The most important piece of a Steinway concert grand is one almost nobody ever sees. It lies beneath the strings, a thin sheet of spruce, at its center no thicker than a finger, arched and ribbed like the hull of a boat turned upside down. This is the soundboard, and it does the work of the instrument. The strings, struck by their felted hammers, carry almost no volume on their own; it is the soundboard, set vibrating through the bridge, that pushes air and turns a tremor into a tone. A pianist who has trained on and played these instruments is, in the most literal sense, playing a board. Everything else—the lacquered case, the cast-iron plate, the nine feet of black gloss—serves that one resonant membrane.
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