Most popular question during music class: WHO INVENTED THE PIANO?

Our kids most often wonder about three things : 1. Who Invented the PIANO? 2. How old the the PIANO? and 3. How is it made?

#1: WHO INVENTED THE PIANO?

Bartolomeo Cristofori di Francesco (May 4, 1655 – January 27, 1731) was an Italian maker of musical instruments.

#2: HOW OLD IS THE PIANO?

The piano’s ancestors are the first stringed instruments. Plucking, striking, and bowing of strings was known among all ancient civilizations; the harp is mentioned in the Book of Genesis in the Bible. The psaltery was an ancient box-type instrument with strings that were plucked with a pick. Keys were added to stringed instruments to make the family of instruments led by the harpsichord, but keys are used to pluck strings in the harpsichord, the most popular instrument of the seventeenth century. A parallel development was the dulcimer, another stringed box with strings that are struck. Keys and strings were paired in a striking instrument in the clavichord, which led directly to the invention of the pianoforte or fortepiano.

The first evidence of the piano comes from the 1700! Cristofori invented two keyboard instruments before he began his work on the piano: spinettone and oval spinet. Cristofori also built instruments of existing types, documented in the same 1700 inventory: a clavicytherium (upright harpsichord), and two harpsichords.

#3: HOW IS THE PIANO MADE?

The piano may be the best known and loved of all musical instruments. It also has the broadest range of any instrument, so music for all other instruments can be composed on it. It can be played solo, but most other instruments, including the voice, use the piano for accompaniment. Technically, the piano may also be the most complicated musical instrument with over 2,500 parts.

The piano is a stringed instrument. Its many parts are organized into five general structural and mechanical areas of either grand or vertical pianos. These are: the case of the wing-shaped grand piano (or the cabinet of the vertical or upright piano); the soundboard and the ribs and bridges that are its components; the cast iron plate; the strings; and, collectively, the keys, hammers, and piano action or mechanism. The case has many structural parts for attaching legs and tuning pins, but perhaps the rim and the keybed or shelf where the keys and piano action will be installed are most important. The soundboard amplifies the vibrations of the strings, which are transmitted through bridges.

The cast iron plate is installed over the soundboard and pinblock (part of the case), and it provides the strength to anchor the strings under tension. Nose bolts and perimeter bolts anchor the plate to the braces and inner rim of the case. The 220 to 240 strings of the piano are attached to hitch pins along the curved edge of the cast iron plate and to tuning pins across the front of the piano, roughly parallel to the keyboard. The piano action is still more complicated and includes the keys, hammers, and mechanism or action.

….more interesting  information will follow in the next NEWS post! Keep reading!