Spot the Frippet: piano.

My Collins dictionary begins its definition of the piano a musical instrument resembling a harp...which it doesn't, really, especially if the piano in question is an electric one.

Still, with a conventional grand piano you can see what they mean:


photo by Will Fisher

and, fair enough, a conventional piano does work by making strings on a frame go twang.

Another sort of musical instrument, a piano accordion, has keys like a piano, though the sound is quite different and is made by blowing air through a frame of reeds. They're slightly more portable than a conventional piano and are sometimes used by buskers, being slightly more tolerable in the open air than inside.


photo by Cayambe 

A piano roll is a length of paper with holes punched in it which instructs a pianola, or automatic piano, which notes to play. A pianola is more reliably accurate than a human player, though sadly completely impervious to cat-calls, slow hand-claps, and rotten tomatoes if you want it to shut up.

A piano trio is mostly not piano at all, but violin and cello:



 A piano quartet has proportionally even less piano: 


Zwaag Piano Quartet, photo from Noblegoose

A piano duet, conversely, is all piano:

Fran and Marlo Cowan (after sixty two years of marriage)

though whether it'll be played on one or two pianos is impossible to tell until you get there.

A piano nobile is blessedly quiet unless, as often happens, some idiot has put a piano in it. It's the main floor of a big house, the place where the grand reception rooms are. It's often the floor with the posh windows one up from the ground floor.

The greatest irony is that piano means...

Spot the Frippet: piano. Piano is the Italian for soft. In the case of the musical instrument it was originally gravecembalo col piano e forte, harpsichord with soft and loud, first abbreviated to pianoforte and then to piano. Piano nobile is Italian for great floor or noble level.

If this all sounds a bit cynical then, with twenty nine years as a piano teacher behind me, I feel I have every right to be so.

I still do play most days, though.