![]() Spruce became the wood of choice for the construction of piano soundboards over 100 years ago and had been used for violins and harpsichords for centuries. The type of wood used is spruce – particularly Alaskan (Sitka) spruce. As it’s much bigger, the soundboard can displace a far greater deal of air than the strings alone. ![]() The strings are coupled to the soundboard panel by a bridge, and therefore transmit their vibrations to the soundboard via this bridge. As a result, they can’t displace very much air at all, so you can barely hear anything (think of how an electric guitar sounds without it plugged in). This vibrating back and forth of the strings displaces the air, thus creating sound waves.Ī string, or even three strings, has a tiny surface area. The strings vibrate, as you’d expect, at a frequency according to their length, mass, and tension. Ok, when you hit a key, a hammer made of wood and felt strikes a group of three strings (in the modern piano, at least) to sound a note. But how, exactly does it work with the piano? With the piano, the soundboard is a large, thin wooden plate usually made of Sitka spruce, as this wood is better at absorbing the higher overtones (basically, stopping higher harmonic components from sounding). Without the soundboard, the sound from the string alone would be barely audible (a mere whisper) and have high – and not particularly nice on the ear – overtones. The soundboard is basically a large wooden resonator that transforms the vibrations of the strings into audible waves of sound. ![]()
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