Piano: History, Fun Facts, and Benefits of Learning
First invented by Bartolomeo Cristofori, Italy in the seventeenth century, the piano has made a huge contribution to classical and modern music.
The piano is a keyboard-stringed instrument that is commonly used in music today. Most people assume the piano has always been the way it is today. But the reality is that it has seen many innovations and improvements since its invention in the 1700s. Anthropological progression spanning over hundreds of years has led to the creation of the modern piano.
While this instrument is widely known as piano, it is formally called “pianoforte.” The word “pianoforte” means soft high sound.” The primary goal of the first piano was to produce a soft and high tone.
History of the Piano
The history of the modern piano is deeply rooted in instruments that existed before the industrial revolution. These include chekker, clavichord, dulce melos, virginal, spinet, and harpsichord from the 14th and 15th centuries.
The credit for the development of the modern piano goes to Bartolomeo Cristofori from Padua, Italy. As an employee of Ferdinando de’ Medici, Grand Prince of Tuscany, Cristofori was a renowned harpsichord manufacturer. Ferdinando created the first piano between 1650 and 1700. The exact date of the piano’s invention is not known.
The early piano’s keyboard arrangement was different than that of the modern piano; the accidental keys were white, whereas the natural keys were black. On the suggestion of Sebastian LeBlanc, the key colors were swapped. Meanwhile, there are only three pianos made by Cristofori that exist to date.
At the time of Cristofori’s creation of the piano, harpsichord and the clavichord were the standard keyboard instruments. Cristofori took inspiration from these instruments to design the modern piano. The main area where the piano differs from these instruments is how the sounds are generated.
The harpsichord came with a significant shortcoming; the softness and loudness of its note were not controllable. As a result, composers were not able to induce an element of the required emotion in the music. On the other hand, the clavichord overcame this limitation by providing the players more control over the softness and loudness of the sound.
While the clavichord outshined the harpsichord, it had the disadvantage of having an incredibly soft tone. Playing the clavichord in a large hall would lead other instruments to outperform its sound.
These shortcomings led to the invention of the piano, which overcame the lack of control of the clavichord and flexibility of volume of the clavichord. Cristofori solved these mechanical problems by designing the piano in a way that the hammer must hit the key but withdraw contact immediately afterward. This design also allowed the hammer to go back to its original position without springing intensely. As such, the instrument allowed the players to repeat a note quickly.
Even years after the creation of the piano, most people called it harpsichord. While this affected the history of the piano, the new instrument came to be known as pianoforte in 1732. Pianoforte was later shortened to the piano. Another surprising fact is that Cristofori’s piano mostly remained anonymous until 1711 when an Italian writer Scipione Maffei wrote an article about the new instrument and how it worked.
After the first piano came to the limelight, many people started building the piano based on Cristofori’s blueprint for the instrument. Some people even added new functions to the piano. For example, Gottfried Silbermann added to the piano the forerunner of the damper pedal that exists in the modern pianos.
The eighteenth-century saw a revolution in the development of the piano and romanticism in arts during the mid 18th century shot the piano to the peak of popularity. Many piano manufacturers like Broadwood, Stein, Nannette Streicher, and Anton Walter appeared on the scene. They introduced different versions of the piano with distinctive features. Some examples include English pianos, Austrian pianos, and Viennese pianos.
The Americans contributed to the piano’s history by making it affordable and accessible to most people. New assembly-line manufacturing methods and standardizations in the parts of the instrument significantly cut the cost of piano production. As the 20th century approached, the piano was available to almost all households.
Piano Fun Facts
This keyboard-stringed instrument is commonly used in music today. Photo: © Copyright Steinway & Sons
The piano is made of more than 12,000 parts. It is a huge number and requires every tiny part to work flawlessly to produce the required sound.
For the piano to generate its entire sound range, it requires 230 strings.
One of the most expensive pianos in the world is the Galaxy Piano made in the United Arab Emirates. It is made of twenty-four carats of gold plated body.
The most expensive piano made till date is the Crystal Piano that was sold for $3.22 million.
Cristofori built many pianos, but only three of them have survived to date.
While the piano has more than 200 strings, it is rarely called a stringed instrument because the hammers striking the strings produce the sounds.
Adrian Mann of New Zealand produced the world’s largest piano, weighing 1.4 tones and measuring 5.7 meters. He was 25 years old when he completed his project of creating the largest piano in the world.
The United States has 18 million amateur piano players.
Why Choose to take Piano lessons?
The benefits of playing the piano are highly recognized. While creative expression, fun, and joy are incomplete without the piano, here are some little known but essential reasons why you should pick the piano:
Piano lessons help children cope with stress, besides boosting their self-esteem.
Playing the piano improves motor skills for children and aged people, besides enhancing hand-eye coordination.
Learning to play the piano decreases stress and anxiety, normalizes the heartbeat, and reduces blood pressure, according to a study.
Learning to play the piano improves cognitive ability and academic performance, according to another study. Practicing the piano increases spatial-temporal abilities, which is key to being sharp in science, math, and engineering.
Children who undergo piano training score higher on vocabulary tests and standard and spatial cognitive development tests, according to a study conducted by psychologist Dr. Frances Rauscher and physicist Gordon Shaw.
People who spend time at the keyboard experience lower anxiety and are less likely to have depression. The piano helps relieve stress and boost self-esteem.
Piano lessons improve the attention of children, which can help them academically and make their minds more creative and analytical.
For your children to gain these benefits, they need more than just the perfect piano. They need an excellent music teacher who can train them to play the piano and an environment that can boost their self-esteem and allow them to express themselves through music.
If you are looking for a music lesson for your little one, send us a message, and we will walk you through the registration process.
Learn more about piano lessons at Stage Music Center, Winchester, MA.
Read about other interesting music subjects on our blog:
Benefits of playing in recitals
Importance of Introduction to Music at an Early Stage: Little Mozart