Introduction of piano care

The piano has over 200 strings and nearly 1000 moving parts, and you certainly do get your money's worth in that it covers seven octaves, but the piano is the ultimate mechanical jungle as an instrument.
The first piano was called a "virginal." It was very small, sat on a table, had about two octaves, and was plucked. Lousy, but it was a start. With time it turned into the harpsichord- vastly improved, more octaves, but it still was plucked. Plucking produces more of a twang.
The harpsichord eventually gave way to the piano forté. This is the piano as we know it, and its real "forté" is that it has a long decay (time it takes for a tone to die away), and the wires are struck by hammers, giving a much more pleasant sound.
From the virginal to the grand piano, every piano was a box laying on its back. Legs were eventually added to eliminate the problem we see in Schroeder's style, in "Peanuts," that is, sitting on the floor to play. It's hard on the lumbar, though we hear that Beethoven preferred this method!
The box on its back (grand piano) has two distinct advantages.
First- the hammers and dampers (See diagrams in the back of the book.) operate very naturally and simply by using gravity to the greatest advantage. This prevents a lot of maintenance.
DIAGRAMS OF PIANO ACTIONS
Please go have a look at the various piano actions so you know what we are talking about.
Second- Especially in the case of a modern grand piano, the box up on three legs has really got class-- especially with its lid open and a candle stick perched up on the desk.
However; with time, it became obvious to most folks that these boxes on their backs took over the living room unless you lived in Buckingham palace. In Amsterdam a grand piano can take up the whole first floor. The solution-- the upright "Grand." The word "Grand," on the name decal of old uprights in the past, was a gimmick to try to convince you that you really had a grand piano-- it was just conveniently shoved up on its end and over in the corner.
The problem with shoving the piano up against the wall was that they couldn't leave the keys along the side, or end, as with the traditional box-on-its-back. Leaving the keys on one side, grand style, presented the difficultly of trying to play the piano laying on the floor.
The solution was to put the keyboard on the side of the piano (where the top is on a grand piano). This was a trick, and it drove designers nuts for many years. Eventually some clever German invented the "vertical repeating action." It had a lot of bits and pieces poking and kicking around, but it worked great. Best of all, now we can all sit in the living room while Aunt Maudy plays Amazing Grace for us-- even sing along!
One day some frugal Fanny got teed off over the room taken up by her upright. She might have even been some crowned head in Austria. In any case, a designer went to work and shrunk the upright. The result was the console. It went over so well that he shrunk it again, and wallah-- the spinet.
The spinet is a runt of a thing, and the action is like the aging sailor-- his chest dropped into his drawers. (See the diagram of the spinet action at the end of the book.)
If you have one of these spinets, working on it will test your patience. It may help you to feel better to know that Queen Elizabeth II had to practice on one of the smallest spinets made- an Evanstatt. Nary a complaint I presume, and she played regally.
There was one curiosity in all of this evolution. It was the butterfly grand piano. It was very short and the top hinged like two wings right down the middle of the piano. Look for it in your nearest museum. If you have one, my condolences to you.
I must also mention the square grand. It was popular about 150 years ago before modern grands came into their own. It was a rectangular box on four legs with the key board along one side. If you have one, don't let your piano tuner's reaction discourage you-- they can usually be made to come back about 70%.