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Piano Trivia
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Interesting and Unusual Facts About The Piano
- The average piano has about 230 strings. Each string has about 160
pounds of tension with a combined pull of all strings equaling almost
eighteen tons!
- The total string tension of a concert grand piano is close to THIRTY
TONS!
- The working section of the piano is called the action. There are about
7,500 parts here, all playing a role in sending the hammers against the
strings.
- There are over 10 million pianos in American homes, businesses, and
institutions.
- Schafer Bros. moves an average of 39,000 pianos and organs a year,
which totals over 1.7 million moves to date.
- The first practical piano was an escapement mechanism for hammers
and capable of being played softly and loudly and was built in 1726 by
an Italian, Bertolomeo Cristofori (1655-1731).
- The name piano is an abbreviation for Cristofori's original name for
the instrument; piano et forte or soft and loud.
- Spinet pianos were made by Samuel Blythe as early as 1789 in Salem,
Massachusetts.
- The term Grand was first used in 1777.
- During 1869 the U.S. produced 25,000 pianos valued at $7,000,000.
Production during 1910 was 350,000 pianos valued at $100,000,000.
- During the past 100 years there have been approximately 5,000 brands
of pianos introduced to the market. Most are still on display in homes
and elsewhere.
- Independent studies show that children who learn piano tend to do
better in school. This is attributed to the discipline, eye-hand coordination,
social skill building, learning a new language (music), and the pleasure
derived from making your own music.
- Only three presidents have not had pianos in the White House: Gerald
Ford, George Bush and William Clinton.
- Jonas Chickering was the first exporter of American made pianos. The
first shipment was in 1844.
- Yamaha, established in 1877, was the first piano manufacturer in Japan.
- Every Schafer Bros. piano mover handles over 23 million pounds of
pianos and organs each year.
- Pianos were the first major purchase on installment basis, the first
status symbol, and were the cornerstone of several major banking institutions.
- The world's largest piano is a Challen Concert Grand. This piano is
11 feet long, weighs more than a ton and has a string tension of over
30 tons.
- The first note (on a standard 88 note keyboard) is A.
- The exact middle of the keyboard is not middle C; it is actually the
space between E and F above middle C.
- The last note of the keyboard is C.
- The Bosendorfer Imperial concert grand piano is 9' 6" long and has
9 extra keys stretching to a growling C below bottom C. The 9' and 7'4"
grand's have four extra bass keys, the lowest of which is F below bottom
C.
- Schafer Bros. operates the only Piano Moving School in the nation.
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© 1999-2006 Piano Movers, Inc.
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