The first attempts to create a vertical piano were between 1735 and 1745.

The piano action Frederici used was a simplified version of the one designed by Bartolomeo Christofori in 1720.

By 1840, pyramid pianos and upright grands had stopped being produced altogether.

Vertical pianos evolved in the late 1780's with the development of an action designed vertically, following the alignment of the strings and soundboard.

The hammer head was mounted perpendicular to the strings, and triggered so the hammer head struck back towards the strings and returned forward. It was designed in 1787 by John Landreth, and built and implemented by Englishman William Southwell in 1798.

In 1831 Hermann Lichtenthal designed a system where the piano hammer was 'checked' by a length of tape, so that it wouldn't bounce back to the strings on a single blow.

This completed the design of the vertical action, and today's actions have not radically changed from those of the early 1800's.

By 1840, vertical pianos resembled those that we have today, albeit smaller and with more delicate construction.

Todays grand pianos are direct descendants of harpsichords built in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

Around 1700, Bartolomeo Cristofori experimented with creating a harpsichord that could play music more expressively, and devised an action that struck the strings with hammers, differing from harpsichords that plucked the strings with quills.

Music began to be written specifically for the piano in 1732, and the true career of the piano as a concert and ensemble instrument began.

Development of the grand piano after 1750 followed two basic paths. In England, the piano action was designed heavier and more complicated, more like the grand actions of today.

By 1820, Thomas Allen was using metal tubes to keep string tension even, and the successful English manufacturer John Broadwood began to build iron hitch pin plates, which now meant plates were made of more metal than wood.

Grand pianos began being mass-produced in the 1800's, with the establishment of makers such as John Broadwood & Sons, Jonas Chickering, Julius Blüthner, Ignaz Bosendorfer, Friedrich Bechstein, Henry Steinway, and Sebastien Erard, whose company fully developed the basis for the modern grand action by 1821.