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Keyboard Instrument

Keyboard instrument

A keyboard instrument is any musical instrument played using a musical keyboard. The most important of these is the piano, which is used in nearly all forms of western music. Other widespread keyboard instruments include the organ and various kinds of electromechanical and electronic instruments.

History

Among the earliest keyboard instruments are the organ, the clavichord, and the harpsichord. The organ is doubtless the oldest of these, appearing in the 3rd century BC, although this early instrument--called hydraulis--did not use a keyboard in the modern sense. From its invention until the 14th century, the organ remained the only keyboard instrument. Often, the organ didn't feature a keyboard at all, rather buttons or large levers which were operated by a whole hand. Almost every keyboard until the 15th century had 7 naturals to each octave. The clavichord and the harpsichord appeared during the 14th century, the clavichord probably being the earliest. During their development, a B-flat key was added to the keyboard in order to remedy the tritone between F and B, and the other semitones were added later. The harpsichord and the clavichord were both very common until the widespread adoption of the piano in the 18th century, after which their popularity decreased. The player of the piano can vary the volume (or dyanmics) of the sound the piano makes by varying the vigor with which each key is struck. In contrast, with the harpsichord and organ changes registration are required to change volume. The piano was once called the piano-forte, which means "soft and loud" in Italian. Early electromechanical instruments, such as the ondes Martenot, predecessor of the synthesizer, appeared in the early 20th century.

Other important keyboard instruments

Free reeds

- Accordion
- Concertina
- Melodeon
- Harmonium

Electromechanical instruments

- Hammond organ
- Rhodes piano also known as a Fender-Rhodes piano
- Clavinet
- Electric piano

Percussion instruments

- Carillon

Electronic

The earliest fully electronic keyboard instruments were electronic organs that used oscillators and frequency dividers, together with a network of filters, to produce waveforms. Subsequently there were analog synthesizers, most notably the Moog. In time, digital synthesis using wavetables became common, resulting in the first electronic stage pianos and consumer-grade electronic pianos. The first sampler was the Mellotron, which used magnetic tape to record the samples. It was expensive and unreliable and few were produced. Electronic samplers became common later, allowing players to record sounds and play them back at various pitches. Some MIDI keyboards, called "MIDI controllers" since they produce no sound themselves, have also been manufactured and are used to control synthesizers that themselves do not have keyboards. The keytar was a wearable MIDI controller shaped somewhat like a guitar. Recent electronic keyboard development has focused on digital imitation of other instruments, and to a lesser extent continued innovation in analog sythesis. The clonewheel organ is an imitation of the Hammond Organ.

Unusual and novelty instruments

- Celesta (struck metal plaques)
- Glasschord
- Toy piano
- Tangent Piano — also known as "Tangentenflügel"
- Viola organista — invented by Leonardo da Vinci, it uses a moving bow to sound the strings
- Pianet
- Ondes Martenot
- Chamberlin Category:Musical instruments ko:건반 악기 ja:鍵盤楽器

Piano

This article is about the modern musical instrument. For other meanings, see piano (disambiguation). piano (disambiguation) A piano is a keyboard instrument widely used in western music for accompaniment, composition, solo performance, and as a rehearsal aid. It produces sound by striking metal strings with felt hammers. The vibrations are transmitted to a soundboard by a bridge. The word piano is a short form of the word "pianoforte", which is in turn derived from the original Italian name for the instrument, clavicembalo col piano e forte. Literally harpsichord with soft and loud, this refers to the ability of the piano to produce notes at different volumes depending on how hard its keys are pressed. The name "pianoforte" is considered a formal term and is seldom used. As a keyboard stringed instrument, the piano is similar to the clavichord and harpsichord. The three instruments differ in the mechanism of sound production. In a harpsichord, strings are plucked by quills or similar material. In the clavichord, strings are struck by tangents which remain in contact with the string. In a piano, the strings are struck by hammers which immediately rebound, leaving the string to vibrate freely.

