P-I-A-N-O oh oh! Lesson Three

I know that there are plenty of marvelous musicians who read my blog but for those who are not as familiar with music, here are some quick facts and history about the very best instrument in the whole universe.

1. The piano gets its name from "pianoforte" - piano being interpreted as "soft"* and forte meaning "loud." This is because the piano was far more responsive to the touch of players versus the harpsichord or clavichord (which were the common keyboards at that time).

2. George Michael owns the piano on which John Lennon wrote the song Imagine.

3. The piano is a mishmash of an instrument: you strike a key which activates a hammer (making the piano a percussion instrument) which then strikes a string that vibrates and creates the sound (making the piano, in a way, a stringed instrument).

4. You know those pedals under the piano? Well, the most commonly used one is the one on the far right called the sustain or damper pedal. What it does is allows the strings of the piano to continue vibrating after they've been touched, sustaining the notes. This gives that romantic, more reverb-y sound.

My favorite thing about pianos has to be its versatility of sound- it can be romantic and elegant or Jerry Lee Lewis rock n' roll! It's also one of the few instruments that can really stand on its own.

I know I barely touched the marvelousness that is a piano. So if you have any questions, just let me know! And tell me what you love about pianos!

*Piano actually doesn't mean "soft" even though that's what it means now in music. At the time, it meant "on a plane or level" which would be "normal" sound. So a "pianoforte" could play both normally and loudly.