"The Essay on the True Art of Playing the Piano" is a music pedagogical work by Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach. The first self-contained part was published in 1753 in Berlin, followed by the second part in 1762. Together with Quantz's "Attempt at a Method for Playing the Traverso" and Leopold Mozart's "Attempt at a Thorough Violin School," Bach's textbook is the most important source of information for historical performance practice and taste issues in the mid-18th century. The term "piano" refers not only to the modern piano but, as Bach explains in the introduction to the second part, encompasses all keyboard instruments such as the organ, the harpsichord, the fortepiano, and the clavichord. This is a reprint of the original edition from 1906.