Early history

Bartolomeo Cristofori of Florence, Italy, invented the first pianoforte. He called it a gravicembelo col piano e forte. When he built this instrument is not entirely clear, but an inventory made by Cristofori's employers, the Medici family, indicates the existence of an early Cristofori instrument by the year 1700. Cristofori built only about twenty pianofortes before he died in 1731; the three that survive today date from the 1720s. Like many other inventions, the pianoforte was founded on earlier technological innovations. In particular, it benefited from centuries of work on the harpsichord, which had shown the most effective ways to construct the case, the soundboard, the bridge, and the keyboard. Cristofori was himself a harpsichord maker and well acquainted with this body of knowledge. Cristofori's great success was to solve, without any prior example, the fundamental mechanical problem of piano design: the hammers must strike the string but not continue to touch it once they have struck (which would damp the sound). Moreover, the hammers must return to their rest position without bouncing violently, and it must be possible to repeat a note rapidly. Cristofori's piano action served as a model for the many different approaches to piano actions that were to follow. Cristofori's early instruments were made with thin strings and were much quieter than the modern piano. However, in comparison with the clavichord (the only previous keyboard instrument capable of dynamic nuance) they were considerably louder, with greater sustain. Cristofori's new instrument remained relatively unknown until an Italian writer, Scipione Maffei, wrote an enthusiastic article about it (1711), including a diagram of the mechanism. This article was widely distributed, and most of the next generation of piano builders started their work as a result of reading it. One of these builders was Gottfried Silbermann, better known as an organ builder. Silbermann's pianos were virtually direct copies of Cristofori's, but with an important exception: Silbermann invented the forerunner of the modern damper pedal (also known as the sustaining pedal or loud pedal), which permits the dampers to be lifted from all the strings at once. Virtually all subsequent pianos incorporated some version of Silbermann's idea. Silbermann showed Bach one of his early instruments in the 1730s. Bach did not like it at that time, claiming that the higher notes were too soft to allow a full dynamic range. Though this earned him some animosity from Silbermann, the latter did apparently heed the criticism. Bach did approve of a later instrument he saw in 1747, and apparently even served as an agent to help sell Silbermann's pianos. Piano-making flourished during the late 18th century in the work of the Viennese school, which included Johann Andreas Stein (who worked in Augsburg, Germany) and the Viennese makers Nannette Stein (daughter of Johann Andreas) and Anton Walter. The Viennese-style pianos were built with wooden frames, two strings per note, and had leather-covered hammers. It was for such instruments that Mozart composed his concertos and sonatas, and replicas of them are built today for use in authentic-instrument performance. The piano of Mozart's day had a softer, clearer tone than today's pianos, with less sustaining power. The term fortepiano is nowadays often used to distinguish the 18th-century style of instrument from later pianos. For further information on the earlier part of piano history, see fortepiano.

