The toy piano, also known as the kinderklavier (child's keyboard), is a small piano-like musical instrument. The present form of the toy piano was invented in Philadelphia by a 17-year-old German immigrant named Albert Schoenhut. He worked as a repairman at Wanamaker's department store, repairing broken glass sounding pieces in German toy pianos damaged in shipping. Schoenhut conceived of the toy piano as it is known today in 1872, when he substituted durable steel plates for the traditional fragile glass bars.
Read more about Toy Piano: Characteristics, History, Use in Musical Performance
Famous quotes containing the words toy and/or piano:
“Nature never wears a mean appearance. Neither does the wisest man extort her secret, and lose his curiosity by finding out all her perfection. Nature never became a toy to a wise spirit.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Film music should have the same relationship to the film drama that somebody’s piano playing in my living room has to the book I am reading.”
—Igor Stravinsky (1882–1971)