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50 free Piano trivia questions with answers — music quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
The piano is the instrument almost everyone has touched at least once, and these 42 piano trivia questions cover everything from how it works to who played it best. The first section is the machine itself: Bartolomeo Cristofori's invention for the Medici around 1700, the 88 keys and what they span, the 230-odd strings under 20 tons of tension, the three pedals and what each does, the cast-iron frame, the player piano, and the makers from Steinway and Bösendorfer to Yamaha. Then come the players and the pieces: Chopin's thirty public concerts and his heart in Warsaw, Lisztomania, Clara Schumann playing from memory, Rachmaninoff's cure by hypnosis, Beethoven's Für Elise and the Moonlight Sonata, Glenn Gould's humming, Van Cliburn's ticker-tape parade, Scott Joplin, Rhapsody in Blue, John Cage's prepared piano, Chopsticks, Piano Man, Jerry Lee Lewis, Ray Charles, Elton John and Liberace's candelabra. Beginners will get the easy ones; teachers and conservatory students will enjoy the hard ones. Every answer is checked against Wikipedia and reference sources, and each question shows its source once you answer.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Who invented the piano around 1700 while Keeper of the Instruments for the Medici court?
Bartolomeo Cristofori
He was born in Padua and hired by Prince Ferdinando de' Medici in 1688; three of his pianos survive, in New York, Rome and Leipzig.
Q 02Cristofori's original name for his invention described a keyboard of cypress with what quality?
Soft and loud
'Un cimbalo di cipresso di piano e forte' was shortened to pianoforte, then fortepiano, then just piano.
Q 03How many keys does a standard modern piano have?
88
That is 52 white and 36 black, spanning seven octaves plus a minor third from A0 to C8.
Q 04How many black keys are there on a standard 88-key piano?
36
They come in alternating groups of two and three, which is how players find their way around without looking.
Q 05On a three-pedal grand piano, what is the leftmost pedal called?
Una corda
On a grand it shifts the whole action sideways so the hammers hit fewer strings; the sostenuto is in the middle and the sustain on the right.
Q 06The combined tension of the strings in a modern grand piano can exceed roughly how much?
20 tons
That is why a cast-iron plate is needed; Alpheus Babcock patented the single-piece iron frame in Boston in 1825.
Q 07How many strings does each note in the treble of a piano typically have?
Three
The bass graduates down to two and then one thick wound string per note.
Q 08Roughly how many individual parts can a piano contain?
About 12,000
They support six systems: keyboard, action, dampers, bridges, soundboard and strings. A Steinway grand takes nearly a year to build.
Q 09The Imperial Bösendorfer has nine extra bass keys. How many keys does it have in total?
97
That gives it a full eight-octave range; the extra keys are often coloured black so pianists are not thrown by them.
Q 10Who invented the player piano, which plays itself from a paper roll, in 1863?
Henri Fourneaux
Rolls later preserved performances by Rachmaninoff, Gershwin and Scott Joplin himself.
Q 11What material traditionally covered a piano's white keys before plastics took over?
Ivory
Yamaha developed a plastic called Ivorite to imitate its look and feel.
Q 12Steinway & Sons was founded in 1853 in which city?
New York
German immigrant Heinrich Engelhard Steinweg started it; a Hamburg factory followed, and the two still build rival versions of the Model D.
Q 13What letter designates Steinway's flagship concert grand, just under nine feet long?
D
About 2,000 'Steinway Artists' worldwide agree to perform only on the company's pianos, unpaid.
The world's largest instrument maker, with a three-tuning-fork logo, was founded in 1887 to make what?
Q 21Which Bach work did Glenn Gould record in both 1955 and 1981, bookending his career?
The Goldberg Variations
He quit concerts at 31 in 1964, calling them 'a force of evil', and hummed audibly on his records; one of his Bach recordings rides on the Voyager Golden Record.
Q 22What unique honour did Van Cliburn receive in New York after winning the 1958 Tchaikovsky Competition?
A ticker-tape parade
He remains the only classical musician ever given one; his own competition began in Fort Worth in 1962.
Q 23How often is Warsaw's International Chopin Piano Competition held?
Every five years
Reed organs
Torakusu Yamaha built Japan's first piano in 1900; the motorcycle business was spun off in 1955.
Q 15Which Cristofori piano is the oldest of the three that survive, and where is it?
1720, in New York
He had built at least three pianos by 1711, but none of those survive; he died in Florence in 1731.
Q 16Roughly how many public concerts did Chopin give in his whole life?
Fewer than 30
He preferred Paris salons; after his death at 39 his heart was taken back to Warsaw's Holy Cross Church.
Q 17Which French novelist was Chopin's lover for nine years from 1838?
George Sand
Marie d'Agoult was Liszt's partner; Sand and Chopin parted acrimoniously in 1847, two years before he died.
Q 18Which poet coined the term 'Lisztomania' in 1844 for the frenzy around Franz Liszt's concerts?
Heinrich Heine
Liszt was the first pianist to give solo recitals in the modern sense, playing entirely from memory.
Q 19Beethoven's Für Elise, written in 1810, was not published until which year?
1867
Ludwig Nohl found it four decades after Beethoven's death; 'Elise' may have been a misreading of Therese Malfatti, whom Beethoven proposed to that year.
Q 20A critic picturing a moonlit boat on which Swiss lake gave Beethoven's Sonata No. 14 its 'Moonlight' nickname?
Lake Lucerne
Ludwig Rellstab coined it in 1832, after Beethoven's death; the composer had headed it 'Sonata quasi una fantasia' and dedicated it to Countess Giulietta Guicciardi.
First held in 1927, it launched Pollini, Argerich, Zimerman and Seong-Jin Cho, and only Chopin's music is played.
Q 24Which Argentine pianist won the Chopin Competition in 1965?
Martha Argerich
Maurizio Pollini had won in 1960 and Krystian Zimerman followed in 1975.
Q 25John Cage first used a 'prepared piano' in 1940 because a Seattle venue lacked room for what?
A percussion ensemble
He credited Henry Cowell's string-piano pieces as his inspiration; Sonatas and Interludes gave every key its own timbre.
Q 26Under what pen name did a 16-year-old British girl publish 'Chopsticks' in 1877?
Arthur de Lulli
Euphemia Allen's only published piece drew variations from Borodin, Rimsky-Korsakov and even Liszt.
Q 27Whose band backed Gershwin's premiere of Rhapsody in Blue at New York's Aeolian Hall in 1924?
Paul Whiteman's
Ferde Grofé orchestrated it, and clarinettist Ross Gorman invented the opening glissando as a rehearsal joke.
Q 28Which airline has used Rhapsody in Blue as its theme since 1987?
United Airlines
Its opening is said to be as recognisable to concert audiences as Beethoven's Fifth.
Q 29Billy Joel wrote 'Piano Man' after working a Los Angeles piano bar under what stage name?
Bill Martin
The 1973 song only reached No. 25 on the Hot 100 but is now in the National Recording Registry.
Q 30Which actress played Ada, the mute pianist, in Jane Campion's 1993 film The Piano?
Holly Hunter
Hunter won the Oscar and 11-year-old Anna Paquin became the second-youngest competitive winner; Campion was the first woman to win the Palme d'Or.