As most of you know, I am 100% a piano fan. I love the way they look, feel, sound and maybe even smell ( at least when they are new ). I thought about the fact, however, that I am never looking past the piano. I never quite get back to the basics of where it all started at least as far as the lineage of the piano is concerned.
There is a very rich history in piano building that spans back to the late 1300’s into the 1400’s and I thought it would be fun to go back and look at the very beginning and see if we can (at least partially) bring it all full circle.
Although keyboard instruments as we commonly know them today have gone through many changes, the idea of a keyboard instrument was originally created in 1361. In 1361 there were essentially no flats or sharps as we know them today. Although there are physically notes on the keyboard with the 5 incidentals they had different notes in the beginning. Over the period of the next 300 – 400 years ( yes, that is an accurate number ) we have gone through a number of changes that have brought us to the “newest” scale and was finally publicly and famously endorsed by Bach in the early 1700’s. Much more about that to come in the next parts.
I will be presenting to you in the next few blogs about the history of the piano. I learned quite a bit myself and hope that you will as well. It is a little confusing as you move backward to understand the scale designs so, I have tried my best to put the information in my own words and leave out some of the less famous keyboards.
Over the period since the early 1300’s (over 700 years of history) there have been many, many versions of the piano that did not “take” and were unsuccessful for one reason or another. Some did not stay in tune for long periods of time, some were too awkward to be moved while others simply did not function correctly.
Over the next few posts I will attempt to put the most popular stringed keyboard instruments in a logical order so you can easily follow the information and pass it along to others.
Please enjoy.
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Ric Overton
