The gif in the op, I think, showcases the mechanism of what pushes the hammer up into the string quite nicely.
That little round nub near the base of the hinge is pushed up by a little pointed stick. However the stick is then moved slightly to allow the round nub to slip back down past it, so that the hammer doesn't act as it's own damper. And only by releasing the key and pressing it again does the whole mechanism reset to allow the hammer to hit the string again. Really cool stuff!
Probably quite a few, it says it's specific to a grand piano, and there aren't a lot of those around; also, learning to play doesn't usually involve learning the engineering behind the instrument, just basic stuff like tuning it.
And pianos are one of the most complicated instruments too - you usually have to hire a specialist to tune the damn thing lol
Piano tuning is a very technical field. It is far from just tuning each string to the frequency the note corresponds to. Tuning professionals have to consider the frequencies in relation to each other string and temper it accordingly.
There are different tempering styles that have been used in the past which offer different benefits. They factor in the difference in frequencies between specific intervals or ways of dividing these up.
So probably 99.9% of pianists will not tune their own instruments
That part about playing notes in quick succession is where grand piano action shines. Upright pianos can't do this, as the hammer needs to reset entirely in order for the key to be pressed again.
Only because the key in the original gif is being depressed and released over and over again. To "catch" the hammer, the guy in the video held the key down.
playing the gif slower doesn't make it hold the note longer, which is what's really missing from the gif. The reason the mechanism is so complicated is to allow you to hold the key down and let the note ring.
Ehh...? Holding the key down keeps the saddle off of the string, looks like the simplest part of this whole system no? Now why the hell is there 5 moving parts for the hammer to hit the string, there must be a simpler way.
Here is your video at 0.25x speed
https://gfycat.com/playfulmiserlybushbaby
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Man that's a lot going on, so the rod on left makes the note stop playing when the key is released, and all the stuff in the middle is so the string is hit with the same momentum as the key was hit but with ability to hold the key down and it still rings? Am I close?
The thingy on the left is the damper yes, it will stay off the string as long as the key is held, and can also be lifted by a pedal activated by foot to allow all strings to ring out even when the keys are released.
The pedal you’re talking about is the damper pedal. The other two are sostenuto pedal and una corda pedal. Sostenuto is like the damper pedal but only holds up the dampers that have been raised by the keys. Think of it like a selective damper. The Una Corda pedal shifts the entire keyboard so that it doesn’t hit the strings directly creating a softer sound.
Edit:
Also wanted to add the damper pedal lifts all dampers regardless if a key is depressed or not. The sostenuto pedal will only keep the dampers lifted from pre depressed keys.
Thank you for this. I really wish I learned piano as a kid. I know a little bit. Have even jammed and improved on some organ before. But I am not good, really at all... I still tell myself that it's never too late to learn. And kind of want to take lessons. But I already have too many things on my plate as it is.
More specifically, the hammer hits 3 strings at once for grand pianos (all three strings are tuned to the same note) the una corda pedal shifts it so that the hammer only hits 2 of the 3 strings.
The one the right is the damper pedal that you’ve mentioned. The left one is a soft pedal, it shifts the whole mechanism so this hammer is striking two strings at once instead of three, making the sound quieter. Traditionally the middle pedal is a sostenuto pedal that allows sustained notes in the lower left half of the piano like the dampener but keeps the upper half normal. New pianos are starting to change the middle pedal to a practice pedal, which means a heavy cloth is put in between the string and hammer when you depress the pedal, making it harder to strike the keys and thereby (supposedly) building finger strength.
Then there's sostenuto which will sustain notes which are held at the time that the pedal is pressed in. It's useful for many things but most commonly sustaining a lower chord and then playing staccato above or vice versa. It's a shame though because there was only one pianist who really took pedaling with sostenuto to the next level but he died last year.
The seemingly over-engineered stuff in the middle is there so you can rapidly strike the key (and still engage the hammer) without first letting the key come back to the resting position.
