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  pianist conversation

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Surviving pianos

Cristofori’s surviving pianos

One is at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, and was made in  (1720 ) . It the oldest Cristoforse's surviving piano.                                                                       

The second one is at the Museo Strumenti Musically in Rome , it was invented in  (1722).

The third one in Musikinstrumen-Meseum of Leipzig University, Germany (made in 1726).

About the piano

                                WHAT IS  A PIANO

There are many definitions in the web that described what a Piano is. I summarized “What is a Piano” with the help of these definitions in the web as follows:-

“A Piano is a musical instrument that operates with the help of a keyboard. It is played by depressing one or more key on the keyboard which caused a hammer to strike tuned strings (inside the piano instrument) that produce a 

sound of different pitch”.

                    How the piano function 

You might have heard that certain instruments (like guitars and violins) are “string instruments” while others (like drums) are “percussion instruments.” But because of the special way a piano works, it’s actually a little bit of both! 

If you’ve ever seen the inside of a piano, then you might have noticed lots and lots of strings and a whole bunch of wedge-looking hammers that were waiting to strike each string. When a key on the keyboard of a piano is pressed down, it activates one of these little hammers so that it strikes against a string! Because the strings are stretched a certain way, each one is set to make a specific sound! 

The cool thing about the piano that made it such an awesome invention was that unlike other similar instruments that came before it (such as the harpsichord, which relied on strings that were plucked), the piano had keys that were struck, instead, and so it was able to play both soft and loud notes! In fact, that’s where its name came from – the full name was originally “pianoforte,” which means “soft-loud” in Italian!

{  How the piano works (( LINK ))  }

Sources ; { This website }

Bartolomeo Cristofori Biography

Bartolomeo Cristofori Biography

       

Bartolomeo di Francesco Cristofori invented the piano forte. One of the most popular    instruments of today. He was born in northern Italian city of Padua on May 4, 1655. He was a harpsichord maker and curator that worked for Prince Ferdinand de' Medici in Florence, Italy from 1690 until his death in 1731. During this time he began his work on the arpicembalo che fail piano e il forte, or “the harpsichord that can play quietly and loudly." This became the stepping stone on which he eventually created the first piano in about 1705 which he called the gravecembalo col piano e forte or “the clavichord with soft and loud." Eventually the name shortened to Pianoforte. He made about twenty pianos during 1709-1726.