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On my old Steinway, the lowest key that doesn’t have a damper is the second-highest E. On a Bösendorfer I got to play recently, I noticed that the highest key without one was (I believe) the second-highest G. What note most commonly is the highest without a damper on major companies’ pianos?

Stormblessed
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  • Fair question! On a Yamaha harped piano I play it's D with no damper. Doesn't seem to be an industry standard. – Tim Aug 27 '19 at 19:07
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    I'm willing to bet the choice varies within a manufacturer as one goes from upright to baby grand to concert grand to really expensive top-shelf concert grand. – Carl Witthoft Aug 28 '19 at 12:48
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    I'm sure you mean: "What note [...] is the _lowest_ note without a damper [...] ?" – Elements in Space May 17 '22 at 23:00
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    Or perhaps the other way around, "What note [...] is the highest note _with_ a damper [...] ?". For some reason the question in the title, and the question in the body are partially inverted. – Elements in Space May 19 '22 at 02:37

2 Answers2

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Steinway grands often cease damping at the same E as yours, because the harp's rightmost rib blocks where the E's damper would be. Many harped pianos (Baldwin, Kawai, Kimball) transition one note higher, at the F.

@Tim's comment is right, there's no industry standard. It's just convergent design, that as you go up in pitch, eventually dampers aren't worth the bother. A more precise enumeration could come from visiting some big piano showrooms and inspecting individual instruments, but it wouldn't affect many people's buying decisions.

Camille Goudeseune
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I was looking for some similar data and found this resource on Google Books:
Alan Shockley's — The Contemporary Piano
In Appendix C there is a list of grand piano models and their various specifications. (Not all the pages in the preview of the book are available, but there is enough for gathering significant information.)

Here is a summary of the relevant data:

Number of notes without dampers Frequency
15 1
16 1
17 2
18 3
19 9
20 1
21 1
22 1

Clearly there is a large spread (15–22), but also a definite spike (about half of the data) at: 19 notes without dampers (F#6–C8).

So, from this source we can conclude that:
the lowest note on a grand piano without a damper is usually F#6.

NB: no doubt the result will be different for upright pianos.

Elements in Space
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