The History of The Piano

The story of the early history of the piano starts with ancient man.

The piano is partly a stringed instrument, and partly a keyboard instrument. That's why its history grows in two directions.

The Development of Musical Instruments from Ancient Time

The Ancient Harp (The first Stringed instrument)

Long time ago, ancient man discovered the first musical instrument while he was out hunting. First, he put a string on a forked bench, in order to create a bow.

Then he discovered that when he shot an arrow with it, he produced a tone. It was always the same tone. He then put two strings that had different lengths, onto the bench, and created the first born harp.The bench curved and is what would give the harp and later, the piano, its curved figure.

The Pan Flute (2000BC)
This was the beginning of blown instruments, like the flute.

When early man blew his blow gun, an interesting sound, completely different in nature to the strings, filled the air. 

In China, in around 2000BC, they combined a few pipes together and created the first pan-flute, which would later inspire a Greek engineer,

Ctesibius to try to produce more than just one note from each pipe. He created the first keyboard instrument called the hydraulis.

The Hydraulis (250BC)
The hydraulis was the oldest ancestor of the modern day church organ. It utilized an air compression mechanism that was powered by water (hudor, in Greek). Like modern pipe organs of today, each pipe of the hydraulis was tuned to a specific tone, or 'note'. 

The Monochord (6th Century BC)

In the area of stringed instruments, though, an interesting development had occurred way before that of the hydraulis. In the 6th century BC, an instrument called the monochord was used to measure intervals or musical distances. The novelty was that a single string was now stretched over a shallow sound box. A movable bridge could change the tone and volume in different positions. The idea of the sound box would take a stand in the development of the piano.

The Psaltery (2800 BC)

But before we go on let's get to know the dulcimer...

The Psaltery of Ancient Greece (Epigonion) dates from at least 2800 BC. However it was popular in the 14th and 15th centuries. Like the monochord, it too had a shallow sound box, but a few strings were attached to it and were plucked with the fingers or with plectra. A bowed version came later. This would lead us eventually to the harpsichord, which was also plucked.

The Dulcimer (800BC)

The dulcimer, an ancient Iranian instrument which was dated even before Christ, looked just like the psaltery, but instead of being plucked it was struck with little wooden hammers! The wooden hammers were used to hit the strings and make them vibrate, just like hammers do on piano strings today.

The Keyed Monochord (1157 AD)

Around the middle of the twelfth century (1157), you could already see an instrument called a Keyed Monochord. Through time, a few more strings were added to it and the "tangents" which were fitted at the back of each key could produce a few notes together when they created contact with the key. Eventually, it evolved into the form of the clavichord. The part of the string that didn't vibrate had a mute, so that when the tangent left the key, it was possible to damp the sound.

The Clavichord (1400AD)

The Clavichord is the simplest and usually the smallest of all string-keyboard instruments. Initially, it had ten strings or so, and each string could produce two different notes because it had two tangents at different points. Later on, each string had just one tangent. In order to damp the sound they used a strip of felt or cloth.

Steel appeared only toward the middle of the 14th century although at first it was used for the strings. Instead, they used gold, silver, brass, gut and horsehair. Today, nylon is also used. It was only in 1835 that the use of steel for strings became more definite.

The Church Organ (Starting from the 8 Century AD)

If we go back to the first few centuries AD, we discover that much has happened in the organ world. During the time of the Greeks and of the Roman Empire, the hydraulis consisted only of seven basic key notes (A, B, C, D, E, F, and G). However, after the hydraulis was introduced to the western Catholic Church during the eight century AD, it would slowly evolve into a musical instrument with an entirely different appearance and an updated piano key layout.

The Church Organ was the first keyboard instrumentto use all twelve piano key notes (A, A#, B, C, C#, D, D#, E, F, F#, G, and G#), because the basic musical system was then fully defined. The weight of the keys has changed enormously. Organ players were originally called "organ beaters". Imagine that!

The arrangement as we know it today was first seen in paintings of a plucked Harpsichord, in 1361.

The Harpsichord (1420AD)

The harpsichord probably originated in Italy in around 1420. Its strings are plucked from a keyboard which sits on a table or stand while being played. They have been made in varying shapes and sizes over the years. They were called Virginals in Elizabethan England, a term today reserved for harpsichords whose strings are parallel to the keyboard. Some harpsichords had strings that were plucked with a quill like the psaltery, some with metal plectra, and at least one had strings that were struck with a metal staple, in the manner of the dulcimer.

The Spinet (1682AD)

The spinet followed the clavichord, and then came the more elaborate harpsichord. It might have been named after the Italian inventor, Giovanni Spinnete, or from its connection to the spine thorns which were used to pluck the strings. In 1682, Henry Purcell was the organist of the Chapel Royal in London. Back then, the spinet was more popular then the virginal in the UK, because of its large compass and its powerful tone. That's what Purcell used to compose some of his music.

Being a member of the harpsichord family, the strings of the spinet were plucked by plectra attached to jacks. In terms of shape, the spinet provides the link between the box-like virginal and the elegant harpsichord proper.That is more or less the end of early piano history. In the early 1900s, the piano was invented.

