Tag Archives: piano history

When Was the Golden Era of Pianos?

Today we are going to discuss what and when was the Golden Era of pianos. You may have heard this term before and it may not be a precise time, but most people agree it was before World War II and even before the Great Depression. By the late 1920s, piano sales in the United States suddenly dropped by 80-90%.

Advent of the Player Piano

You have to go back a bit to gain perspective. The piano developed hundreds of years ago. But the player piano came about in the early 20th century. (It even had its foray in the late 19th century!) They became as common in American homes as televisions did later on. Before the phonograph or radio, the piano was the primary way you could have music in your home. Many people played the piano as a means of entertainment because there was nothing else available. The player piano changed this because it allowed people who didn’t play, to have music in their homes. If you’ve ever looked at player piano rolls, they sometimes have the words of the songs on the side of the roll so you could sing along with the music. Some more sophisticated player pianos had levers that would allow you to transpose the key. You could also adjust the tempo and volume of the instrument. There were even buttons that could adjust the dynamic range of the bass and treble sections of the piano making for an interactive playing experience.

The Expressive Player Piano

The intent of the reproducing piano was to play back an almost exact replica of a performance by a particular pianist from the classics played by Rubinstein and Horowitz, to composers such as Gershwin and Rachmaninoff. These pianos were very sophisticated for their time and still are today. They didn’t just play mechanically like standard player pianos, but would reproduce the dynamic expression of the pianos through the player system. There were people who learned to play the piano by watching the keys move; so you can get a grasp as to why they were so popular.

The Demise of the Piano Industry in the United States

You may have guessed already what killed the piano and player piano industry. Technologies were a big part of it because when radio came in, it was much less expensive than acquiring a piano and took up less room. The great depression finally hit and the U.S. went from hundreds of companies making pianos, to a small handful with many piano companies filing for bankruptcy. There were large corporations like Aeolian that bought many of the troubled piano companies. But it was never the same after that and the piano industry has never recovered to what it was in the Golden Era of pianos.

This is Robert Estrin at LivingPianos.com Your Online Piano Store! 949-244-3729 Info@LivingPianos.com

When Was the Piano Invented? The History of the Piano

This is a very interesting question that doesn’t have a simple answer. The origin of the piano goes back centuries, and while there is some widely held beliefs on the subject, the story of the piano is a lot more complex than you might think.

Undoubtedly the name you will hear most when it comes to the creation of the first piano would be Bartolomeo Cristofori. Cristofori was an Italian harpsichord builder. At the tail end of the 1600’s he tried his hand at making a Harpsichord that could play both loud and soft from touch. He called his instrument, “Cimbalo di Piano e Forte” which translates, “Harpsichord with Soft and Loud”. Eventually, the name was shortened to “The Piano”. If you were to see one of these early instruments built by Cristofori, you would discover that it has more in common with a harpsichord than a modern piano!

Image Courtesy of The New York Metropolitan Museum of Art

So what separates this instrument from other harpsichords he produced? What makes it a piano?

For anyone familiar with the Harpsichord, you know that it lacks dynamic range from touch alone. You can play a key hard or soft and it will produce the same volume. This has to do with how the instrument plays a string: The harpsichord plucks the strings as opposed to a piano action which has hammers striking strings.

Harpsichord Plucking a String

Piano Hammer Striking a String

In order to create the dynamics needed, Cristofori invented a primitive piano action. A hammer would strike the string and you would be able to play dynamically – thus creating a range of expression birthing the idea behind the instrument we know today as the piano.

As time went on there were many advancements to piano design. New technologies were created and implemented. The birth of the modern piano is much more of an amalgamation over time than a single instrument created on a specific date.

It wasn’t until the mid 19th century that we saw the origins of the piano we know today. And even composers in the mid-19th century like Chopin and Liszt were writing pieces that we play on modern pianos that were written for instruments that were somewhat more primitive than the pianos we have today. The development of cross stringing hadn’t been adopted widely yet. Piano actions also continued with many refinements of technology. There were hundreds of improvements that came about throughout centuries.

Around the end of the 19th century is when we really began to see the modern piano as we know today. By the 1870’s and 1880’s Steinway was producing fully modern pianos. The models of Steinway pianos produced during the 1880’s have the same basic scale design as pianos they are building today with a number of technical refinements.

To sum up this incredibly deep and complex topic:

The original instrument considered to be a piano was created at the very end of the 1600’s.

The modern piano was available from select manufactures towards the end of the 1800’s.

If you have any questions about this topic or any others, please contact us at: Info@LivingPianos.com (949) 244-3729

The History of Chickering Pianos

Chickering & Sons pianos are one of the oldest, American piano companies going back to 1823. In 1850, Henry Steinway attended a concert featuring performance on a Chickering grand piano. He was entranced by the experience and it provided inspiration to start Steinway & Sons pianos.

