Thursday, October 11, 2007
About action
There have been three types of actions in the history of pianoforte construction development: the square, the grand, and the upright. However, only two types of action remain in use, the upright, and the grand action. According to McCombie, the old square piano action has disappeared. This was caused by the emergence of concert tours featuring grand pianos, together with further developments to the upright alternative by the 1870s. In this section, I will introduce some of the main type actions from the past, as well as some from modern times. I will begin with the upright actions, and later the grand actions.
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3 comments:
I am not really quite understand the terms of 'action'. Is that the type of piano? The upright piano, the most common types? The grand piano, the bigger one in triangle?
Then how about the square one?
I haven't seen the square one before. Can you show pictures here. If it is the earliest type of piano, is it similar to a harpsichord?
Please share.
Thanks for your quiry and sorry for my late reply.
Action, as I have been explaining, is the tool that connect the key and hammer to the strings. It is that particular part which is called 'Action'.
I can't promise you when will I post a photo of a square piano. However, if you search in wikipedia and type in square piano in English search, you will be able to find one photo of it.
Harpsichord and square piano is two different instrument. Harpsichord is wing-shaped and square piano is rectangular shape.
Also, I don't think the 'earliest' square piano or the harpsichord are anywhere to the same kind of keyboard instrument that I am referring to. There are 2 reasons:
1. Harpsichord / Square piano plugs the string from the bottom while pianoforte hammers the string(s).
2. Pianoforte have a well-known creator, or some would say the inventor -- Cristofori.
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