Bartolomeo Cristofori (di Francesco) of Padua is the one who invented the piano

1709 is a major year in piano history, for it is believed to be the year the "pianoforte" was probably invented. In an article about the "gravicembali col piano e forte", or harpsichords with soft and loud, created by Cristofori, a writer called Scipione Maffei wrote: "Everyone who enjoys music knows that one of the principle sources from which those skilled in this art derive the secret of especially delighting their listeners is the alternation of soft and loud." Bartolomeo Christofori Invented the First Piano

The idea of the piano appeared when Bartolomeo Christofori succeeded on fitting a keyboard to a string instrument. He did that by setting hammers that stroke the string and let it vibrate. Until then the clavichord was a popular happened around 1709.

The Square Piano

The oldest surviving pianos made by Zumpe date from the 1760s. Zumpe created compact instruments with plain casework and a simplified action that allowed for easy production and low cost. They quickly became fashionable and this demand led other instrument makers to follow. The instruments started to gain complexity with the introduction of hand stops, knee levers, swell pedals, as well as more decorative casework.

John Broadwood has made his first square in 1771. He advanced the square piano with more sophisticated actions, dampers and the replacement of hand stops with pedals. The size of the instruments began to grow to accommodate a greater range of notes. Out of desire for greater volume the thickness of the stringing increased bringing much higher tension to the pianos.
metal hitch plates were introduced to alleviate the strain, followed by full metal frames. Because of its handy size the square piano became more popular then the than wing-shaped horizontal rival, first named "grand" in 1777.

The Pyramid Piano (1745)

In the Pyramid Piano the strings slanted upward from left to right, and the case above the keyboard took the form of a tall isosceles triangle.

Upright Grand (1785)

This piano was a grand stood on end, fitted with cupboard doors and bookshelves. It had some good years until the 1820's.. Early upright grand pianos had the strings rising straight up from the keyboard. From the end of the 18th century, however, manufacturers started to bring the whole broad end of the grand almost down to the ground. In some instances, as in the case of certain giraffe pianos, the strings ran obliquely rather than vertically.The upright piano became very popular until it took the place of the square piano in the history of the piano.

The Giraffe Piano (1798)

The giraffe piano was invented in Vienna and first appeared around 1798. It was mechanically like a grand piano, but the strings ran vertically up from the keyboard rather than horizontally away from it, making it a very tall instrument. These were uncommon.

The Cabinet (1807)

The Cabinet was called so because it was common to place shelves in the upper case of its case to the right of the strings. It was tall and rectangular. These instruments were so tall because the lower end of the strings, which ran nearly vertically, was about at the level of the keyboard.

The Cottage Piano (1828)

Robert Wornum has made The Cottage piano in order to create a smaller upright piano. This was not his lowest instrument. 

Interesting new developments in the 19th Century

In the middle of that century American Makers like Chickering and Steinways have made their contribution to the development of the piano. Here are some of the developments the occurred at that time.

In 1843 Chickering has made a concert grand piano with a cast iron frame and Steinways took a step further in developing the grand piano. 

Three strings were used for each note instead two for all but the lower notes.

Jean-Henri Pape, a Parisian maker came up with the idea to use felt hammers in 1826. The felt hammers were softer and kept to string in tune. The sustain pedal was invented in 1844 by Jean Louis Boisselot and improved by Steinways in 1874. 

Over-stringing was invented by Jean-Henri Pape during the 1820s, and first applied to the grand by Henry Steinway Jr. in 1859. After a few developments the treble and tenor strings were placed in parallel to the outer case of the instrument and the bass strings crossed them from the front left to rear right of a grand. In 1872, Theodore Steinway, permitted the parts of the string near its ends, instead of damping it with a cloth. The string vibrated freely, increased resonance and made the sound richer. That development is called duplex scaling. You can say the grand piano and upright were matured instrument by 1870.In the next half century a few changes occurred but they focused more on small details in the grand casework. Square pianos were completely replaced by the upright pianos.

 

At the turn of the century, just when the piano had achieved prominence as the primary source of home entertainment, the movies and the phonograph appeared. The player piano, could "automated" what many piano owners couldn't play.

The Player Piano

In 1863, Henri Fourneaux invented the player piano, which "plays itself" from a piano roll without the need for a pianist. The player piano is a piano that records a performance using rolls of paper with perforations, and then replays the performance using pneumatic devices. The Aeolian Corporation in the USA acquired the rights and marketed the player piano system from 1897 as the Pianola.

The Miniature Upright

In the 1930s, piano makers introduced the miniature upright. This led to a renewed public interest. The miniature upright was very handy but it was lacking the full and rich tone that was produces by a bigger sound box. Ths has later improved and the piano has reached unprecedented standards of quality through significant technical and cosmetic changes brought on by new materials, processes, techniques and innovative genius.

Today, piano is not as popular as it was in its good days. However in the last fifteen years people grew more interest in it as an opportunity to entertain themselves and use their free time in a creative way. The piano is a very expressive instrument which cannot be compared by any other keyboard instrument.

Acknowledgment : www.piano-play-it.com,Proof Reader - Ashwati Franklin