How Does a Piano Work?

Series Summary

The piano is easily one of the most recognizable musical instruments in the world. Since the early 18th century, musicians have used the piano to compose a myriad of musical compositions. Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, and Haydn all created sublime masterpieces for the piano. Creating music on the piano is a challenging and rewarding endeavor, given the incredible octave range of the piano and dynamic adjustment. In this free video series, a professional musician provides tips on playing the piano and being a musician in general. Discover how pianos work, how to play the electric keyboard and how to buy a used piano. Learn about practicing music, as well as reading music, writing pop songs and booking shows as a musician. Become a piano-playing musician with these helpful tips and lessons!

Video Transcript

"Hi my name is Athena Reich and I'm a singer song writer and music coach here in New York City. In this clip I'm going to talk about how a piano works. First of all there are keys on the piano. There are low keys and they progressively get higher as you go to your right, higher pitch. So you push a key and it hits a hammer which hits a string which produces that sound. If there are white notes and there are black notes and they each have a specific pitch. If you hit a key very loudly it is going to be loud. If you hit it quietly it is going to be very quiet. Now if you look down at the pedals there are three pedals. The right one is the sustained pedal so you can play notes and it will kind of keep the sound ringing the whole time that you have your foot on that right pedal. Now if you, the left pedal is actually makes everything softer, makes things very soft sounding, very quiet, it shifts the hammer so that it hits it in a soft way. The middle pedal is a partial sustained so if you hit a note and you hit a middle pedal then the notes after it will not sustain but it will sustain that first note. This has been Athena Reich on how does the piano work in New York City."