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Piano

2007 Schools Wikipedia Selection. Related subjects: Musical Instruments

   Piano is the general name given to a musical instrument classified as a
   keyboard, percussion, or string instrument, depending on the system of
   classification used. The piano produces sound by striking steel strings
   with felt hammers that immediately rebound allowing the string to
   continue vibrating at its resonant frequency. These vibrations are
   transmitted through the bridges to the soundboard, which amplifies
   them.

   The piano is widely used in western music for solo performance, chamber
   music, and accompaniment. It is also very popular as an aid to
   composing and rehearsal. Although not portable and often expensive, the
   piano's versatility and ubiquity has made it among the most familiar of
   musical instruments.

   The word piano is a shortened form of the word pianoforte, which is
   seldom used except in formal language and derived from the original
   Italian name for the instrument, gravicèmbalo col piano e forte
   (literally harpsichord with soft and loud). This refers to the ability
   of the piano to produce notes at different dynamic levels depending on
   the speed and force with which a key is pressed.

Early history

   Although there were various crude earlier attempts to make stringed
   keyboard instruments with struck strings, it is widely considered that
   the piano was invented by a single individual: Bartolomeo Cristofori of
   Padua, Italy. It is not known exactly when Cristofori first built a
   piano, but an inventory made by his employers, the Medici family,
   indicates the existence of a piano by the year 1700. The three
   Cristofori pianos that survive today date from the 1720s.

   Like many other inventions, the piano was founded on earlier
   technological innovations. The mechanisms of keyboard instruments such
   as the clavichord and the harpsichord were well known. In a clavichord
   the strings are struck by tangents, while in a harpsichord they are
   plucked by quills. Centuries of work on the mechanism of the
   harpsichord in particular had shown the most effective ways to
   construct the case, soundboard, bridge, and keyboard. Cristofori,
   himself an expert harpsichord maker, was well acquainted with this body
   of knowledge.

   Cristofori's great success was in solving, without any prior example,
   the fundamental mechanical problem of piano design: the hammers must
   strike the string, but not remain in contact with the string (as a
   tangent remains in contact with a clavichord string) because this would
   damp the sound. Moreover, the hammers must return to their rest
   position without bouncing violently, and it must be possible to repeat
   a note rapidly. Cristofori's piano action served as a model for the
   many different approaches to piano actions that followed. While
   Cristofori's early instruments were made with thin strings and were
   much quieter than the modern piano, compared to the clavichord (the
   only previous keyboard instrument capable of minutely controlled
   dynamic nuance through the keyboard) they were considerably louder and
   had more sustaining power.

   Cristofori's new instrument remained relatively unknown until an
   Italian writer, Scipione Maffei, wrote an enthusiastic article about it
   (1711), including a diagram of the mechanism. This article was widely
   distributed, and most of the next generation of piano builders started
   their work because of reading it. One of these builders was Gottfried
   Silbermann, better known as an organ builder. Silbermann's pianos were
   virtually direct copies of Cristofori's, with one important addition:
   Silbermann invented the forerunner of the modern damper pedal, which
   lifts all the dampers from the strings at once.

   Silbermann showed Bach one of his early instruments in the 1730s, but
   Bach did not like it at that time, claiming that the higher notes were
   too soft to allow a full dynamic range. Although this earned him some
   animosity from Silbermann, the criticism was apparently heeded. Bach
   did approve of a later instrument he saw in 1747, and even served as an
   agent in selling Silbermann's pianos.

   Piano-making flourished during the late 18th century in the Viennese
   school, which included Johann Andreas Stein (who worked in Augsburg,
   Germany) and the Viennese makers Nannette Stein (daughter of Johann
   Andreas) and Anton Walter. Viennese-style pianos were built with wood
   frames, two strings per note, and had leather-covered hammers. It was
   for such instruments that Mozart composed his concertos and sonatas,
   and replicas of them are built today for use in authentic-instrument
   performance of his music. The pianos of Mozart's day had a softer,
   clearer tone than today's pianos, with less sustaining power. The term
   fortepiano is nowadays often used to distinguish the 18th-century
   instrument from later pianos.

Development of the modern piano

   Interior of an upright piano, showing the felt-covered hammers. The
   tuning pins can be seen at upper left. In the treble range shown, each
   note has three strings.
   Interior of an upright piano, showing the felt-covered hammers. The
   tuning pins can be seen at upper left. In the treble range shown, each
   note has three strings.

