Wednesday, January 22, 2014

Fun Facts About the Piano



Below is a compilation of interesting information, both funny and historical, about the piano.



·         Piano was first created in the year 1698 by an Italian named, Bartolomeo Cristofori. This is the first piano with an escape mechanism for the hammers and is capable of playing softly and loudly.

·         The piano was sort of an accident because the inventor’s attention was on harpsichords.

·         The piano has 12,000 parts with only 10,000 are moving.

·         There is a pressure of approximately 18 tons that is being utilized by the strings of the stretched steel piano. 

·         For a concert grand, it is close to 30 tons of pressure.

·         For a typical piano, there are 230 strings.

·         Most pianos have two to three pedals.

·         The right pedal of th piano is the sustaining pedal or the damper pedal.

·         The piano’s left pedal is always some type of soft pedal.

·         For pianos with three pedals, it is usually called the sostenuto pedal.

·         The middle pedal is the bass sustaining pedal.

·         The piano is known as “the king of instruments”
 
·         The word, “grand” in the piano started in 1777.

·         According to studies, children who learn piano tend to do well in school because of the qualities being attributed to discipline, the eye & hand coordination, social skills and the interest in learning a new language (which is music).

·         The first piano manufactured in Japan was the Yamaha brand in 1887.

·         The last note of the piano’s keyboard is C.

·         The first note on an 88 standard note keyboard is A.

·         The world’s largest piano ever recorded is the Challen Concert Grand that is 11 feet long an have a total string tension of over 30 tons.

·         The square piano was created by Zumpe from England in 1760.

·         Johann Behrent was the one who built the first piano in America in Philadelphia in the year 1775 with the name “Piano Forte”

·         The first piano with reversible keywords was built in 1876 by Mangeot of Paris.

·         The word, “Nickelodeon” is just a general term that is used to describe to various coin operated pianos
·         The the piano’s working section is called the action. There are an estimated of 7500 parts and they are all playing a role in sending these hammers against the strings whenever the keys are being struck.

·         For a grand piano, it has more than 35 points of adjustments and for the entire piano, a total of 3,080 adjustments.

·         Compared to other instruments that needed a piano for accompaniment, the piano can play or stand alone without any assistance from other instruments.

·         Abraham “Abe” Lincoln has used a Chickering Grand while he was at the White House.

·         A grand piano has a repetition lever that makes its action faster than any vertical piano.

·         A half step in a pitch drop can equal to a changeof 3,000 – 5,000 pounds of tension.

There are some more information that you can find every day. Share your knowledge about pianos.


 This article above is brought to you by our guest contributor Mr Eugene Hix.



  Eugene Hix 
Proof Reader/Marketing Consultant 
www.AuthoritySpecialists.com



Friday, January 10, 2014

A new beginning~

Hello everyone!

Last year , our blog was nominated in blog nation , now that we got the blog verified , we hope that you can help vote for the blog here. Please click the boost button next to our directory listing. This would mean a lot to the both of us.

Personally, I will be leaving my music school by the end of January and moving on to have private lessons with the same teacher. Although, there wouldn't be much of a change in terms of lessons , but I will get less opportunities to perform.

In this new year, I wish to bring to everyone more music :)  More videos should be coming up soon.

Stay tuned,
Criserl

Wednesday, January 8, 2014

My First Post in 2014!

Hello to all! Be expecting a lot more for 2014! More uploads, original compositions, and pieces from many different eras!

Well, for 2013 I wasn't very productive with music like I had been in 2012. That will change for this year. I started taking a course titled "How To Write Like Mozart" which teaches how to compose classical music correctly (I guess that's obvious). I've learned a lot about music theory that I didn't know, and even how to actually write out the music by hand (which I didn't know much about before). For 6 weeks I will be taking this course. There are many assignments, and the one for this week is mainly about choral music. I believe next week's is creating a piece for piano and another instrument. :D

So, hopefully, I will try to compose in the classical style! I will probably be listening to a lot of classical music for the next few weeks. Any suggestions on a composer? I know for sure Mozart and Beethoven...

Last year I composed a few original compositions. Unfortunately, I have not practiced them, and never had sheet music for them, so therefore I do not remember how to play them... :/   I guess you all weren't missing out on much. They weren't my best compositions. The best are yet to come!! :D

What I will be uploading soon (whenever I buy a camera... I plan on buying online, so there's a few things I need to do first in order to do so...) is probably Italia by Emily Bear; oh, and possibly Moonlight Sonata, since I only have the version from when I played it on the keyboard.

I must apologize for not doing my part in uploading videos frequently, especially for not uploading anything from Debussy's Children's Corner. I am incredibly sorry for that. I really do plan on learning the pieces I didn't learn in 2013. I want to become more accomplished with piano this year, and I will do my very best in trying to learn many new pieces.

Thank you all for putting up with my nonsense! ;)  I am going to try harder with piano this year!

Until next time,
Viviana.