Piano No 1: how an unloved instrument became music’s most breathtaking invention
When it comes to categorisation, the piano is an enigma. Today, the keyed instrument comes in all shapes and sizes, both electronic and acoustic, but its genesis was just as frayed. When tracing the origin of our modern instruments, most fall under a defined category. Whether tapping a piece of wood or slapping a taut hide, we’re in the realm of percussion, and if we’re plucking, strumming or fiddling, we are most likely playing a string instrument of some sort.
The complexity of the piano sets it apart from most other instruments. It’s often regarded as a string instrument, but the classical, acoustic piano can also be categorised as a percussion instrument since the keys activate hammers that strike a set of tensile strings. Complicating things further, the piano didn’t simply appear like an Adam or Eve; it resulted from an evolutionary web involving wind instruments and other strange proto-piano organisms.
Fundamentally, the first piano was born from the technological vanguard of three progenitor instruments: the clavichord, harpsichord, and dulcimer. However, if we trace these instruments back to a singular source, all roads lead to the monochord. This common ancestor was born in Greece circa 500 BC and resembled a rudimentary guitar with just one string set over a hollow wooden body.
Fast forward to the 11th century AD, and we see the first Dulcimers made in the Middle East. The mechanism by which the piano operates stems from this simpler instrument, which consists of a resonating box with strings stretched across. These strings are struck directly with a small hammer but lack the piano’s dampers and associated precision.
In 14th-century Europe, the clavichord was invented using the keyboard as seen on its ancestral organ. Unlike the organ, which made its sound by pumping air through a series of pipes, the clavichord’s keys sent a brass rod, called a tangent, to strike a collection of strings to create vibrations over five octaves.
You might now assume that the clavichord is about as close to piano-ness as one can get without being a piano. Alas, in around 1500, the harpsichord was invented in Italy and had become popular across Europe by the end of Elizabeth the First’s reign in 1603. Although the harpsichord keys plucked its strings rather than struck, it bore an uncanny resemblance to the design of the piano, and for good reason.
The first official piano was invented at the dawn of the 18th century by an Italian man named Bartolomeo Cristofori. After becoming frustrated with his harpsichord’s lack of precision and volume control, Cristofori invented a percussive mechanism to replace its plucking components or jacks, as they’re called.
He named his new innovative harpsichord the “clavicembalo col piano e forte,” which translates to English as “harpsichord that can play soft and loud noises.” This mouthful was thankfully truncated to “fortepiano” and later “piano.”
Cristofori’s remodelling of the harpsichord was just another thread in music’s evolutionary tapestry that gave birth to the upright, the grand, and, eventually, the electronic pianos with which we’re familiar today.
Where would pianos be without pianists? Watch a true master in his element below.
