Is piano percussion?

A piano is a percussion instrument. It might sound counter-intuitive first, but there is a reason. String instruments are excited either by plucking or by a bow. Percussion instruments are excited by hammering on something. And since in a piano the hammers create the sound by hammering on the strings, the piano is a percussion instrument. read more

Musical usage, in particular the traditional division into tuned percussion and untuned percussion, and the similar and more modern division into pitched percussion and unpitched percussion. The means of playing the instrument and skills required to play it, for example the grouping together of mallet percussion instruments, or of hand percussion instruments. read more

On a piano, however, those vibrations are initiated by hammers hitting the strings rather than by plucking or by moving a bow across them. So, the piano also falls into the realm of percussion instruments. As a result, today the piano is generally considered to be both a stringed and a percussion instrument. read more