   In the period lasting from about 1790 to 1860, the Mozart-era piano
   underwent tremendous changes, which led to the modern form of the
   instrument. This revolution was in response to a consistent preference
   by composers and pianists for a more powerful, sustained piano sound.
   It was also a response to the ongoing Industrial Revolution, which made
   available technological resources like high-quality steel for strings
   (see piano wire) and precision casting for the production of iron
   frames.

   Over time, piano playing became a more strenuous and muscle-taxing
   activity, as the force needed to depress the keys, as well as the
   length of key travel, was increased. The tonal range of the piano was
   also increased, from the five octaves of Mozart's day to the 7⅓ (or
   even more) octaves found on modern pianos.

   In the first part of this era, technological progress owed much to the
   English firm of Broadwood, which already had a strong reputation for
   the splendour and powerful tone of its harpsichords. Over time, the
   Broadwood instruments grew progressively larger, louder, and more
   robustly constructed. The Broadwood firm, which sent pianos to both
   Haydn and Beethoven, was the first to build pianos with a range of more
   than five octaves: five octaves and a fifth during the 1790s, six
   octaves by 1810 (in time for Beethoven to use the extra notes in his
   later works), and seven octaves by 1820. The Viennese makers followed
   these trends. The two schools, however, used different piano actions:
   the Broadwood one more robust, the Viennese more sensitive.

   By the 1820s, the centre of innovation had shifted to Paris, where the
   Érard firm manufactured pianos used by Chopin and Liszt. In 1821,
   Sébastien Érard invented the double escapement action, which permitted
   a note to be repeated even if the key had not yet risen to its maximum
   vertical position, a great benefit for rapid playing. When the
   invention became public, and as revised by Henri Herz, the double
   escapement action gradually became the standard action for grand
   pianos, and is used in all grand pianos currently produced.

   Some other important technical innovations of this era include the
   following:
     * Use of three strings rather than two for all but the lower notes
     * The iron frame, also called the "plate", sits atop the soundboard,
       and serves as the primary bulwark against the force of string
       tension. The iron frame was the ultimate solution to the problem of
       structural integrity as the strings were gradually made thicker,
       tenser, and more numerous (in a modern grand the total string
       tension can approach 20 tons). The single piece cast iron frame was
       patented in 1825 in Boston by Alpheus Babcock, combining the metal
       hitch pin plate (1821, claimed by Broadwood on behalf of Samuel
       Hervé) and resisting bars (Thom and Allen, 1820, but also claimed
       by Broadwood and Érard). Babcock later worked for the Chickering &
       Mackays firm which patented the first full iron frame for grand
       pianos (1843). Composite forged metal frames were preferred by many
       European makers until the American system was fully adopted by the
       early 20th century.
     * Felt hammer coverings, first introduced by Henri Pape in 1826,
       gradually replaced skillfully layered leather hammers; the more
       consistent material permitted wider dynamic ranges as hammer
       weights and string tensions increased.
     * The sostenuto pedal (see below), invented in 1844 by Jean Louis
       Boisselot and improved by the Steinway firm in 1874.
     * The over strung scale, also called "cross-stringing"; the strings
       are placed in a vertically overlapping slanted arrangement, with
       two heights of bridges on the soundboard, rather than just one.
       This permits larger, but not necessarily longer, strings to fit
       within the case of the piano. Over stringing was invented by
       Jean-Henri Pape during the 1820s, and first patented for use in
       grand pianos in the United States by Henry Steinway Jr. in 1859.

   Duplex scaling: Treble strings of a 182 cm. grand piano. From lower
   left to upper right: dampers, main sounding length of strings, treble
   bridge, duplex string length, duplex bridge (long bar perpendicular to
   strings), hitchpins.
   Duplex scaling: Treble strings of a 182 cm. grand piano. From lower
   left to upper right: dampers, main sounding length of strings, treble
   bridge, duplex string length, duplex bridge (long bar perpendicular to
   strings), hitchpins.
     * Duplexes or aliquot scales; In 1872 Theodore Steinway patented a
       system to control different components of string vibrations by
       tuning their secondary parts in octave relationships with the
       sounding lengths. Similar systems developed by Blüthner (1872), as
       well as Taskin (1788), and Collard (1821) used more distinctly
       ringing undamped vibrations to modify tone.