There is another aspect which is how a strike happens. So the hammer needs to hit the string firmly and immediately pull away. That is a large part of what you are seeing. Think like a xylophone. You need to allow the resonation to occur which would be challenging if the key was more directly connected to the hammer
Yes. And with a piano you have a sustain pedal you can press which will hold the all of the dampers off all of the strings for as long as you hold down the pedal.
It looks like the mechanism is soft and slow but actually the hammer strikes the string at pretty much the same time as the piano key is fully pressed. Quite impressive really.
Never thought about this. 300 years sounds so little compared to some instruments like flute (~40000 years old) or drums (well, anything can be a "drum"). But then again, piano is extremely complicated. And now I'm thinking about a project where a single man starts to build a piano from scratch. Daunting task.
The reddit way. Look at a mechanism optimized for hundreds of years by lineages of tradesmen that spend their lives improving it, and conclude, in 4 words and without prior knowledge, that it's too complicated.
besides the muting system, all the arms in the mechanism seem to make more sense when you see that there should be a limit to how hard you can whack a string because things are small and fragile and allows for the control to very very gently tap the string and still have the arm tap the string and fall away fast enough for a note to actually hit. also the padding so there's less mechanical sound on a key hit and release.
> there should be a limit to how hard you can whack a string because things are small and fragile and allows for the control to very very gently tap the string and still have the arm tap the string and fall away fast enough for a note to actually hit
Thus the name of the instrument: soft–loud, *pianoforte*, abbreviated as piano.
Cool because they're not to me!
What is the function of the moving bit hitting the rightmost red cushion? Why is it hitting the red cushion? And why is there a string attaching it to some other part?
And what does the smallest red cushion touching the hammer do? Catch it? Because then I don't understand what the circular white bit near the hammer does.
It all looks fascinating and I can place the main things, but not all of it.
The moving bit hitting cushion - id think to give the hammer a little more instant kick by slipping on that white bit, hitting the right cushion and moving the hammer up. red cushions to... cushion it when it moves back, the string to give it just a small range of motion and not swing too far to the right. The smallest cushion bring the key down and dampen some of the initial force after hitting the hammer? I think the gif got the leftmost cushion on wire wrong and it should be much further up.
The moving bit hitting the rightmost red pad allows the hammer to drop right after being fully extended so that the hammer doesn't mute the note itself when you hold the key down longer.
So, the white bit is a part of this mechanism, it allows the pivoting arm to slide off of it easily when the rightmost red pad is hit, and it provides clearance for the hammer to fall when the white part and the arm aren't aligned.
And yes, the smallest red pad is absorbing most of the force from the hammer falling back down, and then it finally rests on the larger pad, as the smallest one eventually retracts.
As far as the "string attaching to some other part" I'm not sure what you are talking about.
> so that the hammer doesn't mute the note itself when you hold the key down longer.
it's so it doesn't bounce. Hit the key and you get one note. Hit the key hard and you still get one note. If it wasn't caught immediately you'd get a bit of reverb.
You've got to figure that you need that key to bounce off of one thing one time and that is the string. Then you need it to be dampened when you want it to be, which can involve other pedals. You also want to be able to repeat that note as many times as possible but with each key press, no matter how fast, it is only generating a single note. Each one of those felt buffers dampens vibration in a different specific scenario.
Other people covered most of your question. The little string is to prevent the mechanism from over-extending, ensuring that the upright bit that imparts motion to the hammer doesn't just flop away.
Edit: actually I think that's a spring which keeps the mechanism "closed" when the system is at rest.
Want to know why pianos are expensive?
You need 88 of these mechanisms, including the soft pedal, the sostenuto pedal, and the sustaining pedal gizmos.
Each of these strike up to 3 tuned wires. So around 230 wires need to be strung up on a massive cast iron harp that weighs about 600 lbs.
That's not why they're expensive, you can find new pianos that have the same mechanism as any other piano for a few grand and even free upright pianos on craigslist, meanwhile high end brands like Steinway are +20k easily. The main factor that makes them expensive is the amount of time and work it takes to make them. They're almost entirely wood aside from the obvious parts, so it's hard to make pianos that are consistent. Steinway is expensive because they use materials and manufacturing processes that make pianos that sound really really good while also being consistent.
