H

The Piano
Prepared By: Maria Darbinian
Prepared For: Professor Daniel Moser
Introduction to Humanities
DeVry University Online

In the 1700’s the piano was invented by Bartolomeo Cristofori in Florence, Italy first introduced to the world as the "pianoforte" meaning “Soft loud”. “In the last quarter of the 18th century the piano had become the leading instrument of the western art of music that still lives on till today as an exotic instrument played by talented people in the world.” (Wendy Powers, 2003) Music has lived on from the beginning of time by all cultures and races for decades. Music is known to make the heart, soul, and brain one. Without this invention Beethoven would have not made the music that lives on
People have talents and a musical part in their life because of the invention that was lead down for decades starting from Beethoven.

Pianos have improved from the 1700s of course from sound, shape and functionality since Bartolomeo Cristofori’s invention but he was the Italian that brought a different sound of music into our world. We went from having 88 keys on the piano 36 black and 52 white to high performance grand pianos with 92 keys as of today. From 1790 to the mid-1800s, piano technology and sound was greatly improved due to the inventions of the Industrial Revolution, such as the new high quality steel called piano wire, and the ability to precisely cast iron frames. The tonal range of the piano increased from the five octaves of the pianoforte to the seven and more octaves found on modern pianos. Around 1780, the upright piano was created by Johann Schmidt of Salzburg, Austria and later improved in 1802 by Thomas Loud of London whose upright piano had strings that ran diagonally. In 1881, an early patent for a piano player was issued to John McTammany of Cambridge, Mass. John McTammany described his invention as a "mechanical musical instrument." It worked using narrow sheets of perforated flexible paper which triggered the notes. A later automatic piano player was the Angelus patented by Edward H. Leveaux of England