   Today's upright, grand, and concert grand pianos attained their present
   forms by the end of the 19th century. Improvements have been made in
   manufacturing processes, and many individual details of the instrument
   continue to receive attention (see Innovations in the Piano).

   Some early pianos had shapes and designs that are no longer in use.

   The square piano had horizontal strings arranged diagonally across the
   rectangular case above the hammers and with the keyboard set in the
   long side, it is variously attributed to Silbermann and Frederici and
   was improved by Petzold and Babcock. Built in quantity through the
   1890s (in the United States), Steinway's celebrated iron framed over
   strung squares were more than two and a half times the size of Zumpe's
   wood framed instruments that were successful a century before, their
   overwhelming popularity was due to inexpensive construction and price,
   with performance and sonority frequently restricted by simple actions
   and closely spaced strings.

   The tall vertically strung upright grand was arranged with the
   soundboard and bridges perpendicular to keys, and above them so that
   the strings did not extend to the floor. Diagonally strung Giraffe,
   pyramid and lyre pianos employed this principle in more evocatively
   shaped cases. The term was later revived by many manufacturers for
   advertising purposes.

   The very tall cabinet piano introduced by Southwell in 1806 and built
   through the 1840s had strings arranged vertically on a continuous frame
   with bridges extended nearly to the floor, behind the keyboard and very
   large sticker action.

   The short cottage upright or pianino with vertical stringing, credited
   to Robert Wornum about 1810 was built into the 20th century. They are
   informally called birdcage pianos because of their prominent damper
   mechanism. Pianinos were distinguished from the oblique, or diagonally
   strung upright made popular in France by Roller & Blanchet during the
   late 1820s.

   The tiny spinet upright was manufactured from the mid 1930s until
   recent times. It saved space by using a "drop action" arranged below
   the level of the keys.

Piano history and musical performance

   Much of the most widely admired piano repertoire — for example, that of
   Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven — was composed for a type of instrument
   that is rather different from the modern instruments on which this
   music is normally performed today. Even the music of the Romantics,
   including Liszt, Chopin, Schumann, and Brahms, was written for pianos
   substantially different from ours. For a discussion of some of the
   interpretative consequences of performing this music on modern pianos,
   see piano history and musical performance.

The modern piano

   A schematic depiction of the construction of a pianoforte.
   A schematic depiction of the construction of a pianoforte.

Types

   Modern pianos come in two basic configurations (with subcategories):
   the grand piano and the upright piano.

Grand

   Grand piano action.
   Grand piano action.

   Grand pianos have the frame and strings placed horizontally, with the
   strings extending away from the keyboard. This makes the grand piano a
   large instrument, for which the ideal setting is a spacious room with
   high ceilings for proper resonance. There are several sizes of grand
   piano. Manufacturers and models vary, but a rough generalisation
   distinguishes the "concert grand", (between about 2.2 m to 3 m long)
   from the "boudoir grand" (about 1.7 m to 2.2 m) and the smaller "baby
   grand" (which may be shorter than it is wide). All else being equal,
   longer pianos have better sound and lower inharmonicity of the strings.
   This is partly because the strings will be tuned closer to equal
   temperament in relation to the standard pitch with less stretching
   (See: Piano tuning). Full-size grands are usually used for public
   concerts, whereas baby grands, invented by Sohmer & Co. in 1884, are
   often chosen for domestic use where space and cost are considerations.

Upright

   Upright piano action
   Upright piano action

   Upright pianos, also called vertical pianos, are more compact because
   the frame and strings are placed vertically, extending in both
   directions from the keyboard and hammers. It is considered harder to
   produce a sensitive piano action when the hammers move horizontally,
   rather than upward against gravity as in a grand piano; however, the
   very best upright pianos now approach the level of grand pianos of the
   same size in tone quality and responsiveness. However, one feature of
   the grand piano action always makes it superior to the vertical piano.
   All grand pianos have a special repetition lever in the playing action
   that is absent in all verticals. This repetition lever, a separate one
   for every key, catches the hammer close to the strings as long as the
   key remains depressed. In this position, with the hammer resting on the
   lever, a pianist can play repeated notes, staccato, and trills with
   much more speed and control than they could on a vertical piano. The
   action design of a vertical prevents it from having a repetition lever.
   Because of this, piano manufacturers claim that a skilled piano player
   can play as many as 14 trill notes per second on grands but only seven
   on uprights. For recent advances, see Innovations in the piano.