Development of the modern piano

In the lengthy period lasting from about 1790 to 1890, the Mozart-era piano underwent tremendous changes which ultimately led to the modern form of the instrument. This evolution was in response to a consistent preference by composers and pianists for a more powerful, sustained piano sound. It was also a response to the ongoing Industrial Revolution, which made available technological resources like high-quality steel for strings (see piano wire) and precision casting for the production of iron frames. Over time, piano playing became a more strenuous and muscle-taxing activity, as the force needed to depress the keys, as well as the length of key travel, was increased. The tonal range of the piano was also increased, from the five octaves of Mozart's day to the 7 1/3 (or even more) octaves found on modern pianos. In the first part of this era, technological progress owed much to the English firm of Broadwood, which already had a strong reputation for the splendour and powerful tone of its harpsichords. Over time, the Broadwood instruments grew progressively larger, louder, and more robustly constructed. The Broadwood firm, which sent pianos to both Haydn and Beethoven, was the first to build pianos with a range of more than five octaves: five octaves and a fifth during the 1790s, six by 1810 (in time for Beethoven to use the extra notes in his later works), and seven by 1820. The Viennese makers followed these trends. The two schools, however, used different piano actions: the Broadwood one more robust, the Viennese more sensitive. By the 1820s, the centre of innovation had shifted to the Érard firm of Paris, which built pianos used by Chopin and Liszt. In 1821, Sébastien Érard invented the double escapement action, which permitted a note to be repeated even if the key had not yet risen to its maximum vertical position, a great benefit for rapid playing. As revised by Henri Herz about 1840, the double escapement action ultimately became the standard action for grand pianos, used by all manufacturers. Some other important technical innovations of this era include the following:
- use of three strings rather than two for all but the lower notes
- the iron frame. The iron frame, also called the "plate", sits atop the soundboard, and serves as the primary bulwark against the force of string tension. The iron frame was the ultimate solution to the problem of structural integrity as the strings were gradually made thicker, tenser, and more numerous (in a modern grand the total string tension can approach 20 tons). The iron frame was invented in 1825 in Boston by Alpheus Babcock, culminating an earlier trend to use ever more iron parts to reinforce the piano. Babcock later worked for the Chickering firm, where the first iron frame in grand pianos (1840) was developed.
- felt hammers. The harder, tauter steel strings required a softer hammer type to maintain good tone quality. Hammers covered with compressed felt were introduced by the Parisian maker Jean-Henri Pape in 1826, and are now universally used.
- the sostenuto pedal (see below), invented in 1844 by Jean Louis Boisselot and improved by the Steinway firm in 1874.
- the overstrung scale, also called "cross-stringing". This is a special arrangement of strings within the case: the strings are placed in a vertically overlapping slanted arrangement, with two heights of bridges on the soundboard instead of just one. The purpose of the overstrung scale is to permit larger, but not necessarily longer, strings to fit within the case of the piano. Overstringing was invented by Jean-Henri Pape during the 1820s, and first patented for use in grand pianos in the United States by Henry Steinway Jr. in 1859. 1859
- duplex scaling, invented by Theodore Steinway in 1872, permits the parts of the string near its ends, which otherwise would be damped with cloth, to vibrate freely, thus increasing resonance and adding to the richness of the sound. Aliquot stringing, which serves a similar purpose in Blüthner pianos, was invented by Julius Blüthner in 1873. The modern concert grand achieved essentially its present form around the beginning of the 20th century, and progress since then has been only incremental. For some recent developments, see Innovations in the piano. Some early pianos had shapes and designs that are no longer in use. The once-popular square piano was an inexpensive design that had the strings and frame on a horizontal plane, but running across the length of the keyboard rather than away from it. It was similar to the upright piano in its mechanism. Square pianos were produced through the early 20th century; the tone they produced is widely considered to be inferior. Most had a wood frame, though later designs incorporated increasing amounts of iron. The giraffe piano, by contrast, was mechanically like a grand piano, but the strings ran vertically up from the keyboard rather than horizontally away from it, making it a very tall instrument. These were uncommon.

History and musical performance

The huge changes in the evolution of the piano have somewhat vexing consequences for musical performance. The problem is that much of the most widely admired music for piano—for example, that of Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven was composed for a type of instrument that is rather different from the modern instruments on which this music is normally performed today. Even the music of the early Romantics, such as Chopin and Schumann, was written for pianos substantially different from ours. One view that is sometimes taken is that these composers were dissatisfied with their pianos, and in fact were writing visionary "music of the future" with a more robust sound in mind. This view is perhaps more plausible in the case of Beethoven, who composed at the beginning of the era of piano growth, than it is in the case of Haydn or Mozart. Others have noted that the music itself often seems to require the resources of the early piano. For example, Beethoven sometimes wrote long passages in which he directs the player to keep the damper pedal down throughout (a famous example occurs in the last movement of the "Waldstein" sonata, Op. 53). These come out rather blurred on a modern piano if played as written but work well on (restored or replicated) pianos of Beethoven's day. Similarly, the classical composers sometimes would write passages in which a lower violin line accompanies a higher piano line in parallel; this was a reasonable thing to do at a time when piano tone was more penetrating than violin tone; today it is the reverse. Current performance practice is a mix. A few pianists simply ignore the problem; others modify their playing style to help compensate for the difference in instruments, for example by using less pedal. Finally, participants in the authentic performance movement have constructed new copies of the old instruments and used them in performance; this has provided important new insights and interpretations of the music.

