What is the history of the piano?

Answer 1

The first real piano was made around the year 1700. The man who made it lived in Florence, Italy. His name was Bartolomeo Cristofori, and he was a harpsichord (an instrument played using a keyboard that plucked a string when the key was pressed) maker. He then tried to make a harpsichord that when you press a key, instead of the key being plucked, it would be hammered. This hammering action let the player be able to control the sound of each note by the force with which the player pressed the key. This gave the player the ability to change the mood of the song by playing loudly and softly. Cristofori gave his invention more strings and named it 'gravicembalo coi piano e forte' which meant 'harpsichord with soft and loud'. It was later shortened to piano forte, then to piano. Christifori's invention did not catch the public imagination, and he soon went back to making harpsichords. The first pedals were invented in 1725 and in modern day times, pianos usually have two or three pedals. Now, a piano with two pedals would be that the one on the right made the sound last longer, and the pedal on the left made it softer, and if there is one in the middle, it is usually used as a mute. In 1732, Joseph Haydn became the first to use pedals in one of his compositions. In 1777, John Broadwood, Robert Stodart and Americus Backers made the designs for the first grand piano. Both Mozart and Beethoven made music specifically for the piano that demanded the best out of the piano and the player, and Beethoven's pieces were known to have such force that the keys and strings were liable to go flying. Soon pianists demanded more from their instruments and manufacturers built larger and heavier frames to support the higher string tension that was desired. By 1880, the piano had developed into the instrument we know today. It could sense the force of the finger as it hit the key to give a louder or softer sound, but it was less accurate than the real piano. ray Charles, the blind musician was born in 1930 and lost his sight at age seven due to glaucoma. His interest in music started in 1940, and although he was blind, he became a fantastic pianist. In 1984, the digital piano was invented, which was a piano which produced all of its sounds electronically. Today's piano sound is different than that of the past because of our new technology. We now use different strings and different kinds of hammers. A typical modern piano has eighty-eight keys, but some have a few octaves more, or a few octaves less.
Harpsichord was the main instrument in the late 1600's-1700's. (When you pressed down on a key, a feather would pluck a string inside the instrument, making a very cool sound.) Piano was invented in the late 1700's, but not many people liked playing it (it was called the pianoforte). Finally, in Beethoven's era (in about 1820), the piano became really popular, causing many new bouts of change with composers, including the use of pedal and romantic melodies.