The Past
Josef Hofmann
He was not only a highly acclaimed pianist, respected by the likes of Rachmaninov, but also a keen inventor. He had powerful but small hands and in the video below he is playing the smaller keyboard with which he concertized in the 1930s and 1940s.
Historical Pianos
Eight Plates from the Archive
What Size Keyboard?
In the overhead views of the Hofmann film footage the bass filler block, which takes up the extra space in the piano, can be seen. The size of the keyboard’s octave is 6.25 inches.
The Future
A Forward View
The foundation’s work has established that retrofitting works, that pianists adapt quickly, and that the research supports a registry of sizes rather than a single historical default. What remains is adoption at scale. Manufacturers making DS-certified keyboards on the assembly line; electronic keyboard makers offering DS5.5, DS6.0, and DS6.5 as catalogue options; conservatories equipping every piano in every practice room. The pages that follow sketch what that world could look like.
An Imagined Catalogue
Twelve Plates, Future Adoption
From retrofit to default.
Hofmann’s smaller keyboard was not an oddity; it was evidence. Read how that thread runs through the Foundation’s story, and into the specifications we maintain today.