Why does a Piano have 88 keys?
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Hey, smarty pants, quick question. What's your favorite musical instrument? Hmm, I heard guitar, drums, flute, violin, oboe saxophone, trumpet, harp, and others. Did someone say accordion? Well, no offense to the accordion, but today's episode is about what some people refer to as the king of musical instruments.

You might be taking lessons on this or have one in your home. Have you keyed in to what I'm talking about, smarty pants? Did you say the piano? Today I'm traveling back in time to Italy in the year 1709 to visit the inventor of the piano, Bartolomeo Cristofori. According to my BAP, this should be his house.

and the fact there's two piano movers carrying a piano inside. Yo, hey, careful, Vinny. If we scratch the wood on this thing, Signore Cristofori's gonna be really mad. Sorry, Lenny, but this thing's heavy. You're doing great, guys. Only three more floors to go.

You must be Bartolomeo Cristofori. I'm the trusty narrator from Who Smarted? Is this a bad time? I can see you're in the middle of moving your piano. Yes, I'm Bartolomeo Cristofori. Ciao, trusty narrator. Ciao, Who Smarted? I'm sorry, moving what? Your piano.

Oh, you mean my grave cimballo col piano e forte. That's Italian for harpsichord with soft and loud notes. Oh, wait, that's right. Pianos wouldn't be called pianos for another hundred years or so. Though before that, they did shorten it from whatever you just said to piano forte. Interesting, my distinguished guest from the future. I'd love to hear more about what became of my invention.

Oh, and I have plenty of questions for you, Bartolomeo. Like, how was the piano invented? What are the different kinds of pianos? And how does a piano make the sounds it does? Sounds like it's time for another whiff of history and science on... Who Smarted? Who Smarted? Who Smart? Is it you? Is it me? Is it science? Or history? Listen up, everyone!

I have to say Bartolomeo, my first thought when I look at your piano is that it looks hard to play. There's so many keys! Smartypants, do you know how many keys are on a piano? Call it out. There are 88 keys total. Well, a lot of Smartypants knew that. But do you know how many keys are white and how many are black?

There are 52 white ones and 36 black ones. The white keys play what are called the natural notes, and the black ones play sharp and flat notes. And if you think my piano looks hard to play, you should have seen the keyboard instruments that came before it. Oh, yeah? For one thing, they had the colors reversed.

Most keys were black with white ones sprinkled in, but it was too hard to tell the keys apart, and the musicians kept making mistakes. So I thought this was the better way to go. What made you want to invent a new instrument in the first place? Well, you see, I'm an expert maker of the harpsichord. ♪

Which is one of the many keyboard instruments that have been around for hundreds of years. But I knew I could make my new piano, as you call it, even better. And not just by switching the key colors. Hmm. How is Bartolomeo's piano better than the harpsichord, smarty pants? Is it A, you can control the loudness of the notes? B, you can control how long the notes last? Or C, you can play a wider range of notes?

Trick question. It's all three. Correct. My stroke of genius with the piano was going with hammering instead of plucking. Excuse me? Allow me to show you with this harpsichord. Would this be easier to explain if I shrunk us to two inches tall and we went inside the harpsichord? Yes, of course it would. But that would be impossible. Oh, we're tiny.

How did you... It's a podcast. We can do anything. Please continue. As I was saying, when you press a key on a harpsichord, it activates a lever that causes something called a plectrum to pluck one of the strings, like so. But a pluck is a pluck is a pluck, so every time you press that key, it sounds exactly the same. On a piano, however... Teleporting to your piano...

When you press a piano key, it lifts something called a hammer, which is basically a small piece of wood covered by felt. When the hammer hits the string above it, it makes the sound of a particular note.

But that's only half the story. When you press a key, it also lifts the damper, which is another felt-covered piece of wood that sits resting on top of the string. And what does the damper do? Any guesses, Smarty Pants? When you take your finger off the key, the damper goes back to resting on the string, which stops the string from vibrating. And that stops the sound. So the hammer creates the sound...

And the damper silences it. Exactly. Hmm. Question, smarty pants. You just heard that the sounds a piano makes come from strings. So is the piano a stringed instrument like a violin? Or is it a percussion instrument like a drum? It might seem obvious, but it's actually a little tricky. Because the whole hammer business, the piano is considered a percussion instrument, not a string instrument.

Which surprises a lot of people. But here's the key thing. Get it? The key thing? I got it. The harder you press a piano key, the louder the sound it makes. The ability to control the volume of every note is a huge advancement over the harpsichord. Vinnie, you mind hitting middle C as hard as you can?

That's loud, all right. Yep. How awesome is that? How does such a thin string make such a loud noise? Each of these strings is strung unbelievably tightly into the piano. They each have about 168 pounds of tension. That's about three times tighter than the strings on a tennis racket.

