Piano action: how the mechanism shapes your touch

The piano action is what turns a key press into a sound with volume, color and breath. We traced the path of the parts from key to string in How a piano works; here we focus on the other side of the same mechanism: what your fingers feel, why upright and grand pianos respond differently, and how to keep that touch over the years.

Hammer and escapement: the moment your finger feels

Inside the action hides a short, decisive moment. A few millimeters from the string, the jack meets a let-off button and slips out from under the hammer, which flies the last stretch on its own. This release is called escapement, and it lets the string keep ringing while your finger is still pressing. The sound stays open and alive throughout, from the gentlest playing to a full chord. The speed of the press, not the force itself, sets the hammer's speed and the volume, so a precise action allows a very wide dynamic range.

Grand and upright: two ways back

In a grand, where the strings lie horizontally, gravity brings the hammer back down. In 1821 the French piano maker Sébastien Érard patented a double-escapement action, in which a repetition lever catches the hammer at an intermediate height and resets the jack for another strike while the key has only begun to rise. Hence the grand's ability for trills and fast repeated notes, and also the feel of a slightly heavier key, the result of parts that rotate with more inertia. More in How to choose a grand piano.

In an upright the whole assembly stands vertically, facing vertical strings, and instead of gravity tiny springs and a cloth strap pull each hammer back. The result is a precise touch for everyday practice in an instrument that takes little space; see How to choose an upright piano. A Silent piano keeps the same acoustic action, and in silent mode adds a stop rail that keeps the hammer from reaching the string.

Dampers: sound that ends right on time

Almost every note has its own felt damper, which lifts off the string at the moment of the press and drops back as the finger leaves. The damper's timing determines how cleanly one note passes to the next, and beautiful legato relies on it as much as on the fingers. At the top of the keyboard the sound decays quickly on its own, so dampers are not needed there. The right pedal lifts all the dampers together; read about it and the other pedals in Piano pedals.

Why the action needs care

The action has thousands of parts made of wood, felt and cloth; over the years felt compacts and wood responds to humidity changes. According to the Piano Technicians Guild (PTG), chords that don't sound even or fast repetitions that don't come out evenly are often a matter of the action, not the player. Piano regulation restores each key's precise measurements, and stable humidity, as detailed in Maintenance and humidity, keeps them over time. Zohar Pianos takes care of the action and repairs at your home, and if needed, we take the relevant parts with us for further treatment at our place.

Zohar Pianos, Ben Atar 28

In our piano store and gallery you will find grand and upright pianos waiting for you, and you are welcome to play, compare them and feel for yourself how each action responds to your fingers. If you are looking for that feel in a digital instrument too, you will find it in a digital piano with a hammer-action keyboard, and we wrote about the 88 keys themselves in Piano keys. We are here for you.

Links: How a piano works · Piano regulation · Piano pedals · Piano keys · How to choose a grand piano · How to choose an upright piano

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