When considering this project, I thought about the form of the typewriter, a mechanical device that used the physical power of one’s hand to press down and activate a mechanism that causes a pin with an engraved letter to stamp down on a piece of paper. The mechanical action of a typewriter versus the light touch of a computer’s keyboard reminded me greatly of the mechanical action of the hammer of a piano. I am a piano player, but I have long since abandoned the frame of wood and wire, for one of plastic and metal. For me, it was a matter of convenience, it is difficult to lug around a 600 pound upright piano after all. When I was first taught piano, it was on an old, rickety upright that we basically got for free, it was later replaced by a much nicer upright “Kawai” brand piano. These uprights were quite tedious, and fairly difficult to maintain, and needed to be tuned every year (though we certainly went a few years without tuning them up). When I was preparing to move in for college, one of the things I decided I absolutely needed was a keyboard. We went to a lot of stores trying to find one that suited my tastes, and eventually, I decided on a Roland brand FP-30. I found this keyboard to be excellent in both feel and sound; the sign of a good keyboard is in the weight. A real piano has a lot of “heft” behind the keys, as your finger muscles need to do some strenuous work moving the complex components of the hammer mechanism or the “action”. A good keyboard should have weighted keys to replicate this effect, and I made sure to find one that met this requirement. 

https://kawaius.com/technology/piano-action/ (action for a grand piano)

It has been a long time since I actually sat down and played an analog or acoustic piano; I tried to use some of the ones in college hall, but they are all reserved for music students. It was then that I remembered that there was a medium grand in the Student Union Building. So I grabbed my things and I went over to try it out. The creak of the wooden stool is an unmistakable sound, and the weathered machine in front of me looked like it had been played thousands of times. When I placed my hand on top of a key and let the weight of my appendage simply push down on the key, I found that the key did not depress at all. When playing on my keyboard, there are sensitivity options, and I typically set it to the second-highest level of touch, this is due to a condition in my hands that causes weakness and pain, so the lighter touch is well appreciated, and is actually one of the main reasons I switched to a keyboard. On this grand piano, however, I felt no movement from my light touch. Curious about this, I pressed a little harder, and it was only then I felt the mechanism of the key budge. The sound of an acoustic piano comes from the physical strike of a soft felt hammer on a wound string, and as such, a light press of the key simply caused the hammer to touch the string with barely any sound. I then decided to up the strength of my presses, and I attacked the key with a far more powerful press. This is what finally gave me my first real sound. I quickly moved into playing a few short excerpts of pieces, both soft and strong, and what I found was incredible difficulty in depressing the keys consistently. It was clear that this piano was very, very, well-used, to put it nicely. The keys were very “sticky” and clunky, and the pedals of the piano were rickety and loose. Every key seemed to require a different level of pressure to produce a consistent volume, I could press down on middle C with the same force as the adjacent note and it would yield a sound of different volume. When playing some faster pieces, the keys often got caught and would either not press down, or press down for too long, and doing any runs proved very difficult. The physical keys themselves were very smooth and slippery, making my fingers slip off on occasion. I am unsure of the actual make of this piano, but I wonder if the keys are ivory. Ivory keys were discontinued around the 70s, with acrylics and polymers taking their place; I have never compared the two types directly so I am unsure of the actual feel of these different materials. The one thing I was surprised about was the tuning of the piano. I had expected for this machine to be completely out of tune, but surprisingly it seemed as though the tone was not off by much; I do wonder if the college tunes the instrument regularly. Tuning is a non-issue on a keyboard, in fact, you can manipulate it freely and even shift the “key” of the whole board on a whim, leading to some interesting effects. 

Overall the “feel” of the piano was quite strange, and something I had not felt in a long time. I have had few opportunities to play expensive, full grand pianos, and this experience makes me want to try one out freely, rather than being limited to something like a recital. This experience made me realize some of the finer aspects of convenience my digital keyboard gives me: it never goes out of tune, the touch can be adjusted to my liking, the sound is always crisp and clear, I can change the sound to my liking, and it is far more convenient and easy to transport. That being said I am sure the analog, acoustic piano is not going to go out of style any time soon.