Hammond Music

When most of us think about a piano, we think of a concert pianist playing a grand piano, but there are two or three types of piano, here we will discuss them, from the grand piano, to the upright piano to the digital keyboard.

Lets first look at the piano we’ve already mentioned-the grand piano. What helps to give the grand piano its huge sound are the longer strings, which help to reduce the lower frequencies and harmonics. The smaller grand pianos, such as the baby grand and the boudoir have thickers strings on them to allow for string tension, keeping clarity in the sound. Tension in the strings would be lowered if they used a concert grand’s strings, giving it an unplayable and muddy sound. The sizes of the grand piano range from 2-3 meteres for a concert piano, to 1-2 meteres for a boudoir grand piano to the baby grand piano, which is just slightly smaller than the boudoir.

An ‘upright’ piano is what most people mean when they say they own a piano. Called the upright because the frame and strings are packed in horizontally as opposed to vertically, allowing it to be smaller in size, but still can stand at 45 inches taller and more.

Often (and rather naively) mistaken for another keyboard, the electronic piano has the food pedals to control frequency and pitch that they piano has that the keyboard doesnt. But they honestly dont sound as good as an acoustic piano, even with the ‘wonders of modern technology’.

And as for those digital keyboards…..

Much smaller, cheaper, easier to carry around than a piano, the keyboard is the closest most of us will come to owning anything like a piano. Digital technology has allowed the keyboard to carry hundreds of different sound in it, from a church organ, to piano to steel drum, which gives it some versitility and humour factor that the piano lacks.

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