Piano is a keyboard stringed instrument with a horizontal (piano) or vertical (piano) arrangement of strings.
The piano is one of the most common musical instruments in which sound is produced using hammers and strings of different thicknesses. The former strike the latter when the keys are pressed, as a result of which the instrument generates sounds of a given pitch and amplitude.
Sound production involves not only steel strings coated with copper or silver, but also a cast-iron frame and a resonant soundboard that amplify sound waves and increase their duration. So, if you press a piano key, the sound will last up to 3-4 seconds, gradually fading away as the vibrations of the string decrease.
History of the pianoforte
The percussion method began extracting music from strings as early as the 14th century in France. We are talking about the predecessors of modern pianos - harpsichords. Subsequently, this technology was applied in clavichords, but this did not save the instrument from its main drawback - a rapidly fading sound. It lasted less than a second with the same volume, which excluded the possibility of performing dynamic compositions.
The reason was the lack of resonance, but this became known only in the 17th century - after the corresponding discovery by Galileo Galilei. In the meantime, the musical masters acted intuitively, continuing to improve the classical versions of the harpsichord and clavichord.
By the beginning of the 18th century, experiments were crowned with unprecedented success, when the Italian master Bartolomeo Cristofori in 1907 presented a new type of stringed hammer instruments - gravicembalo col piano e forte, later called the "piano".
In them, the hammers were placed under the strings, and the duration and dynamics of the sound was provided by a resonator. In 1716-1721, the design of the instrument was improved by French and German craftsmen, in particular by Jean Marius and Gottlieb Schroeter. And a little later, Sebastian Erard proposed a double rehearsal mechanic that allows you to extract a long (slowly fading) sound when you quickly press a key.
If we talk about the very first piano in its modern view, it was invented in 1800 by the American master John Isaac Hawkins. In this instrument, the strings were for the first time perpendicular to the ground, due to which it became more compact and convenient.
Austrian Matthias Müller, who presented a similar design in 1801, was also involved in a similar development. In the same period, the piano, previously controlled only by keys, received two foot pedals that allow you to adjust the timbre, duration and dynamics of the sound.
The popularity of the piano began to grow rapidly from the 19th century: it became one of the main musical instruments, first in Europe and the USA, and then in other countries. In 1818, its production was opened in the Russian Empire: by the masters Tischner and Virta, and in 1828 - in Austria: by the master Ignaz Bösendorfer. The Bösendorfer piano brand of the same name still exists today, and is the oldest of the existing ones in the world.
An equally significant contribution to the production of keyboard hammer instruments was made by Steinway & Sons from the USA, whose products in the middle of the 19th century were unparalleled in quality.
Piano and electricity
The total electrification of the beginning and middle of the 20th century could not but affect the musical sphere, and already in the 20s of the last century, the first electric piano models began to appear.
In them, sound extraction took place mechanically - with the help of hammers and strings, and sound transformation - electrically: with the help of a pickup. One of the first models of such pianos was the Vivi-Tone Clavier by the American engineer Lloyd Loar, presented in 1929.
The main advantages of electromechanical tools compared to mechanical ones were their compactness and low cost. They were much better suited for touring and outdoor performances, and rapidly gained worldwide popularity until the end of the 70s of the XX century.
In the 80s, even more advanced and compact devices began to actively replace them - electronic pianos, which produced sound without the use of mechanical parts. In fact, they only imitated the sounds of strings, but they did it so identically that by the middle of the 90s, bulky grand pianos and pianos were almost completely ousted from the music scene.
Today, electronic pianos are commonly known as "synthesizers" and can produce a huge variety of sounds, from classical stringed instruments to the voices of people, birds and animals. The modern concept of "keyboard player" is primarily associated with a synthesizer, and only then with mechanical pianos and pianos, which have long ceased to be a mass phenomenon.
