Piano - Wikipedia. The piano is an acoustic, stringed musical instrument, in which the strings are struck by hammers. It is played using a keyboard. Invented in about 1. Although the piano is very heavy and thus not portable and is expensive (in comparison with other widely used accompaniment instruments, such as the acoustic guitar), its musical versatility (i.
Western world's most familiar musical instruments. An acoustic piano usually has a protective wooden case surrounding the soundboard and metal strings, which are strung under great tension on a heavy metal frame. Most modern pianos have a row of 8. C Major scale (the notes C, D, E, F, G, A and B) and 3. This means that the piano can play 8. The black keys are for the . The strings are sounded when the keys are pressed or struck, and silenced by a damper when the hands are lifted off the keyboard.
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The notes can be sustained, even when the keys are released, by the use of pedals at the base of the instrument. The sustain pedal enables pianists to play musical passages that would otherwise be impossible, such as sounding a 1. Unlike two of the major keyboard instruments that were widely used before the piano, the pipe organ and the harpsichord, the weight or force with which a performer presses or strikes the keys on a piano changes the dynamics and tone of the instrument's sound. Pressing one or more keys on the piano's keyboard causes a padded hammer (typically padded with firm felt) to strike the strings.
The hammer rebounds from the strings, and the strings continue to vibrate at their resonant frequency. When the key is released, a damper stops the strings' vibration, ending the sound. Although an acoustic piano has strings, it is usually classified as a percussion instrument rather than as a stringed instrument, because the strings are struck rather than plucked (as with a harpsichord or spinet); in the Hornbostel- Sachs system of instrument classification, pianos are considered chordophones. With technological advances, amplifiedelectric pianos (1. The electric piano became a popular instrument in the 1. The word piano is a shortened form of pianoforte, the Italian term for the early 1.
The Italian musical terms piano and forte indicate . The first fortepianos in the 1. Over the 1. 80. 0s, influenced by the musical trends of the Romantic music era, many innovations were made to make grand pianos louder, and give them a stronger and more powerful tone, such as using massive cast- iron frames and adding extra aliquot stringing. History. Grand piano by Louis Bas of Villeneuve- l. Earliest French grand piano known to survive; includes an inverted wrestplank and action derived from the work of Bartolomeo Cristofori (ca.
Pipe organs have been used since Antiquity, and as such, the development of pipe organs enabled instrument builders to learn about creating keyboard mechanisms for sounding pitches. The first string instruments with struck strings were the hammered dulcimers. During the Middle Ages, there were several attempts at creating stringed keyboard instruments with struck strings.
In a clavichord, the strings are struck by tangents, while in a harpsichord, they are mechanically plucked by quills when the performer depresses the key. Centuries of work on the mechanism of the harpsichord in particular had shown instrument builders the most effective ways to construct the case, soundboard, bridge, and mechanical action for a keyboard intended to sound strings. Invention. The invention of the piano is credited to Bartolomeo Cristofori (1. Cristofori was an expert harpsichord maker, and was well acquainted with the body of knowledge on stringed keyboard instruments. He used his knowledge of harpsichord keyboard mechanisms and actions to help him to develop the first pianos.
It is not known exactly when Cristofori first built a piano. An inventory made by his employers, the Medici family, indicates the existence of a piano by the year 1. The three Cristofori pianos that survive today date from the 1. The harpsichord produced a sufficiently loud sound, especially when a coupler was used to sound both manuals of a two- manual harpsichord, but it offered no dynamic or accent- based expressive control over each note. A harpsichord could not produce a variety of dynamic levels from the same keyboard during a musical passage (although a harpischord with two manuals could be used to alternate between two different stops (settings on the harpsichord which determined which set of strings are sounded), which could include a louder stop and a quieter stop). The piano offered the best features of both instruments, combining the ability to play loudly and perform sharp accents, which enabled the piano to project more during piano concertos and play in larger venues, with dynamic control that permitted a range of dynamics, including soft, quiet playing.
