Luis Rivera
22 / 23 May 2013
Honors American Literature – 6th
Mr. T. Marklevitz
What is a Piano Made Of?
According to Tom Lehrer, “Life is like a piano. What you get out of it depends on how you play it.” Life is expressed through a piano, you can play subtle and in emotion, or you can play intensely and fierce in times of anger and stress. This lifelong opportunity can only be accomplished through the hands of an accomplished and skilled pianist. In order to achieve know what a Piano is made of, one must find the rudimentary “anatomy” of the piano, and to be informed of what components that make a piano a piano.
Pianos come in different shapes and sizes. There are 3 styles of piano out there that can suit anyone. The first one is the Grand Piano, which are the black, long pianos that are used from orchestral performances, to the performances on the Grammy’s. The second type of Piano is the Upright Piano. The Upright Piano is the piano that looks like a tall box with the steel structure upright than horizontal than the Grand Piano, which is parallel to the ground. The third type of piano is the Digital Piano, which comes in many different sized, commonly smaller than Upright Pianos. If you look at the keys of the Piano, there are 88 different keys on the piano, each corresponding to a string (or strings if playing higher in higher register in which there are 3 strings to a single key).
On a Piano Keyboard, there are both white and black keys, the black in the front of the keyboard, and the white near the player. Inside the piano, there is a metal cast frame that holds all the stress of the strings. In Grand Pianos, if the top lid is lifted, the cast frame is clearly visible. In Upright Pianos, there are 2 separate metal frames, to compress the size into the boxed body. On Digital Pianos, there are no metal frames, because the sounds are all digitally preloaded onto the Piano.
On all Pianos contain 3 pedals near the foot area near the...