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Thanks, Sam:
As in all your replies, there is wisdom and excellent information, greatly appreciated.
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If the piano has longer keys than are typical for its size, the rest of the piano must be shorter. That is true for a grand, but not for a vertical piano, where key sticks are perpendicular to the soundboard, so there is not a fixed linear dimension to allocate between key pivot length and soundboard length. I think the Kawai K-800 may have the longest pivot length of any upright (other than maybe some custom/boutique offerings).
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The longest pivot lengths in uprights were in the old player pianos, which were wider to fit in the mechanism.
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If the piano has longer keys than are typical for its size, the rest of the piano must be shorter. That is true for a grand, but not for a vertical piano, where key sticks are perpendicular to the soundboard, so there is not a fixed linear dimension to allocate between key pivot length and soundboard length. I think the Kawai K-800 may have the longest pivot length of any upright (other than maybe some custom/boutique offerings). You think.....
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As usual...balance is the key...too much...too little...somewhere in the middle.
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Some years back (2008, I believe) Kawai began lengthening the keys in all of our pianos. It really was caused by by a change in the structure of our grand pianos which required a longer key, but the feel of the 1" longer keys was enough of an improvement that our engineers decided to apply it to almost all of our pianos.
It definitely does improve the touch.
I don't know which brands are longest - I do not have individual key lengths for each of our own pianos, much less the dimensions of other brands. I know Schimmel has some smaller grands that advertised the same action as a 7' grand - but this was just one or 2 models, I believe. I'm sure others will chime who know more details on those. For the sake of some data I measured our K800 (large upright) which comes out at: Key length 40.4 cm, pivot length 22.6 cm (19.4 for sharps). Those measurements are for the straight keys, angled keys will be a bit longer. I did not measure but suspect the U3 (also a large upright) has significantly shorter pivot distances as it was noticeably different to play on the front or back of the keys whereas the K800 is pretty constant.
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Some years back (2008, I believe) Kawai began lengthening the keys in all of our pianos. It really was caused by by a change in the structure of our grand pianos which required a longer key, but the feel of the 1" longer keys was enough of an improvement that our engineers decided to apply it to almost all of our pianos.
It definitely does improve the touch.
I don't know which brands are longest - I do not have individual key lengths for each of our own pianos, much less the dimensions of other brands. I know Schimmel has some smaller grands that advertised the same action as a 7' grand - but this was just one or 2 models, I believe. I'm sure others will chime who know more details on those. For the sake of some data I measured our K800 (large upright) which comes out at: Key length 40.4 cm, pivot length 22.6 cm (19.4 for sharps). Those measurements are for the straight keys, angled keys will be a bit longer. I did not measure but suspect the U3 (also a large upright) has significantly shorter pivot distances as it was noticeably different to play on the front or back of the keys whereas the K800 is pretty constant. I just measured my U3. The pivot length on the white keys was exactly 22cm. The black keys were about 18.7cm. I'm not sure the difference is big enough to be significant. Perhaps the condition/maintenance of the action is a bigger factor than these small differences in measurements. I didn't have a long enough ruler to measure total key length, but I don't think that's relevant in terms of pivot length and key effort anyway.
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That's exactly what I would have guessed. I play on a few different U3s and they all feel like small grands--23-24cm pivots. Absolutely no problem playing at the fallboard.
The U1 otoh feels a lot smaller, I wonder if it's closer to the NU1X's 18cm....
Bosendorfer D214VC ENPro
Past: Yamaha P-85, P-105, CP50, Kawai MP11, Kawai NV10
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Some years back (2008, I believe) Kawai began lengthening the keys in all of our pianos. It really was caused by by a change in the structure of our grand pianos which required a longer key, but the feel of the 1" longer keys was enough of an improvement that our engineers decided to apply it to almost all of our pianos.
It definitely does improve the touch.
I don't know which brands are longest - I do not have individual key lengths for each of our own pianos, much less the dimensions of other brands. I know Schimmel has some smaller grands that advertised the same action as a 7' grand - but this was just one or 2 models, I believe. I'm sure others will chime who know more details on those. For the sake of some data I measured our K800 (large upright) which comes out at: Key length 40.4 cm, pivot length 22.6 cm (19.4 for sharps). Those measurements are for the straight keys, angled keys will be a bit longer. I did not measure but suspect the U3 (also a large upright) has significantly shorter pivot distances as it was noticeably different to play on the front or back of the keys whereas the K800 is pretty constant. I just measured my U3. The pivot length on the white keys was exactly 22cm. The black keys were about 18.7cm. I'm not sure the difference is big enough to be significant. Perhaps the condition/maintenance of the action is a bigger factor than these small differences in measurements. I didn't have a long enough ruler to measure total key length, but I don't think that's relevant in terms of pivot length and key effort anyway. That seems a very small difference in pivot length, hard to believe it would make a significant difference. The full length of the keys ought to be very relevant for key effort because mechanically it should be the ration of the two parts of the key (i.. each side of the pivot) that determines the mechanical advantage of the lever and hence key effort for a given action. However the length of the back part of the key shouldn't affect the ratio of key effort required between playing at the tips and the fallboard. Or so my mechanical understanding says anyway ...
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If the piano has longer keys than are typical for its size, the rest of the piano must be shorter. That is true for a grand, but not for a vertical piano, where key sticks are perpendicular to the soundboard, so there is not a fixed linear dimension to allocate between key pivot length and soundboard length. I think the Kawai K-800 may have the longest pivot length of any upright (other than maybe some custom/boutique offerings). You think..... In fact, some piano depth specifications suggest it is not correct. Steinway K-52 - 26.4” Bechstein Concert 8 - 26.4” Yamaha SU7 - 26” Yamaha YUS5 - 26” Yamaha U3 - 26” Grotrian G-132 (Concertino) - 26” Bosendorfer Grand Upright 130 - 25.5” Kawai K-800 - 25.5”
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The longest pivot lengths in uprights were in the old player pianos, which were wider to fit in the mechanism. Good observation. I think on average, the vintage American uprights had longer pivot lengths than the average upright sold today.
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