The hammer must strike the string, but not remain in contact with it, because this would damp the sound and stop the string from vibrating and making sound. This means that after striking the string, the hammer must be lifted or raised off the strings. Moreover, the hammer must return to its rest position without bouncing violently, and it must return to a position in which it is ready to play almost immediately after its key is depressed so the player can repeat the same note rapidly. Cristofori's piano action was a model for the many approaches to piano actions that followed in the next century. Cristofori's early instruments were made with thin strings, and were much quieter than the modern piano, but they were much louder and with more sustain in comparison to the clavichord. One of these builders was Gottfried Silbermann, better known as an organ builder. Silbermann's pianos were virtually direct copies of Cristofori's, with one important addition: Silbermann invented the forerunner of the modern sustain pedal, which lifts all the dampers from the strings simultaneously.
This allows the pianist to sustain the notes that she has depressed even after her fingers are no longer pressing down the keys. This innovation enabled pianists to, for example, play a loud chord with both hands in the lower register of the instrument, sustain the chord with the sustain pedal, and then, with the chord continuing to sound, relocate their hands to a different register of the keyboard in preparation for a subsequent section. Silbermann showed Johann Sebastian Bach one of his early instruments in the 1.
Bach did not like the instrument it at that time, claiming that the higher notes were too soft to allow a full dynamic range. Although this earned him some animosity from Silbermann, the criticism was apparently heeded.
Bach did approve of a later instrument he saw in 1. Silbermann's pianos. Viennese- style pianos were built with wood frames, two strings per note, and leather- covered hammers. Some of these Viennese pianos had the opposite coloring of modern- day pianos; the natural keys were black and the accidental keys white.
The pianos of Mozart's day had a softer, more ethereal tone than 2. English pianos, with less sustaining power.
The term fortepiano has in modern times come to be used to distinguish these early instruments (and modern re- creations of them) from later pianos. Modern piano. In the period from about 1. Mozart- era piano underwent tremendous changes that led to the modern form of the instrument. This revolution was in response to a preference by composers and pianists for a more powerful, sustained piano sound, and made possible by the ongoing Industrial Revolution with resources such as high- quality piano wire for strings, and precision casting for the production of massive iron frames that could withstand the tremendous tension of the strings.
Over time, the tonal range of the piano was also increased from the five octaves of Mozart's day to the seven octave (or more) range found on modern pianos. John Broadwood joined with another Scot, Robert Stodart, and a Dutchman, Americus Backers, to design a piano in the harpsichord case. They achieved this in about 1. They quickly gained a reputation for the splendour and powerful tone of their instruments, with Broadwood constructing pianos that were progressively larger, louder, and more robustly constructed.
They sent pianos to both Joseph Haydn and Ludwig van Beethoven, and were the first firm to build pianos with a range of more than five octaves: five octaves and a fifth (interval) during the 1. Beethoven used the extra notes in his later works), and seven octaves by 1. The Viennese makers similarly followed these trends; however the two schools used different piano actions: Broadwoods used a more robust action, whereas Viennese instruments were more sensitive. This facilitated rapid playing of repeated notes, a musical device exploited by Liszt. When the invention became public, as revised by Henri Herz, the double escapement action gradually became standard in grand pianos, and is still incorporated into all grand pianos currently produced in the 2.
Other improvements of the mechanism included the use of firm felt hammer coverings instead of layered leather or cotton. Felt, which was first introduced by Jean- Henri Pape in 1. The sostenuto pedal (see below), invented in 1. Jean- Louis Boisselot and copied by the Steinway firm in 1. One innovation that helped create the powerful sound of the modern piano was the use of a massive, strong, cast iron frame. The single piece cast iron frame was patented in 1.
Boston by Alpheus Babcock. Babcock later worked for the Chickering & Mackays firm who patented the first full iron frame for grand pianos in 1. Composite forged metal frames were preferred by many European makers until the American system was fully adopted by the early 2.
The increased structural integrity of the iron frame allowed the use of thicker, tenser, and more numerous strings. In 1. 83. 4, the Webster & Horsfal firm of Birmingham brought out a form of piano wire made from cast steel; according to Dolge it was .