Why Does the Piano Have Only 88 Keys?

You know, people have often wondered why the piano only has eighty-eight keys, rather than a nice round number, such as fifty or a hundred. The reasons are many and complex, but this story can be made reasonably short.

When the piano was first invented by Doctor Ivory, it had one hundred keys. He thought that since people (well, most normal people) had only ten fingers, the number of piano keys should be a multiple of ten. However, he ran into a few minor difficulties when he started inventing scales. This is the story of that traumatic event that forever changed history (or at least the history of the piano).

"Peablossom!" he called up the stairs to his daughter one morning. "Hurry up or you’ll be late for school, and I don’t have time to write a message to your teacher again."

"But Daddy," whined Peablossom, who was at that horribly bratty age when she whined about everything and anything. "I don’t want to go to school. The people are stupid, and nobody understands the stuff that’s being taught."

"Well," said Dr. Ivory," you still have to go, and I simply must work on my new invention. I can’t seem to get the H major scale to work, because I’ve run out of sharps."

Pouting, Peablossom walked as slowly as possible out the door of the house and onto the path that lead to the tiny, one-room schoolhouse. "I don’t see why he gets to build stuff all day," she mumbled under her breath. "I’m so sick of school, I don’t learn anything anyway." With those final thoughts, Peablossom cruised off to school.

Meanwhile, Dr. Ivory kept scratching his head, trying to figure out why the piano sounded funny. He continued poking at the keys, trying to get a harmonious sound from the H major scale, but to no avail. This was the first problem that he’d had with this latest invention, except for the tiny explosion caused by the animal rights people. He had told them repeatedly that he wasn’t using real ivory, it was just wood, but some people would do anything for a little publicity.

He slammed his hands down on the keys, noticing again that he still couldn’t reach a full dectave. This presented a small problem, but one that he was sure he could fix after he figured out how to do the scales. He noticed that his fingers were able to reach eight keys, though, and this started his brain clicking.

"If I can only reach eight keys, then why am I trying to have a scale with ten tones?" he asked himself. "Maybe it would sound better if there were only eight different notes." Having arrived at this brilliant conclusion, he then set about changing the strings, removing several keys (twelve, to be exact), and then noticed one more problem. The keys were all the same color.

"Well, maybe I could change the colors of some of the keys, and that would make it even easier to play," he thought, wrinkling his forehead in puzzlement. "But I don’t have any paint." Peablossom had used the last of it when she had tried to paint the cat, saying that she had looked bored with being calico. "That’s it!" he cried out, leaping to his feet. He raced to the fireplace and pulled out some partially burnt wood.

Dragging it over to the newly built piano, he scraped the burnt part across a key, skipped a key, crossed another key, and skipped two keys. He then proceeded to do this across all eighty-eight keys, for a total of thirty-six black keys and fifty-two white keys.

This is why the piano only has eighty-eight keys, although some people have made it even smaller for electronic keyboards and toy pianos for their children.

Author Note: This is not the real story of the reason behind the number of keys on a piano. It was an assignment for school, and I had so much fun writing it that I decided to post it online. Like it? Hate it? Have no opinion? Let me know! (thanks for taking the time to read this)