When Did 88 Keys Become Standard?

Welcome, I'm Robert Estrin here at livingpianos.com and virtualsheetmusic.com with a viewer question. Nick asks, "When did 88 keys become standard on the piano?" What a great question. I'm happy to answer this one for you, Nick. Well, if you go back in time, the piano, when it was first invented, was actually an outgrowth of a harpsichord, and generally had about five octaves of keys. And this gradually grew during Beethoven's life. His music demanded more and more, not just keys, but more substantial structure of the instrument because of the dynamic range requirements of the music, and little by little the piano grew. Now, by the middle of the 19th century, pianos had typically, as you get to the later part of the 19th century, usually 85 keys was pretty standard.

However, there were pianos starting to emerge with 88 keys in the 1870s, in that realm, even earlier, but most pianos still had 85 keys. Well into the 1880s when 88 keys really became pretty standard, with some exceptions, pretty much the late 1880s, 88 keys became a standard in pianos. So thanks so much for the great question, Nick, and I'll see you next time. I'm Robert Estrin here at livingpianos.com and virtualsheetmusic.com.

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