Other Types

   In 1863, Henri Fourneaux invented the player piano, which "plays
   itself" from a piano roll without the need for a pianist.

   Also in the 19th century, toy pianos began to be manufactured.

   A relatively recent development is the prepared piano, which is simply
   a standard grand piano which has had objects placed inside it before a
   performance in order to alter its sound, or which has had its mechanism
   changed in some way.

   Since the 1980s, digital pianos have been available, which use digital
   sampling technology to reproduce the sound of each piano note. The best
   digital pianos are sophisticated, with features including working
   pedals, weighted keys, multiple voices, and MIDI interfaces. However,
   with current technology, it remains difficult to duplicate a crucial
   aspect of acoustic pianos, namely that when the damper pedal (see
   below) is depressed, the strings not struck vibrate sympathetically
   when other strings are struck as well as the unique instrument-specific
   mathematical non-linearity of partials on any given unison. Since this
   sympathetic vibration is considered central to a beautiful piano tone,
   in many experts' estimation digital pianos still do not compete with
   the best acoustic pianos in tone quality. Progress is being made in
   this area by including physical models of sympathetic vibration in the
   synthesis software.

   The modern equivalent to the player piano is the Yamaha Disklavier
   system, which uses solenoids and midi instead of pneumatics and rolls.
   Silent pianos, which silence the piano and convert it to a digital
   instrument are a recent innovation and are becoming more popular.

Keyboard

   Almost every modern piano has 88 keys (seven octaves plus a minor
   third, from A0 to C8). Many older pianos only have 85 keys (seven
   octaves from A0 to A7), while some manufacturers extend the range
   further in one or both directions. The most notable example of an
   extended range can be found on Bösendorfer pianos, one model which
   extends the normal range downwards to F0, with one other model going as
   far as a bottom C0, making a full eight octave range. Sometimes, these
   extra keys are hidden under a small hinged lid, which can be flipped
   down to cover the keys and avoid visual disorientation in a pianist
   unfamiliar with the extended keyboard; on others, the colours of the
   extra white keys are reversed (black instead of white). The extra keys
   are added primarily for increased resonance from the associated
   strings; that is, they vibrate sympathetically with other strings
   whenever the damper pedal is depressed and thus give a fuller tone.
   Only a very small number of works composed for piano actually use these
   notes. More recently, the Stuart and Sons company has also manufactured
   extended-range pianos. On their instruments, the range is extended both
   down the bass to F0 and up the treble to F8 for a full eight octaves.
   The extra keys are the same as the other keys in appearance.

Pedals

   Pianos have had pedals, or some close equivalent, since the earliest
   days. (In the 18th century, some pianos used levers pressed upward by
   the player's knee instead of pedals.) The three pedals that have become
   more or less standard on the modern piano are the following.

   The damper pedal (also called the sustaining pedal or loud pedal) is
   often simply called "the pedal", since it is the most frequently used.
   It is placed as the rightmost pedal in the group. Every string on the
   piano, except the top two octaves, is equipped with a damper, which is
   a padded device that prevents the string from vibrating. The damper is
   raised off the string whenever the key for that note is pressed. When
   the damper pedal is pressed, all the dampers on the piano are lifted at
   once, so that every string can vibrate. This serves two purposes.
   First, it assists the pianist in producing a legato (playing smoothly
   connected notes) in passages where no fingering is available to make
   this otherwise possible. Second, raising the damper pedal causes all
   the strings to vibrate sympathetically with whichever notes are being
   played, which greatly enriches the piano's tone.
   Piano pedals from left to right: una corda, sostenuto and damper.
   Piano pedals from left to right: una corda, sostenuto and damper.

   Sensitive pedaling is one of the techniques a pianist must master,
   since piano music from Chopin onwards tends to benefit from extensive
   use of the sustaining pedal, both as a means of achieving a singing
   tone and as an aid to legato. In contrast, the sustaining pedal was
   used only sparingly by the composers of the 18th century, including
   Haydn, Mozart and in early works by Beethoven; in that era, pedalling
   was considered primarily as a special coloristic effect.

   The soft pedal or "una corda" pedal is placed leftmost in the row of
   pedals. On a grand piano, this pedal shifts the whole action including
   the keyboard slightly to the right, so that hammers that normally
   strike all three of the strings for a note strike only two of them.
   This softens the note and modifies its tone quality. For notation of
   the soft pedal in printed music, see Italian musical terms.

