Piano Servicing for Eastern CT and Western RI

FACT: There are over 12,000 parts in a piano, 10,000 which are moving.

FACT: The working section of the piano is called the action. There are about 7500 parts here, all playing a role in sending the hammers against the strings when keys are struck.

FACT: Each note in a grand piano has more than 35 points of adjustment. Overall, there are more than 3,080 adjustments for the entire piano.

FACT: The range of the piano extends lower than the bottom 16 foot pedal note of an organ and higher than the top note of a piccolo.

FACT: The piano is totally complete and needs no assistance from any other instruments, but almost all other instruments need the piano for accompaniment, including singers.

FACT: There are 18 million nonprofessional pianists in this country. 79% are female; 21% are male. The average age is 28.

FACT: The first practical piano with an escapement mechanism for the hammers with capability of being played softly and loudly was built in 1700 by an Italian, Bartolomeo Cristofori (1655-1731).

FACT: The name "piano" is an abbreviation of Cristofori's original name for the instrument: "piano et forte" meaning soft and loud.

FACT: One of Cristofori's original pianos is still in existence at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City.

FACT: Jonas Chickering was the first exporter of American made pianos. The first shipment was in 1844.

FACT: Abraham Lincoln used a Chickering Grand (#5070) while at the White House.

FACT: During 1869 the U.S. produced 25,000 pianos together valued at $7,000,000; during 1910 production was 350,000 pianos valued at $100,000,000 !

FACT: A quarter million NEW pianos are bought every year in the U.S. and nearly one million OLD pianos are sold.

FACT: The Bösendorfer Imperial concert grand piano is 9' 6" long and has 9 extra keys stretching to a growling C below bottom C ! (The Imperial grand sold for $55,000 in 1980!) The 9' and 7' 4" grands have four extra bass keys, the lowest of which is F below bottom C.

FACT: The worlds largest piano is a Challen Concert Grand. This piano is 11 feet long, has a total string tension of over 30 tons and weighs more than a ton!

FACT: A grand piano action is faster than a vertical (spinet, console, upright) because it has a repetition lever. This allows the pianist to repeat the note when the key is only half way up. A vertical action requires letting the key all the way up to reset the hammer action.

FACT: The exact middle of the keyboard is not middle C, it is actually the space between E and F above "middle" C.

FACT: 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!

FACT: A drop of 1/2 step in pitch can equal a change of 3,000 to 5,000 pounds of tension!.

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