Piano Tuner Wilmington DE on the Complexity of Piano Music

As your piano tuner Wilmington DE, I would like to explain the significance of the complexity of piano music. The piano keyboard and the touch-sensitive action of the piano allows for much more complex music on the piano, than on any other instrument. This fact has several repercussions.

You may be aware that for the last two to three hundred years, most music was composed at the piano. The piano keyboard allows several notes to be played at once, whereas most instruments allow the player to play only one or two notes at a time. As a result, a composer can use a piano to at least suggest some of the complexity of orchestral music, so he/she can get an idea of what their composition sounds like.

For example, George Gershwin is reported to have composed Rhapsody in Blue on two pianos in his home.

You might ask, “Why not compose music at the organ or harpsichord keyboard instead?” The answer is that neither of those instruments have a touch-sensitive keyboard. No matter how rapidly or softly the keys of those instruments are played, the volume of the note is the same. The volume of these instruments is determined globally by pedals. There is no variation from note to note. A touch-sensitive keyboard, on the other hand, means that the volume of the note played is dependent of the strength of depression of the key. A touch-sensitive instrument allows much more expressive music to be played.

To summarize, the piano is commonly used for composition, because the keyboard allows for multiple notes to be played at the same time, and the touch-sensitive aspect of the piano keyboard allows more expressive and beautiful music.

Those two characteristics also explain why the piano is in such demand as a solo instrument. A single musician can play both complex and expressive music on a single instrument. No other instrument allows for that.

An additional result of that complexity is the benefit to the musician of developing the ability to play such complex music. We will explore that topic in our next blog article.

If you have any questions about pianos or piano music, please let us know. Kenneth Keith Piano Services is your Wilmington DE piano tuning expert. Also, we proudly provide piano tuning and piano maintenance services in the areas of Philadelphia, Southern New Jersey and Eastern Shore Maryland.