History of the Piano By Amy Nutt

Acoustic pianos have been around 500 years, giving the piano a long history of providing music. Despite numerous attempts to create an instrument that involved strings and a hammer, Bartolomeo Cristofori was the one who actually is credited with inventing the first acoustic piano.

The First Piano

Cristofori built several pianos, but not exactly a sure when the first was created. We know that the Medici family was one of the pianos in 1700, and evidence suggests it was built in 1698. These early pianos were very different from the world of modern music, but they were a real great invention for its time.

The difficulty was that the pianos with the hammer to hit the wire, and then return to their original place without rebound, but be ready to go again within a few seconds. This was finally achieved and Cristofori managed to find a way to create this effect.

The growing popularity of the Piano

Despite his hard work, Cristofori was unable to make his famous instrument. Then in 1711, a sketch of your design and distributed to more people began to build pianos. One was a man named Silbermann who added the first damper pedal to improve the sound. It was he who showed her first piano by Bach, but Bach decided that he did not like at the time and showed interest only much later, once the instrument was refined.

In the 18th century, the Viennese began building pianos. These were constructed differently, with two strings to the notes, hammers covered with leather and elegant wood frames. The keys were the colors of front today pianos, with the keys being black and the rest in regular mode. Mozart in Vienna use these pianos to compose his music in the moment. These are now called the fortepiano, to differentiate them from the modern piano.

Modernization of the Piano

As the Industrial Revolution made new technologies available, it became possible to build pianos with heavy chains, stainless steel, for greater, more powerful sound. The size is amplified, so it is possible to have seven or more octaves, compared with five or fortepiano.

Broadwood was the first company to build these more complex pianos, although Viennese piano makers quickly followed suit. It was not long however, before France became involved in the creation of more and better pianos. In 1821, Erard pianos began to manufacture what would be used by the likes of Chopin.

This is also the time when the double pilot action was invented by Sebastian Erard and incorporated into the grand piano, making it possible to hit a key element of the new hammer, but still had not returned to its place. This mechanism is used to this day in grand pianos.

Piano Modern Innovations

Using a modern piano and a metal box that allows the heavy chain of the resulting tension in the sound stronger. This has allowed the tension of the chain to a combined 20 tons, which would never have been possible in the framework of wood before pianos.

In 1826, the usual hammers covered with leather covers were replaced with felt by Henri Pape. This allowed for more uniform sound and the ability to experiment with different types of hammer.

A few years later, in 1844, Jean Louis Boisselot introduced sustain pedal made drastic improvements in sound quality of piano. Around this time, we are experimenting with methods of stringing the piano. Finally, a new method that was developed in three strings per note and a case of double standard to allow the adjustment of additional channels.

The piano has come a long way in the last 500 years. From a simple and soft that the instrument was a novelty for a strong and very popular, the piano has really come into its own.

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