And when you consider a piano has a total of 230 strings, it equals 20 tons of tension overall. That's like having a team of four elephants pulling on its strings all at once. Yikes! I'm surprised a wooden piano can withstand that much tension. You'd think it would rip apart and collapse. Oh, it definitely would. If the strings were stretched across a super sturdy cast iron frame...

Unfortunately, having that frame in there makes the piano a little on the heavy side. How much do you think an early piano weighed, Smarty Pants? 100 pounds? 500 pounds? Or 1,000 pounds? I got this. 1,000 pounds. Oof, my poor back. Bartolomeo, you also mentioned your piano can control how long a note lasts. How do you think a piano does that, Smarty Pants? With a button? A pedal?

Or a switch. If you said a pedal, you nailed it. Ah, yes, Mr. Neritor. My piano actually has three pedals. The pedal on the right is called the sustaining pedal. By pressing that one, it raises all the dampers off the strings so any notes you play last as long as the strings keep vibrating. Lenny, an example, please. You got it, boss.

The middle pedal is called the sostenuto pedal. It does the same thing as the sustaining pedal, but only for notes you're playing when you press the pedal. And the pedal on the left is the soft pedal. What does that do? Most times when you hit a key, its hammer hits two or three strings at the same time to give you a louder and richer sound. Lenny?

But when you press the soft pedal, the hammer shifts over to one side so it hits fewer strings, which creates a quieter sound. Wow. I can see why people loved your new piano, Bartolomeo. And we haven't even gotten to the thing that makes it the king of instruments. It's range, a.k.a. the number of different notes it can play. Si. The guitar and violin can only play notes in a four-octave range.

And the harpsichord only has 60 keys and a five octave range. By adding another 30 keys or so to my piano's keyboard, I increase that to seven octaves. That's a lot for music composers to work with. Besides, notes any higher or lower would be hard to hear with the human ear. Well, trust me, Bartolomeo, your piano is going to change music forever.

Of course, there's another big change that happens. Oh, what is it? Well, right now, your piano is very big and very expensive. In fact, only royalty and the fabulously wealthy can afford one. But a revolutionary invention is coming that will make it possible for regular, everyday people to own a piano. Whoa.

Oh, I'd love to know what it is. Oh, I'll let you and the Smarty Pants know right after this quick break. Hey, Smarty friends. Trusty here. I grew up on the Smurfs. Saturday mornings, cereal in hand, glued to the screen. So yeah, I cannot wait for this. Smurfs is back. And this time it's bigger, bolder, and bursting with magic.

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Now back to Who Smarted? Back in the day of Bartolomeo Cristofori, inventor of the piano, actually owning a piano was only for the super wealthy. That's because early pianos were not only super expensive, they were also enormous.

Oh, my aching back. But in 1800, a man named John Isaac Hawkins would invent a new style of piano that would allow almost anyone to own one. Was this new piano called the miniature piano, the upright piano, or the El Cheapo piano? If you said the upright piano, you're right on.

What's an upright piano? An upright piano is a much smaller and lighter version of your piano, Bartolomeo, which today we call a grand piano. It's basically the equivalent of a grand piano standing on its end, because instead of the strings running horizontally like yours, they run vertically up and down, which saves a ton of space. Hmm. Does it sound as good? Well, no. No.

And you can't play it as fast as you can a grand piano. That's why grand pianos are the ones played in concerts. Someone who isn't a piano expert might not notice the difference. I say the more people playing my piano, the better. Believe it or not, not only did they make a smaller version of your piano, one inventor made a much bigger one. A bigger piano? They can get someone else to carry it.

A piano tuner in New Zealand named Adrian Alexander Mann built the largest piano in the world. It's 19 feet long, twice as long as a regular grand piano, and it weighs 3,000 pounds. My back hurts just looking at it. And then there's the most expensive piano in the world. Ooh, I can see through it. Is it made of glass? Nope, crystal.

This special piano has only been played once at the 2008 Olympic Games in China, and it's valued at $3.2 million. Mine don't seem as expensive anymore. Mr. Narrator, these future pianos sure are amazing. You haven't seen nothing yet.

Um, is that piano playing by itself? Yep, it's called a player piano, and it's programmed to play without anyone pressing the keys. Uh, any chance it can move itself, too? Ouch. A super shout-out to Super Smarty fan Samara in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. We hear you think Who Smarted is so funny, which makes us very happy. Keep on smarting and smiling with us, Samara.

This episode, Piano, was written by Steve Maestro Melcher and voiced by Chris 88 Keys Okawa, Adam Tempo Davis, Max Crescendo Kamaski, and Jerry Colbert.

technical direction, and sound design by Josh Baby Grand Hahn. Who Smarted? is recorded and mixed at the Relic Room Studios. Our associate producer is Max Kamaski. The theme song is by Brian Staccato Suarez, with lyrics written and performed by Adam Tex-Davis. Who Smarted? was created and produced by Adam Tex-Davis and Jerry Kolber. This has been an Atomic Entertainment production. Who Smarted?