In the mid-1800’s Chickering was the largest piano manufacturer in the United States. There have been Chickering pianos in the White House. Abraham Lincoln owned a Chickering piano.

Technically, Chickering was responsible for developing the one-piece, cast iron plate which became a standard for all pianos up until this day. Unlike the vast majority of American piano companies, Chickering survived the advent of radio and the phonograph, the Great Depression, and WWII. However, the influx of cheap Asian pianos finally dealt a death blow to the esteemed, American company in the early 1980’s.

TOP 5 PIANO MYTHS

Top 5 Piano Myths

1. Steinway is the best piano in the world.

steinway piano

There are a handful of piano companies which make pianos equal in quality to Steinway. (For example: Bösendorfer, Bechstein, Fazioli, Blüthner and Mason & Hamlin are all top notch pianos with rich histories.) In fact, if you look in the latest supplement to “The Piano Book”, by Larry Fine, New York made Steinway pianos are rated in the 3rd rank of pianos according to manufacturing quality. So why is Steinway recognized as the undisputed leader? In a word: marketing. Just as Microsoft dominates computer software because of aggressive licensing arrangements, John Steinway helped propel Steinway & Sons to its market dominance through exclusive artist contracts and favorable institutional arrangements.

2. When you move a piano it has to be tuned.

piano moving

This is a half truth. The fact is, a piano that is moved will show up pretty much as it left most of the time. However, after the piano gets acclimated to its new environment, it will require tuning. The piano may not sound bad, but the pitch of the entire instrument may adjust slightly up or down. It is important to keep a piano stable. It is best to wait at least a couple of weeks or even longer after a move before tuning to make sure the piano has settled.

3. Kids banging on a piano may damage the instrument.

kid playing piano

While it can grate on your nerves, the force with which kids hit the keys of a piano even with their fists can’t match the power professional pianists inflict upon a piano in concert. Just be sure that the children don’t take sharp or heavy objects to the keyboard since this can damage the instrument.

4. The fall board of a piano must have a slow close feature to avoid injury.

piano fall board

The slow close fall-board feature of a piano is a great marketing tool. The truth is, unless you have some really wild kids, the incidence of being hurt by a falling fall board is quite rare. Most of the best pianos including Steinway do not offer a slow close fall board.

5. You shouldn’t place a piano on an outside wall.

piano fall board

Even in a temperate climate, the insulation of modern homes will keep the temperature fairly stable even on an outside wall. However, it is important to avoid direct sunlight on your piano. This will not only effect tuning stability, but it will fade the finish in a matter of weeks. Also, you should keep your piano closed particularly at night. If you leave your windows open at night, the moist night air will rust the strings. Also, even with the piano closed, the cooler air can make the sound board contract destabilizing the tuning. Use your judgment in balancing the enjoyment of your piano versus its longevity.

I’m interested to hear your opinions and thoughts on these piano myths. Please leave some comments below. Thanks for reading.

When was the first piano played?

This question is not as simple as it seems. At first, you might consider that Bartolomeo Christofori is credited with inventing the piano in 1709. (Although, there are accounts of pianos prior to the 18th century.) However, the instrument that Christofori built was actually a harpsichord (the predecessor of the piano). In fact, he called his instrument, “Arcicembal che fa il piano e il forte” which translated from Italian is, “Harpsichord with soft and loud”. Eventually the name was shortened to the “pianoforte” and then simply the “piano”.

The harpsichord is a keyboard instrument that creates tone by plucking strings with duck quills. As a result, the force with which the keys are depressed doesn’t affect the volume. Christofori developed a primitive hammer action which allowed for dynamics. However, there were subsequently countless technical innovations that led to the development of the piano as we know it.
It was during Beethoven’s life that the piano experienced dramatic evolution. While Christofori’s keyboard was made entirely out of wood, little by little, metal bracing was added to strengthen the piano. By the late nineteenth century, nearly the entire inside of the piano became reinforced by a cast iron plate which supports enormous string tension. Steinway & Sons was producing a fully modern piano by the late 1800’s.

So, it is a subjective question as to when the first “Piano” was played. It depends upon how you define the piano. In the strictest sense one could argue that Christofori played the first piano at the turn of the 18th century. Or, perhaps the first piano was played by Henry Steinway! However, Franz Liszt was the first to play the piano as we know it. The first person to play solo piano recitals, Liszt transformed the instrument to a modern standard with the help of countless instrument builders. While the instrument he played was not quite a modern piano, his performances solidified the piano as we know it today.