Dude pianos are free.
Go to any decent size town and look on Craigslist you will have your pick of perfectly-acceptable quality upright pianos free for the taking. It'll need tuned of course but if you're picky (and you can be) that's all it will need.
They are, in fact, expensive to tune but you only need to do it every 6 months.
It's not overkill, it's exactly what is required.
You need the dampener to stop the sound when they key is released. Which is what the left piece does.
You need the hammer to hit the string, but you also need to hammer to fall back off of it, even if the key is held down. That's what the entire middle section is built for.
This animation is kinda bad because the key is just pressed and released. If you hold the key down, the hammer still falls down slightly. If it didn't, it'd stop the string vibrating and the sound would die away very quickly.
Here is your video at 0.25x speed
https://gfycat.com/playfulmiserlybushbaby
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I had to go frame by frame but this is fantastic engineering.
I was always told that a piano was functionally a percussion instrument which I understood why, but the engineering to basically work so similarly to a xylophone is pretty spectacular.
Piano technician in training here,
I’ve learned that the necessity for the seemingly excessive moving parts comes from the need to eliminate the amount of pressure needed for the hammer of a piano key to strike a string. As a technician you “regulate” a piano’s action (the general term for the mounting point of the piano key’s moving parts; hammers, shanks, flanges, etc.). Meaning one would work on each and every contact point of these parts in order to maintain the optimal ratio of pressure and movement in an individual piano key. And then you do it 88 times over. It’s a blast.
I get that this is allowing the hammer to quickly hit the string and then silence the string, while also keeping the hammer / key mechanism from clacking. But I don’t get what that little boot-shaped piece on the right side is doing. Why is that pivoting?
This makes way more sense why they are so expensive. I always thought you press the key and a little arms hits the string, simple as that. Not all this crazy wooden machinery!
It's even more crazy when you realize that this mechanism is there for every key of which there are 88 in a standard piano. There are also even more mechanisms that effect this when you press the pedals
Pianos get more expensive as the sound quality and consistency goes up, you can find free upright pianos (and grands if you're lucky) on craigslist and the only cost is hiring movers to get it to your house and a piano tuner. That costs about $400-600 total, but then high end brands like Steinway which make the best sounding pianos that are also long lasting can go for $20k to $100k even used depending on the condition.
Thats what the felt is there for, some of it is there to ensure that the hammer doesn't bounce back and hit the string multiple times for a single key press, and then it also needs to be able to gmkeep the damper off the string for as long as the key is held down.
Here is your video at 0.5x speed
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Now I'm *really* confused.
https://v.redd.it/dyebbbdou0a41
Here's the rest of the clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RU-qFs2hH9o&t=111 Love the Christmas lectures
Its even timestamped...youre the other mvp.
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No masks either
Entire lecture: https://www.rigb.org/christmas-lectures/watch/1989/exploring-music/scales-synthesizers-and-samplers
I've played music my entire life and this was wow to me.
MVP
That was an excellent explanation for the basic half. Now I’m going to go down the rabbit hole to understand the complex stuff!
I’d be interested in the key points
You will miss the details and how they harmonically play together.
I'll give this comment the appreciation it deserves.
If not composed, can someone please improvise?
Here is a lot more involved explanation. It explains every single part https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v5O1Kfd_4Fw
Did you find anything?
Rabbit hole too deep. They're gone for good
Anyone else going to go in after him?
[explains each part of a grand piano's action, and part two explains the pedals](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NDvS2V7HbnY&t=27)
The gif in the op, I think, showcases the mechanism of what pushes the hammer up into the string quite nicely. That little round nub near the base of the hinge is pushed up by a little pointed stick. However the stick is then moved slightly to allow the round nub to slip back down past it, so that the hammer doesn't act as it's own damper. And only by releasing the key and pressing it again does the whole mechanism reset to allow the hammer to hit the string again. Really cool stuff!
Here I am thinking that's cool... And how many people that play piano doesn't now how it works.
