Week Two - Thinking about Instruments

 The Evolution of the Piano

“The piano did not have even a marginally successful steel frame until about 1820’s,” according to Bonnie C. Wade’s Thinking Musically. It is somewhat difficult to think that one of the most popular instruments in Western culture at one time was not an important fixture of many households.  The piano came to be popular over hundreds of years and through the hard work of numerous builders and related instruments. In the Sachs-Hornbostel system, pianos fall under the category of chordophones, which are instruments that produce sound by hitting a sting and causing vibration. Pianos originated from similar chordophone instruments, such as the clavichord and the harpsichord, to create the pianos that are known today. Pianos have evolved over hundreds of years, improving the quality and sound. 

The evolution of the piano was extremely immense and happened over hundreds of years throughout Europe.  The first known descendant of the piano is the clavichord, which flourished from the 13th to 19th centuries.  The sound it creates is very different from the sound people know to come from modern pianos. The clavichord creates an almost high buzzing pitch when the strings are hit.  If the strings are hit properly, it can produce a vibrato like tone.  However, the keyboard is much smaller than the modern day piano.  The physical appearance of the clavichord is ostentatious, fitting for the times that it was most popular.  The lid and the rectangular body of the instrument is very colorful and there are engravings on the wood depicting stories and tales.  The people that would own these instruments were usually wealthy and could afford to have their clavichords ornately decorated.  The virginal and spinet are very similar to the clavichord in this way; they are both decorated elaborately, but have slightly different shapes.  These two are part of the harpsichord family, which is more advanced than the clavichord.  For example, the harpsichord has two or more sets of strings allowing for different tonal qualities, yet the clavichord does not.  The harpsichord first appeared in Italy around the 16th century.  It became so popular throughout Europe that the English, Germans, French, and Flemish started developing their own versions of the harpsichord.  The era that used the harpsichord the most was the Baroque period. The composers Bach and Handel embraced it with a passion.

However, in the mid 18th century, the harpsichord was starting to compete with the piano-forte.  The piano-forte took the world by storm when it came out, because it was able to change dynamics based on how hard the key was pressed, and no other chordophone had ever been able to do that before.  There were many different components to this piano, such as new hammer mechanisms, an overhead damper system, and a new support system was created for the new types of strings that were being used.  

The piano-forte amazed the musical world, so an attempt was made to create an upright piano-forte that was more affordable. This instrument was very similar to the upright piano that is known today.  This new version of the piano-forte was called a “cottage piano” because it was much smaller, more affordable, and more available to people.  In the 19th and 20th centuries, these pianos were mostly found in the home rather than on the stage.

Square Grand Pianos were popular during the Victorian era. They were found on the stage and in wealthy, high class homes.  Square Grand Pianos were popular for a very long time, however, not many exist anymore. People believed that they were too large and cost too much, so many of them were destroyed or used for fire wood.  However, in their prime, they were beautiful and elaborate. Here is a video of a Square Grand Piano restoration project:

The modern grand piano was created in the late 1800’s. It has a full 88 keys, and is more durable and stable than the pianos before it. The strings on the piano are thicker to create a fuller, richer sound. It is one of the most used and versatile instruments in the world today.

While the construction of the piano is important to the music, the compositions are equally important. “Prior to [Johann Sebastian] Bach and his contemporaries, music created for keyboard instruments (harpsichord, clavichord and organ) often does not work very well when played on the modern piano” (“Great Classical Pianist"). Nowadays, many composers write music specifically for piano. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the grand piano was the main source of entertainment. For entertainment, high class people would hire pianists to play for an evening. Oftentimes, pianists would play four hand pieces that were originally composed for full orchestras.

The modern changes to the piano have brought new techniques of playing. For example, Beethoven’s original markings on his famous “Sonata Quasi una Fantasia,” or more commonly known as “Moonlight Sonata,” read, “This entire piece must be played very delicately and without dampers” (qtd in. Palmer). Modern pianists play this piece by using the damper pedal, yet when the piece was composed, “…the dampers were lifted by a knee lever rather than by a pedal” (Palmer). Here is a recording of Ukrainian-American pianist Valentina Lisitsa playing the first movement of Moonlight Sonata on a modern grand piano.

As time passes, the ways in which people compose and play music on keyboards will change just as they have in the past. Currently, new forms of keyboards are being introduced, such as electronic keyboards. Electronic keyboards can be come in many different shapes and forms, keyboards that attempt to emulate a real piano with weighted, 88 keys, to MIDI controllers with 49 keys. Every time a new piano is created in the past, it increases in tonal quality, in the number of keys, and new mechanisms to contribute to the new sound. Who knows what keyboards will look like 200 years from now?  

Sources
"A Brief History Of The Piano - Sono Music." Sono Music RSS. N.p., 02 Sept. 2014. Web. 20 Sept. 2015. 
Encyclopedia Britannica Online. Encyclopedia Britannica, n.d. Web. 20 Sept. 2015. 
"Great Classical Pianist Composers." Great Classical Pianist Composers. Forte-Piano-Pianissimo, n.d. Web. 19 Sept. 2015.
Palmer, William A., Morton Manus, and Amanda Vick Lethco. Alfred's Basic Piano Recital 6. N.p.: n.p., n.d. Print.
Wade, Bonnie C. Thinking Musically: Experiencing Music, Expressing Culture. New York: Oxford UP, 2004. Print. 

 
Work Done:
Sierra Marsh wrote the portions on the history of the piano.
Logan Kropp wrote the introduction, conclusion, and the composition section. He also created the blog.