The piano is by far the most complicated and elegant of all musical instrument.  The vibrations emited by hammers drumming strings is how pianos make various notes.  Furthermore, many people think that the piano is the hardest musical instrument to learn or master.

To learn and master a piano will undergo years of dedication and practice.  Compared to other popular musical instruments like guitars, to learn to play the piano effectively takes patience together with note memorization.

Learning to play the piano may be hard but plenty of famous musicians like Beethoven and Mozzart have composed different orchestral symphonies with their pianos.  Now, pianos and keyboards are indispensable to the music industry more than ever.

But what gives pianos their melodic tune?  How do they generate a variety of sound and why do they have to be so bulky and cumbersome?  A piano’s contour, dimension, and built all give to its well-defined quality in generating sound and one is made by way of a careful and laborious method.

Assembling pianos is just like that of an assembly line for automobiles.  The piano’s framework, keys, strings, and other workings are produced separately and assembled.  All parts adding up to 12,000.

The Piano’s Frame

Wood such as maple or cherry is the main material to form a piano’s frame.  There are pianos that are made with straight frames and there are some that are warped like that of grand pianos.  These curved frames are composed of thin, glued layers of maple that are bent while the glue is wet and set to harden. 

The Piano’s Sound Board

The sound board of a piano is a type of bendable and elastic wood that serves as the piano’s vocal chords.  Spruce is usually the prime choice for making piano sound boards due to its flexibility and this flexibility allows it to vibrate.  A sound board needs to vibrate together with the strings in order to generate a concise, clear and audible sound.  The key to have this synchronization is a bridge and this bridge is the reason why the sound board and the strings produce synchronized tunes.

The Strings

The person in charge of arranging and attaching all 230 strings is the piano stringer.  Connecting piano strings is both long and dangerous.  The strings themselves are very razor-sharp and can certainly cut the stringer’s hands and fingers. 

Ebony and Ivory Keys

The set of keys on a piano is its most noticeable feature.  These ebony and ivory keys are what enable piano players to make different musical masterpieces. 

Once every one of the crucial parts of the piano have been joined together, it will go through an intense and meticulous tuning process called voicing.  Voicing a piano requires somebody who has years of tuning skill as well as good hearing.  To properly tune every piano key, the piano tuner scrapes and sharpens each single hammer that is connected to every individual key. 

After the piano has been tuned and toned, piano players can now play their favorite music and even compose their own symphonies.

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