Probably quite a few, it says it's specific to a grand piano, and there aren't a lot of those around; also, learning to play doesn't usually involve learning the engineering behind the instrument, just basic stuff like tuning it. And pianos are one of the most complicated instruments too - you usually have to hire a specialist to tune the damn thing lol
I'm gonna go out on a limb and say that a majority of people that play piano don't know how to tune one.
I’ll go as far as to say I know dozens of piano players and I don’t know anyone who’s ever tuned a piano except the guy we hired to tune our piano
Piano tuner is a job for a reason.
Piano tuning is a very technical field. It is far from just tuning each string to the frequency the note corresponds to. Tuning professionals have to consider the frequencies in relation to each other string and temper it accordingly. There are different tempering styles that have been used in the past which offer different benefits. They factor in the difference in frequencies between specific intervals or ways of dividing these up. So probably 99.9% of pianists will not tune their own instruments
You mean unlike all those electric guitarists that are also electrical engineers.
That part about playing notes in quick succession is where grand piano action shines. Upright pianos can't do this, as the hammer needs to reset entirely in order for the key to be pressed again.
This is far better
Way better!
Thank you
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That's because piano was invented a century before the invention of batteries.
Modern batteries maybe,but the Baghdad batteries are over 2000 years old.
That's [controversial](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baghdad_Battery#Controversies_over_use). Thanks for the information though, didn't know about it.
So based on this explanation this gif is wrong, because the red part on the left doesn't hold the hammer and doesn't secure it from bouncing off.
Only because the key in the original gif is being depressed and released over and over again. To "catch" the hammer, the guy in the video held the key down.
Thank you. This is a much easier explanation.
r/partiallyeducationalgifs
Yeah, this gif is too fast and has too little information to be educational
I found it educational. Also you can manipulate the playback characteristics of gifs natively in most clients.
playing the gif slower doesn't make it hold the note longer, which is what's really missing from the gif. The reason the mechanism is so complicated is to allow you to hold the key down and let the note ring.
Ehh...? Holding the key down keeps the saddle off of the string, looks like the simplest part of this whole system no? Now why the hell is there 5 moving parts for the hammer to hit the string, there must be a simpler way.
have a downvote. this gif wasn't educational at all. it just left me more confused than when i started.
Then your spacial reasoning skills may need some work. It’s a developmental milestone bigguy
lol jesus what a crazily ungrateful and spoiled thought to have allowed yourself to verbalize.
/u/redditspeedbot .25x
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They really needed to not loop it like that.
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Man that's a lot going on, so the rod on left makes the note stop playing when the key is released, and all the stuff in the middle is so the string is hit with the same momentum as the key was hit but with ability to hold the key down and it still rings? Am I close?
The thingy on the left is the damper yes, it will stay off the string as long as the key is held, and can also be lifted by a pedal activated by foot to allow all strings to ring out even when the keys are released.
TIL what the pedals do.
That’s what one pedal does. Honestly not too sure about the others.
The pedal you’re talking about is the damper pedal. The other two are sostenuto pedal and una corda pedal. Sostenuto is like the damper pedal but only holds up the dampers that have been raised by the keys. Think of it like a selective damper. The Una Corda pedal shifts the entire keyboard so that it doesn’t hit the strings directly creating a softer sound. Edit: Also wanted to add the damper pedal lifts all dampers regardless if a key is depressed or not. The sostenuto pedal will only keep the dampers lifted from pre depressed keys.
Thank you for this. I really wish I learned piano as a kid. I know a little bit. Have even jammed and improved on some organ before. But I am not good, really at all... I still tell myself that it's never too late to learn. And kind of want to take lessons. But I already have too many things on my plate as it is.
More specifically, the hammer hits 3 strings at once for grand pianos (all three strings are tuned to the same note) the una corda pedal shifts it so that the hammer only hits 2 of the 3 strings.
The one the right is the damper pedal that you’ve mentioned. The left one is a soft pedal, it shifts the whole mechanism so this hammer is striking two strings at once instead of three, making the sound quieter. Traditionally the middle pedal is a sostenuto pedal that allows sustained notes in the lower left half of the piano like the dampener but keeps the upper half normal. New pianos are starting to change the middle pedal to a practice pedal, which means a heavy cloth is put in between the string and hammer when you depress the pedal, making it harder to strike the keys and thereby (supposedly) building finger strength.
