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How the Modern Piano Was Born - A Brief History

© Jana Cole

The piano, like any musical instrument, is a kind of machine. It does the work of creating music by using the physical laws of sound. The first keyboards were relatively simple and made mostly of wood. As they developed, they utilized new technologies and materials to increase their capabilities. Starting with the earliest keyboards, let's take a quick tour of the evolution of keyboard instruments.

There are essentially four precursors to the modern piano: harpsichords, spinets and virginals, which pluck the strings (that's why they have that delicate, shimmering timbre we are all familiar with), and clavichords, which strike the strings with a metal blade. These keyboard instruments do not have the ability to vary the loudness of a note. Notes sound at a fixed loudness no matter how hard the key is pressed. They depend on articlulation, how long one holds the key down, and chord thickness, the number of notes in a chord, for dynamic variety.

By the way, while the piano is ultimately a child of the harpsichord, the harpsichord is a child of the harp. Consider that the harpsichord strings (and piano strings as well) are essentially a harp laid on its side, with a keyboard attached to one edge. No wonder harpichord builders naturally added a mechanism to pluck the strings! The addition of a keyboard probably allowed a player to play large chords more easily than one could on a harp. I imagine it was also possible to play sequences of notes faster and more easily by simply pressing successive keys on a keyboard than by carefully placing the fingers on adjacent harp strings and plucking them one by one.

I am often asked why the naturals on the modern piano keyboard are white and the sharps and flats are black. As far as I know, this is a matter of convention. During the early days of keyboard instruments, the two colors could have been either reversed (black naturals and white sharps and flats) or the same as they are today.

Bartolomeo Cristofori is credited with building the first piano, in the early 18th century. He invented the mechanism by which the string is struck with a hammer as opposed to being plucked. His instrument was called a "fortepiano," meaning "loud soft," which refers to the ability of the instrument to sound loudly or softly, depending on how hard the keys are pressed. This instrument was played by the sons of J.S. Bach, as well as Mozart and Beethoven. A fortepiano is not as loud as the modern piano, and the touch is much lighter, but what an amazing innovation it must have been to the people of its time. Imagine how delightful the hammer-struck string must have sounded to the ears of musicians and music lovers!

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