   The soft pedal was invented by Cristofori and thus appeared on the very
   earliest pianos. In the 18th and early 19th centuries, the soft pedal
   was more effective than today, since pianos were manufactured with only
   two strings per note, just one string per note would be therefore
   struck — this is the origin of the name "una corda", Italian for "one
   string". In modern pianos, there are three strings per hammer and are
   spaced too closely to permit a true "una corda" effect — if shifted far
   enough to strike just one string on one note, the hammers would hit the
   string of the next note.

   On many upright pianos, the soft pedal operates a mechanism which moves
   the hammers' resting position closer to the strings. Since the hammers
   have less distance to travel this reduces the speed at which they hit
   the strings, and hence the volume is reduced, but this does not change
   tone quality in the way the "una corda" pedal does on a grand piano.

   Digital pianos often use this pedal to alter the sound to that of
   another instrument such as the organ, guitar, or harmonica. Pitch
   bends, leslie speaker on/off, vibrato modulation, etc. increase the
   already-great versatility of such instruments.

   The sostenuto pedal or "middle pedal" keeps raised any damper that was
   raised at the moment the pedal is depressed. This makes it possible to
   sustain some notes (by depressing the sostenuto pedal before notes to
   be sustained are released) while the player's hands are free to play
   other notes. This can be useful for musical passages with pedal points
   and other otherwise tricky or impossible situations. The sostenuto
   pedal was the last of the three pedals to be added to the standard
   piano, and to this day, many pianos are not equipped with a sostenuto
   pedal. (Almost all modern grand pianos have a sostenuto pedal, while
   most upright pianos do not.) A number of twentieth-century works
   specifically call for the use of this pedal, for example Olivier
   Messiaen's Catalogue d'oiseaux. This pedal is often unused in modern
   music.

   Many uprights and baby grands have a bass sustain in place of the
   sostenuto pedal, which lifts all the dampers in the bass. It works like
   the damper pedal, but only affects the lowest notes.

   Some upright pianos have a practice pedal or celeste pedal in place of
   the sostenuto. This pedal, which can usually be locked in place by
   depressing it and pushing it to one side, drops a strip of felt between
   the hammers and the strings so that all the notes are greatly muted — a
   handy feature for those who wish to practice in domestic surroundings
   without disturbing the neighbours. The practice pedal is rarely used in
   performance.

   The rare transposing piano, of which Irving Berlin possessed an
   example, uses the middle pedal as a clutch which disengages the
   keyboard from the mechanism, enabling the keyboard to be moved to left
   or right with a lever. The entire action of the piano is thus shifted
   to allow the pianist to play music written in one key so that it sounds
   in a different key.

Materials

   Many parts of a piano are made of materials selected for extreme
   sturdiness. In quality pianos, the outer rim of the piano is made of a
   hardwood, normally maple or beech. According to Harold A. Conklin, the
   purpose of a sturdy rim is so that "the vibrational energy will stay as
   much as possible in the soundboard instead of dissipating uselessly in
   the case parts, which are inefficient radiators of sound." The rim is
   normally made by laminating flexible strips of hardwood to the desired
   shape, a system that was developed by Theodore Steinway in 1880.

   The thick wooden braces at the bottom (grands) or back (uprights) of
   the piano are not as acoustically important as the rim, and are often
   made of a softwood, even in top-quality pianos, in order to save
   weight.

   The pinblock, which holds the tuning pins in place, is another area of
   the piano where toughness is important. It is made of hardwood, (often
   maple) and generally is laminated (built of multiple layers) for
   additional strength and gripping power.

   Piano strings (also called piano wire), which must endure years of
   extreme tension and hard blows, are made of high quality steel. They
   are manufactured to vary as little as possible in diameter, since all
   deviations from uniformity introduce tonal distortion. The bass strings
   of a piano are made of a steel core wrapped with copper wire, to
   increase their flexibility. For the acoustic reasons behind this, see
   Piano acoustics.