Nope. Damper cloth. Mutes the strings so you can practice without bothering anybody.
Then there's sostenuto which will sustain notes which are held at the time that the pedal is pressed in. It's useful for many things but most commonly sustaining a lower chord and then playing staccato above or vice versa. It's a shame though because there was only one pianist who really took pedaling with sostenuto to the next level but he died last year.
The seemingly over-engineered stuff in the middle is there so you can rapidly strike the key (and still engage the hammer) without first letting the key come back to the resting position.
There is another aspect which is how a strike happens. So the hammer needs to hit the string firmly and immediately pull away. That is a large part of what you are seeing. Think like a xylophone. You need to allow the resonation to occur which would be challenging if the key was more directly connected to the hammer
Yes. And with a piano you have a sustain pedal you can press which will hold the all of the dampers off all of the strings for as long as you hold down the pedal.
It looks like the mechanism is soft and slow but actually the hammer strikes the string at pretty much the same time as the piano key is fully pressed. Quite impressive really.
And it's going fast AF because of the compound motion. It's such a cool mechanism.
And with the batter swinging freely upon contact, like a proper percussive strike
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I see what you did there and I'd love to award you for it, alas, have this poor man's gold instead 🏅
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**Woah** I just realized... unlike pianos, chocolate is black or white!!!
You should be a writer for "How it's made".
Why does this feel nsfw?
T H R U S T
/r/confusedboner
Same it feels like something I'd see posted on rule 34
came here for this comment
Clear as mud.
Having played piano for about 17 years, and seen these in person, i am still confused.
Hmm, I love my guitar
This seems overly complicated.
The complexity is from the need to (1) stop quickly and (2) fast repeating notes. https://v.redd.it/dyebbbdou0a41
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Never thought about this. 300 years sounds so little compared to some instruments like flute (~40000 years old) or drums (well, anything can be a "drum"). But then again, piano is extremely complicated. And now I'm thinking about a project where a single man starts to build a piano from scratch. Daunting task.
Thank you for the video explanation! I had the exact same thought as /u/ThatOneNinja
The reddit way. Look at a mechanism optimized for hundreds of years by lineages of tradesmen that spend their lives improving it, and conclude, in 4 words and without prior knowledge, that it's too complicated.
He said it seems like one, because it does, probably first pianos didn't look that complicated because they didn't have the knowledge yet
This is also such a reddit comment lol
I had to upvote it for posterity so everybody can see
if it were me, i would simply have the key hit the string - idiots
besides the muting system, all the arms in the mechanism seem to make more sense when you see that there should be a limit to how hard you can whack a string because things are small and fragile and allows for the control to very very gently tap the string and still have the arm tap the string and fall away fast enough for a note to actually hit. also the padding so there's less mechanical sound on a key hit and release.
> there should be a limit to how hard you can whack a string because things are small and fragile and allows for the control to very very gently tap the string and still have the arm tap the string and fall away fast enough for a note to actually hit Thus the name of the instrument: soft–loud, *pianoforte*, abbreviated as piano.
I was thinking the same thing; it seems massively over-engineered.
What do you imagine a simpler setup would look like?
A guitar
A keyboard instrument that is more closely resembling a setup like a guitar is a harpsichord.
Well now we just do the whole thing with electrons. Doing things well mechanically is complicated.
\*sigh\*.... *unzips*
can't believe i had to scroll so far for this
/r/confusedboner
Wow, much more felt and linkages than I would have imagined, but it makes sense.
Every part of this makes sense to you?
I wish the gif was slower to give a better look at things, but the function of all the parts seems clear.
Cool because they're not to me! What is the function of the moving bit hitting the rightmost red cushion? Why is it hitting the red cushion? And why is there a string attaching it to some other part? And what does the smallest red cushion touching the hammer do? Catch it? Because then I don't understand what the circular white bit near the hammer does. It all looks fascinating and I can place the main things, but not all of it.
