the soft pedal on a vertical piano. Some of the best old vertical pianos in the early 20th century used what is called a "lost motion compensator", a mechanism that would remove the lost motion when the soft pedal was depressed. Since the grand piano soft pedal simply shifts the action sideways, it does not change the touch and feel of the action, another advantage grand pianos have over vertical pianos.

Digital pianos often use this leftmost pedal to alter the sound to that of another instrument such as the organ, guitar, or harmonica. Pitch bends, Leslie speaker on and off, vibrato modulation, etc.

Sostenuto pedal

The sostenuto pedal or "middle pedal" keeps raised any damper that was already raised at the moment the pedal is depressed. This makes it possible to sustain some notes (by depressing the sostenuto pedal before notes to be sustained are released) while the player’s hands are free to play other notes. This can be useful for musical passages with pedal points and other otherwise tricky or impossible situations. The sostenuto pedal was the last of the three pedals to be added to the standard piano, and to this day many pianos are not equipped with a sostenuto pedal. Almost all modern grand pianos have a sostenuto pedal, while many upright pianos do not.

A number of 20th-century works specifically call for the use of the sostenuto pedal, for example Olivier Messiaen’s Catalogue d’oiseaux. This pedal is often unused in modern music.

Bass sustain pedal

On many vertical pianos, the middle pedal is merely a bass sustain pedal: that is, when it is depressed, the dampers lift off the strings only in the bass section. This pedal would be used only when a pianist needs to sustain a single bass note or chord over many measures, while playing the melody in the treble section. Given its limited use musically, few pianists even bother to use this pedal. Some grand pianos use this bass sustain type pedal rather than using a true sostenuto pedal, often an indication the grand piano was cheaply made (although some of the better old grand pianos also had this pedal).

Other kinds of pedal

Some vertical pianos have a practice pedal or celeste pedal in place of the sostenuto. This pedal, which can usually be locked in place by depressing it and pushing it to one side, drops a strip of felt between the hammers and the strings so that all the notes are greatly muted — a handy feature for those who wish to practice in domestic surroundings without disturbing the neighbours. Such practice pedal is rarely used in performance, especially due to the nature of the felt swinging into place; a slow and somewhat stifled movement.

The rare transposing piano, of which Irving Berlin possessed an example, uses the middle pedal as a clutch which disengages the keyboard from the mechanism, enabling the keyboard to be moved to the left or right with a lever. The entire action of the piano is thus shifted to allow the pianist to play music written in one key so that it sounds in a different key.

The pedal piano is a rare type of piano that includes a pedalboard, enabling bass register notes to be played with the feet, as is standard on the organ. There are two types of pedal piano: the pedal board may be an integral part of the instrument, using the same strings and mechanism as the manual keyboard, or, less frequently, it may consist of two independent pianos (each with its separate mechanics and strings) which are placed one above the other, a regular piano played by the hands and a bass-register piano played by the feet.