   The plate, or metal frame, of a piano is usually made of cast iron. It
   is advantageous for the plate to be quite massive. Since the strings
   are attached to the plate at one end, any vibrations transmitted to the
   plate will result in loss of energy to the desired (efficient) channel
   of sound transmission, namely the bridge and the soundboard. Some
   manufacturers now use cast steel in their plates, for greater strength.
   The casting of the plate is a delicate art, since the dimensions are
   crucial and the iron shrinks by about one percent during cooling. The
   inclusion in a piano of an extremely large piece of metal is
   potentially an aesthetic handicap. Piano makers overcome this handicap
   by polishing, painting, and decorating the plate; often plates include
   the manufacturer's ornamental medallion and can be strikingly
   attractive. In an effort to make pianos lighter, Alcoa worked with
   Winter and Company piano manufacturers to make pianos using an
   aluminium plate during the 1940s. The use of aluminium for piano
   plates, however, did not become widely accepted and was discontinued.

   The numerous grand parts and upright parts of a piano action are
   generally hardwood (e.g. maple, beech. hornbeam). However, since World
   War II, plastics have become available. Early plastics were
   incorporated into some pianos in the late 1940s and 1950s, but proved
   disastrous because they crystallized and lost their strength after only
   a few decades of use. The Steinway firm once incorporated Teflon, a
   synthetic material developed by DuPont, for some grand action parts in
   place of cloth, but ultimately abandoned the experiment due to an
   inherent "clicking" which invariably developed over time. (Also Teflon
   is "humidity stable" whereas the wood adjacent to the Teflon will swell
   and shrink with humidity changes, causing problems.) More recently, the
   Kawai firm has built pianos with action parts made of more modern and
   effective plastics such as carbon fibre; these parts have held up
   better and have generally received the respect of piano technicians.
   View from below of a 182-cm grand piano. In order of distance from
   viewer: softwood braces, tapered soundboard ribs, soundboard. The metal
   rod at lower right is a humidity control device.
   View from below of a 182-cm grand piano. In order of distance from
   viewer: softwood braces, tapered soundboard ribs, soundboard. The metal
   rod at lower right is a humidity control device.

   The part of the piano where materials probably matter more than
   anywhere else is the soundboard. In quality pianos, this is made of
   solid spruce (that is, spruce boards glued together at their edges).
   Spruce is chosen for its high ratio of strength to weight. The best
   piano makers use close-grained, quarter-sawn, defect-free spruce, and
   make sure that it has been carefully dried over a long period of time
   before making it into soundboards. In cheap pianos, the soundboard is
   often made of plywood.

   Piano keys are generally made of spruce or basswood, for lightness.
   Spruce is normally used in high-quality pianos. Traditionally, the
   black keys were made from ebony and the white keys were covered with
   strips of ivory, but since ivory-yielding species are now endangered
   and protected by treaty, plastics are now almost exclusively used.

   Legal ivory can still be obtained in limited quantities. At one time,
   the Yamaha firm innovated a plastic called "Ivorine" or "Ivorite",
   since imitated by other makers, that mimics the look and feel of ivory.

   The requirement of structural strength, fulfilled with stout hardwood
   and thick metal, makes a piano heavy; even a small upright can weigh
   136 kg (300 lb), and the Steinway concert grand (Model D) weighs 480 kg
   (990 lb). The largest piano built, the Fazioli F308, weighs 691 kg
   (1520 lb).

Care and maintenance

   Pianos need regular tuning to keep them up to pitch and produce a
   pleasing sound; by convention they are tuned to the internationally
   recognized standard concert pitch of A = 440 Hz.

   The hammers of pianos are voiced to compensate for gradual hardening,
   and other parts also need periodic regulation. Aged and worn pianos can
   be rebuilt or reconditioned. Often, by replacing a great number of
   their parts, they can be made to perform as well as new pianos. It is
   often felt, however, that older pianos are more settled and produce a
   warmer tone.

The role of the piano

   The piano is a crucial instrument in Western classical music, jazz,
   film, television, and most other complex western musical genres. Since
   a large number of composers are proficient pianists--and because the
   piano keyboard offers an easy means of complex melodic and harmonic
   interplay--the piano is often used as a tool for composition.

   Pianos were, and still are, popular instruments for private household
   ownership, especially among the middle and upper classes. Hence, pianos
   have gained a place in the popular consciousness, and are sometimes
   referred to by nicknames including: "the ivories", "the joanna", "the
   eighty-eight", and "the black(s) and white(s)", "the little joe(s)".
   Playing the piano is sometimes referred to as "tickling the ivories".
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