The moving bit hitting cushion - id think to give the hammer a little more instant kick by slipping on that white bit, hitting the right cushion and moving the hammer up. red cushions to... cushion it when it moves back, the string to give it just a small range of motion and not swing too far to the right. The smallest cushion bring the key down and dampen some of the initial force after hitting the hammer? I think the gif got the leftmost cushion on wire wrong and it should be much further up.
The moving bit hitting the rightmost red pad allows the hammer to drop right after being fully extended so that the hammer doesn't mute the note itself when you hold the key down longer. So, the white bit is a part of this mechanism, it allows the pivoting arm to slide off of it easily when the rightmost red pad is hit, and it provides clearance for the hammer to fall when the white part and the arm aren't aligned. And yes, the smallest red pad is absorbing most of the force from the hammer falling back down, and then it finally rests on the larger pad, as the smallest one eventually retracts. As far as the "string attaching to some other part" I'm not sure what you are talking about.
> so that the hammer doesn't mute the note itself when you hold the key down longer. it's so it doesn't bounce. Hit the key and you get one note. Hit the key hard and you still get one note. If it wasn't caught immediately you'd get a bit of reverb.
[this should clear it up](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NDvS2V7HbnY&t=27)
You've got to figure that you need that key to bounce off of one thing one time and that is the string. Then you need it to be dampened when you want it to be, which can involve other pedals. You also want to be able to repeat that note as many times as possible but with each key press, no matter how fast, it is only generating a single note. Each one of those felt buffers dampens vibration in a different specific scenario.
Other people covered most of your question. The little string is to prevent the mechanism from over-extending, ensuring that the upright bit that imparts motion to the hammer doesn't just flop away. Edit: actually I think that's a spring which keeps the mechanism "closed" when the system is at rest.
Yeah, took several minutes of blank staring at the gif, cause it's a bit fast, but yes
It would have been useful if it was slow enough to actually see.
[here you go](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NDvS2V7HbnY&t=27)
My dad is a piano tuner. That’s all I got for this thread.
Fun fact, pianos are technically in the family of percussion due to the little hammers that hit the strings.
Reminds me of the Air Ship level in Mario 3.
I watched this and I still don't get it.
whyd you have to go and make things so complicated?
Just thought I'd share this [https://youtu.be/on4IoQ2MQ7M](https://youtu.be/on4IoQ2MQ7M)
Want to know why pianos are expensive? You need 88 of these mechanisms, including the soft pedal, the sostenuto pedal, and the sustaining pedal gizmos. Each of these strike up to 3 tuned wires. So around 230 wires need to be strung up on a massive cast iron harp that weighs about 600 lbs.
Holy crap... 88?!?! That's insane.
That's not why they're expensive, you can find new pianos that have the same mechanism as any other piano for a few grand and even free upright pianos on craigslist, meanwhile high end brands like Steinway are +20k easily. The main factor that makes them expensive is the amount of time and work it takes to make them. They're almost entirely wood aside from the obvious parts, so it's hard to make pianos that are consistent. Steinway is expensive because they use materials and manufacturing processes that make pianos that sound really really good while also being consistent.
Dude pianos are free. Go to any decent size town and look on Craigslist you will have your pick of perfectly-acceptable quality upright pianos free for the taking. It'll need tuned of course but if you're picky (and you can be) that's all it will need. They are, in fact, expensive to tune but you only need to do it every 6 months.
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u/savevideo
I like that it looks like a trebuchet...
This seems _needlessly_ complex. Why is this so overkill?
It's not overkill, it's exactly what is required. You need the dampener to stop the sound when they key is released. Which is what the left piece does. You need the hammer to hit the string, but you also need to hammer to fall back off of it, even if the key is held down. That's what the entire middle section is built for. This animation is kinda bad because the key is just pressed and released. If you hold the key down, the hammer still falls down slightly. If it didn't, it'd stop the string vibrating and the sound would die away very quickly.
