Parts of the piano for kids: keys, hammers, strings, and pedals

A piano looks simple from the bench: a row of keys and three pedals. Inside the case, thousands of parts work together. A key moves a hammer, the hammer strikes a string, and a big wooden board makes the sound loud enough to fill a room. This page names the main parts and what each one does.

The parts at a glance

Part	What it is	Its job
Keys	88 levers, 52 white and 36 black	The player presses them
Action	The chain of small parts behind each key	It throws the hammer at the string
Hammers	Wooden heads covered in felt	They strike the strings
Dampers	Pads of felt that rest on the strings	They stop the sound when a key comes up
Strings	About 230 steel wires	They shake and make the note
Soundboard	A wide, thin board of spruce	It makes the sound of the strings louder
Bridge	A wooden rail on the soundboard	It passes the shaking from the strings to the board
Frame	A heavy plate of cast iron	It holds the pull of all the strings
Tuning pins	Steel pins, one for each string	A tuner turns them to tune the piano
Pedals	Two or three levers for the feet	They change how the notes ring
Case and lid	The wooden box	They hold everything, and the lid directs the sound

From finger to sound

1. A finger presses a key.
2. The back of the key rises and sets the action in motion.
3. The damper lifts off the string.
4. The hammer flies up, hits the string, and falls back at once.
5. The string shakes. The bridge passes the shaking to the soundboard.
6. The finger lets go. The damper drops on to the string, and the sound stops.

The hammer does not stay on the string. If it did, the string could not ring. The part that lets the hammer fly free is called the escapement.

A soft press sends the hammer slow, and the note is quiet. A firm press sends it fast, and the note is loud. Read dynamics in music.

The strings

A piano has 88 keys and about 230 strings. Most notes have more than one string.

Part of the keyboard	Strings for each note	What they look like
The lowest notes	One	Long and thick, wrapped in copper wire
The low-middle notes	Two	Wrapped in copper wire
The middle and high notes	Three	Plain steel, thin and short

Three thin strings together are louder than one. The low strings are wrapped to make them heavy. A heavy string can sound low without being too long to fit in the case.

The highest notes have no dampers. Their sound dies away so fast that they do not need them.

The soundboard and the frame

A string alone makes a tiny sound. The soundboard is what the listener hears. It is a sheet of spruce, the same kind of wood used for the top of a violin.

All those strings pull hard. Together, the pull adds up to many tons. The iron frame takes that load, and it is the main reason a piano is so heavy.

The pedals

The right pedal lifts all the dampers, so that every string rings on. The left pedal makes the sound softer. The middle pedal differs from piano to piano. Read piano pedals explained.

Grand and upright

In a grand piano, the strings and the soundboard lie flat. In an upright, they stand on end, and the action is turned to match. The parts have the same names in both. Read grand piano and upright piano: how they differ.

Parts on the outside

• The music desk holds the book.
• The fallboard is the cover that folds down over the keys.
• The lid of a grand opens on a prop stick to let the sound out.
• The bench matters too. Read piano bench height and footstools for kids.

Things to do together

Look inside. Ask a teacher or a tuner to open the piano. Press one key, and watch its hammer.

Count the strings. Find a low note with one string, and a high note with three.

Watch a damper. Press a key down as slow as you can, so that it makes no sound. The damper lifts. Let go, and it drops.

Feel the board. Play a low chord with the right pedal down, and rest a hand on the case.

Print and play

Print the piano keyboard chart. Read the piano for kids, how many keys are on a piano?, and how often should a piano be tuned?