The idea that you have to start as a child is one of the piano world's oldest myths. Here's what the science says — and what thousands of adult beginners discover every year. "It is remarkable how many people think that it is too late to learn the piano." — Pianu Research, Northwestern University Somewhere along the way, a story took hold: that the piano is a young person's instrument. That if you didn't start before age ten, you missed your window. That adult beginners are f

Georg Friedrich Haas turned a New York landmark into something you have never quite heard before. Last fall, the Park Avenue Armory did something unusual, even by its own standards. The Wade Thompson Drill Hall — a 55,000-square-foot space that has hosted everything from large-scale art installations to immersive theater — was filled with 50 upright pianos, arranged in a circle around the audience. Not on a stage. Around you. And then they all started playing at once. This wa

The piano keyboard has not changed much in over a hundred years. The octave span — the distance from one note to the same note in the next register — has sat at roughly 6.5 inches for generations. That measurement became the standard, and for most of piano history, it stayed that way without question.