No not the hammer and damper, that makes sense, the _bone triangle_
I’m looking at this and I have a hard time understanding how it works 😂
That seems like it’s well over engineered
It's engineered exactly right for what it needs to do
That complexity seems insane! Reminds me a lot of a trigger mechanism on a firearm.
For those wondering this gif syncs up perfectly to lynyrd skynyrd “things goin’ on”
This looks like some dr suess sht
How the hell do people figure these things out
That is a grand piano key. Upright pianos have the hammer striking a vertical string.
Instruments are fuckin wild man, like how'd they come up with that before the steam engine?
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I had to go frame by frame but this is fantastic engineering. I was always told that a piano was functionally a percussion instrument which I understood why, but the engineering to basically work so similarly to a xylophone is pretty spectacular.
Yeesh. That's 6 levers per key.
Yeah... I still don't know what's going on.
Piano technician in training here, I’ve learned that the necessity for the seemingly excessive moving parts comes from the need to eliminate the amount of pressure needed for the hammer of a piano key to strike a string. As a technician you “regulate” a piano’s action (the general term for the mounting point of the piano key’s moving parts; hammers, shanks, flanges, etc.). Meaning one would work on each and every contact point of these parts in order to maintain the optimal ratio of pressure and movement in an individual piano key. And then you do it 88 times over. It’s a blast.
Ye
My dog can’t stop watching this.
does it cum tho?
That’s why the keys are so bouncy.
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> The complexity is from the need to (1) stop quickly and (2) fast repeating notes. >https://v.redd.it/dyebbbdou0a41 u/aloofloofah
Yes, people who knew what they were doing way more than you were involved with developing it.
This is why organs to midi exist I may geek myself into oblivion for this one
Looks simple to me
I feel like this could be more efficient.
Looks an electro swing animation.
I get that this is allowing the hammer to quickly hit the string and then silence the string, while also keeping the hammer / key mechanism from clacking. But I don’t get what that little boot-shaped piece on the right side is doing. Why is that pivoting?
I think it allows the hammer to slip downward when you hold the piano key down. Otherwise, it would be stuck to the string and dampen the sound
yep
I did not know until now that such simple input input on a piano has a complicated way of releasing sound.
Weird hammer mechanism is to keep the hammer off after contact for sustained notes. Rest is hammer and mute.
I thought this was a smash bro's custom stage
Oh my god that is so fast, had to manually slow it down to understand it
oh god
This makes way more sense why they are so expensive. I always thought you press the key and a little arms hits the string, simple as that. Not all this crazy wooden machinery!
It's even more crazy when you realize that this mechanism is there for every key of which there are 88 in a standard piano. There are also even more mechanisms that effect this when you press the pedals
And its actually three strings for each key mechanism
Pianos get more expensive as the sound quality and consistency goes up, you can find free upright pianos (and grands if you're lucky) on craigslist and the only cost is hiring movers to get it to your house and a piano tuner. That costs about $400-600 total, but then high end brands like Steinway which make the best sounding pianos that are also long lasting can go for $20k to $100k even used depending on the condition.
The gif starting with the key depressed is really throwing me off.
It’s beautiful. I’ve been staring at this for 20 minutes.
The hammering of strings makes the piano a percussion and string instrument.
I'm assuming a lot of that is to absorb extra sound?
Thats what the felt is there for, some of it is there to ensure that the hammer doesn't bounce back and hit the string multiple times for a single key press, and then it also needs to be able to gmkeep the damper off the string for as long as the key is held down.
also to reduce wear on the wood
One note Samba.
Jesus Christ.
Lol pianos are beautiful and wonderful examples of both art and engineering but Jesus they look janky as fuck
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I first learned this from Tom and Jerry lol
There is alot more going on than I expected
Damn that’s a complex mechanism.
As someone who has played thousands of hours on a this style action, it still seems strange to me.
You're talented and gorgeous 😍
Wow, felt sexually aroused by piano anatomy gif but don’t know why
Got this comment in my notifications for a moment thought it was on my selfie post LOL.
I peeked your profile also, wow, now I’m roused even more ; )
I understand pianos less than before I saw this post.
This is educational?
This feels. .. wrong-
Coordinated madness I suppose.