By the late 19th century, designers were still tinkering with piano design.
The Hungarian musician Paul von Jankó introduced what came to be called the Jankó keyboard, which was shorter across but had several horizontal rows of keys like stripes across the instrument.
In 1911, an Australian designer insisted the piano of the future would have a curved keyboard with longer keys.
Is a piano still a piano if you play it with your feet?
The next question, then, is... See More
By the late 19th century, designers were still tinkering with piano design.
The Hungarian musician Paul von Jankó introduced what came to be called the Jankó keyboard, which was shorter across but had several horizontal rows of keys like stripes across the instrument.
In 1911, an Australian designer insisted the piano of the future would have a curved keyboard with longer keys.
Is a piano still a piano if you play it with your feet?
The next question, then, is when does a piano stop being a piano?
These days a phone can be a camera and a publishing system and a map and a diary and a recording device. And yet we still call it a phone. Even when it's a metronome. Even, yes, when it's a piano.
