are still manufactured by Hunter and Cembalito using traditional

methods as they have been for the past 135 years.

These instruments allow the child to play, experiment

and learn. They come with a song book using a

colour method that encourages even the youngest child

to begin reading music.

HISTORY OF THE TOY PIANO

The origins of the toy piano reach back to 19th-century Germany. The first toy pianos had glass bars that were struck with small wooden hammers. Unsurprisingly the glass bars were prone to breakage, either in transit or in the hands of their less-than-delicate owners.

Albert Schoenhut, whose father and grandfather were toymakers, spent years as a young man repairing broken glass bars before designing and building his first toy piano in 1872, which replaced the glass components with steel plates. The little instrument proved to be so popular that he established a business to manufacture a variety of toy piano styles and sizes.

Toy pianos have delighted generations of families for decades. Demonstrating their popularity and durability, vintage models are avidly sought by collectors and featured at many prestigious museums and galleries throughout the world. Exhibits at Strong Museum in New York and the Nuremburg Toy Museum in Germany, and professional concerts at venues such as Carnegie Hall provide an overview of the company’s rich and interesting heritage.

The toy piano has also been used in serious classical and contemporary musical contexts. The most famous example is the "Suite for Toy Piano" (1948) by John Cage. In 1997, pianist Margaret Leng Tan released the CD "The Art of the Toy Piano". On it, she plays a number of pieces written specially for the toy piano as well as arrangements of other pieces, including Beethoven's "Moonlight Sonata" and The Beatles' "Eleanor Rigby". The toy piano has been used extensively by alternative rock and post-rock bands such as Evanescence, Radiohead, Tori Amos, and The Dresden Dolls