The Evolution of the Piano

The Evolution of the Piano

About the piano

Grand Piano

About Modern Pianos

Different Types of Pianos

The piano is a beautiful string instrument. It can be played for various genres such as jazz, blues, rock, classical, etc. The earliest pianos had only 4 octaves with 49 keys. Today, modern pianos have 7 octaves and 88 keys.

Today, most modern pianos have the structure of 7 octaves and 88 keys. An Octave is a set of keys - C,D,E,F,G,A,B and back to C, with sharp and flat notes in between.

Grand Pianos – A Grand Piano isn't one piano, but an umbrella of different Pianos. There are a variety of Grand Pianos from the 4 and a half food small grand, to an 8-11 foot concert grand. The strings in the Grand piano run horizontally. The lid of the piano also props open offering a great sound quality, favorable for concerts and large performances. Therefore, the larger the grand piano and longer the strings, the greater the timbre or sound quality it produces.

The beginning

Square Piano – In 1777, the Square Piano was designed in France by Sébastien Érard. Despite it's name, the square piano is actually rectangular. Christoph Zumpe and other German piano designers worked on and improved the design of the square piano in the mid-1800s. The square piano was commonly used to play salon music throughout Europe.

The creation of the piano started from the Harpsichord.

Keyboards may be smaller, depending on the purpose. Many artists use smaller keyboards for recording purposes. Some purposes may be things like recording beats, changing pitches of songs, adding easy harmonies, etc.

It is a string instrument because traditional pianos use a complete network of strings and hammers attached to the keys to produce sound. Obviously, electric piano's don't use this system.

The harpsichord is similar to the piano, but it has 2 sets of strings and keyboards. Also, rather than the the sound being produced with hammers and strings, it is a 'plectrum' of strings being plucked. Therefore, no matter how soft you press the key it produces the same sound volume. The harpsichord also has inverse colours of the piano!

The very first piano was made by a Harpsichord maker in Florence, Italy around the year 1700 by Bartolomeo di Francesco Cristofori. Cristofori named the first piano "pianoforte", meaning soft loud. This is due to the system of strings and hammers being able to produce soft and loud sounds. The physical appearance was clearly inspired by the harpsichord.

1800

Present Day

1770

Digital Pianos

Upright piano

The pianoforte

Digital Pianos – The evolution of the piano and modern technology has brought the Digital Piano. These days, classical piano has taken a backseat and electronically produced songs are how every single song is made now. Modern electric pianos are purely electronic instruments that have high-quality pre-recorded sounds. The keys are often weighted to replicate the feel of playing a traditional acoustic piano.

The pianoforte instantly became the favorite instrument for many artists because of its versatility of sounds, enabling artist to use more emotion through music versus what they can do with a harpsichord.

Upright piano – During the mid-1800's upright pianos were beginning to replace square pianos around the world. Similar to it's name, the upright piano had strings that ran vertical/perpendicular to the keyboard, virtually making them really tall.

One person that worked on the upright piano was John Isaac Hawkins. He is an English man who lived in Philadelphia. He improved the piano by bringing the strings down to floor level, decreasing the height.

Different Artists

Below are Various Artists that have utilized the Piano in various ways throughout different eras and genres of music.

Classical

Pop

Classical music is the foundation for all music. The piano was made to be played for classical music.

Pop music is always changing throughout time, but the piano is one instrument that will always be heard and utilized in many songs.

Franz Liszt

1811 - 1886

Ludwig van Beethoven

1770 - 1827

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

1756 - 1791

Ed Sheeran

Michael Jackson

Bruno Mars

Rock

1960's - 1970's

Rock piano is opposite to traditional rock, as rock piano is revolved around piano whereas traditional is around guitar

Franz Liszt - Liebestraum

Earth Song - Michael Jackson

Works Cited

Jazz

1920's

Electronic

2000's - Present Day

Queen

The Rolling Stones

The Beatles

Jazz is a very large genre with many different types. Jazz rose up during the time of slavery in America, influenced by African-American slaves. Jazz is made up of improvisation, syncopation, and usually a regular or forceful rhythm

Electronic Music is one of the genres of music where piano is more involved in the production rather than the sound itself.

• https://takelessons.com/blog/piano-evolution

• http://pianonet.com/all-about-pianos/history-of-the-piano/

• https://gizmodo.com/after-300-years-of-evolution-has-the-piano-reached-aco-1741537307

Major Lazer

Skrillex

Steve Aoki

James P. Johnson

Thomas "Fats" Waller

Earl Hines

Bohemian Rhapsody - Queen

• http://www.piano-play-it.com/history-of-jazz-piano.html

Steve Aoki - Boneless

James P. Johnson - Honeysuckle Rose

The Piano is a universal instrument and will never leave music