Last week we covered the different sizes of grand pianos, this week we will be talking about the different sizes of upright pianos. This is definitely one of the most common questions I receive and this article will break it down for you.
The shortest of all the upright pianos are called Spinet Pianos. These pianos are not only distinctive because of their short size but they actually have a completely different type of action. The pianos are so short they can’t fit the regular type of upright actions so it contains what’s called a drop action (also referred to as an indirect blow action). Basically, the piano has a shorter key length than a regular vertical piano.
When you get up to about 38” to 40” tall you have what are called console pianos. These pianos also have a direct blow action but are a little bit taller than a spinet piano.
A little bit taller than the console pianos (above 40”) you have what is called a studio upright piano.
A much rarer type of upright piano for today’s standards is anything above 50” – sometimes even around 56” or more – you have full-size upright pianos. These models are not as popular in our modern era but there are many of older instruments this size or larger.
As with grand pianos, size will matter in how the instrument sounds: the larger the upright piano; the louder the sound. Larger uprights also will have better actions than spinets but they will never replicate the feel of a grand style action.
Thanks again for joining me Robert Estrin Robert@LivingPianos.com
4 thoughts on “What Are The Different Sizes of Upright Pianos?”
I am puzzled about a piano on which I learnt the basics when I was about 8 years old, for a few years. 1952 onwards. I have returned to the old Victorian House where the piano used to be. The family who live there nowadays invited me over. I have seen the same alcove, where my ‘learner’ piano used to be and where my very strict teacher used to sit beside me making me do scales over and over. This alcove is 53″ wide and so the piano had to fit into there, which it did. I cannot trace any pictures on the Net of pianos only 53″ or less wide. But I do know that the alcove has never been narrowed by subsequent owners in any way and is the same width as when I learnt the piano in early 50s. Please help me and explain how I may find a picture of such an old slim piano.
There were some pianos made years ago with fewer keys. All pianos had fewer keys if you go back far enough in the development of pianos! In the late 1800’s, 85 key pianos were more common than pianos with 88 keys.
In Mozart’s time, pianos had only 5 octaves of keys! There were some pianos manufactured in the mid to early part of the 20th century with a reduced number of keys.
I was wondering what the shorter width piano was called after seeing one on a Perry Mason episode “The Case of The Avenging Angel”. Here is a link of it: https://m.imdb.com/title/tt0673184/mediaviewer/rm1351467777/?context=default?ref_=ext_shr_lnk