Modern piano

Types

Modern pianos come in two basic configurations and several sizes: the grand piano and the upright piano. Grand pianos have the frame and strings placed horizontally, with the strings extending away from the keyboard. This avoids the problems inherent in an upright piano, but takes up a large amount of space and needs a spacious room with high ceilings for proper resonance. Several sizes of grand piano exist. Manufacturers and models vary, but as a rough guide we can distinguish the "concert grand", approx. 3 m; the "grand", approx. 1.8 m; and the smaller "baby grand", which may be a bit shorter than it is wide. All else being equal, longer pianos have better sound and lower inharmonicity of the strings (so that the strings can be tuned closer to equal temperament in relation to the standard pitch with less stretching), so that full-size grands are almost always used for public concerts, whereas baby grands are only for domestic use where space and cost are crucial considerations. equal temperament Upright pianos, also called vertical pianos, are more compact because the frame and strings are placed vertically, extending in both directions from the keyboard and hammers. It is considered harder to produce a sensitive piano action when the hammers move sideways, rather than upward against gravity; however, the very best upright pianos now approach the level of grand pianos of the same size in tone quality and responsiveness. For recent advances, see Innovations in the piano. In 1863, Henri Fourneaux invented the player piano, a kind of piano which "plays itself" from a piano roll without the need for a pianist. Also in the 19th century, toy pianos began to be manufactured. A relatively recent development is the prepared piano, which is a piano adapted in some way by placing objects inside the instrument, or changing its mechanism in some way. Since the 1980s, digital pianos have been available, which use digital sampling technology to reproduce the sound of each piano note. Digital pianos have become quite sophisticated, with standard pedals, weighted keys, multiple voices, MIDI interfaces, and so on in the better models. However, with current technology, it remains difficult to duplicate a crucial aspect of acoustic pianos, namely that when the damper pedal (see below) is depressed, the strings not struck vibrate sympathetically with the struck strings. Since this sympathetic vibration is considered central to a beautiful piano tone, digital pianos are still not considered by most experts as competing with the best acoustic pianos in tone quality. Progress is now being made in this area by including physical models of sympathetic vibration in the synthesis software.

Keyboard

Almost every modern piano has 88 keys (seven octaves and a bit, from A0 to C8). Many older pianos only have 85 (from A0 to A7), while some manufacturers extend the range further in one or both directions. The most notable example of an extended range can be found on Bösendorfer pianos, some of which extend the normal range downwards to F0, with others going as far as a bottom C0, making a full eight octave range. On some models these extra keys are hidden under a small hinged lid, which can be flipped down to cover the keys and avoid visual disorientation in a pianist unfamiliar with the extended keyboard; on others, the colours of the extra keys are reversed (black instead of white and vice versa) for the same reason. The extra keys are added primarily for increased resonance; that is, they vibrate sympathetically with other strings whenever the damper pedal is depressed and thus give a fuller tone. Only a very small number of works composed for piano actually use these notes. More recently, the Stuart and Sons company has also manufactured extended-range pianos. On their instruments, the range is extended up the treble for a full eight octaves. The extra keys are the same as the other keys in appearance. For the arrangement of the keys on a piano keyboard, see Musical keyboard. This arrangement was inherited from the harpsichord without change, with the trivial exception of the colour scheme (white for naturals and black for sharps) which became standard for pianos in the late 18th century.

Pedals

Pianos have had pedals, or some close equivalent, since the earliest days. (In the 18th century, some pianos used levers pressed upward by the player's knee instead of pedals.) The three pedals that have become more or less standard on the modern piano are the following. The damper pedal (also called the sustaining pedal or loud pedal) is often simply called "the pedal," since it is the most frequently used. It is placed as the rightmost pedal in the group. Every note on the piano, except the top two octaves, is equipped with a damper, which is a padded device that prevents the strings from vibrating. The damper is raised off the strings of its note whenever the key for that note is pressed. When the damper pedal is pressed, all the dampers on the piano are lifted at once, so that every string can vibrate. This serves two purposes. First, it permits notes to be connected (i.e., played legato) when there is no fingering that would make this possible. More important, raising the damper pedal causes all the strings to vibrate sympathetically with whatever notes are being played, which greatly enriches the tone. Piano music starting with Chopin tends to be heavily pedalled, as a means of achieving a singing tone. In contrast, the damper pedal was used only sparingly by the composers of the 18th century, including Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven; in that era, pedalling was considered primarily as a special coloristic effect. The soft pedal or "una corda" pedal is placed leftmost in the row of pedals. On a grand piano, this pedal shifts the action to one side slightly, so that hammers that normally strike all three of the strings for a note strike only two of them. This softens the note and also modifies its tone quality. For notation of the soft pedal in printed music, see Italian musical terms. The soft pedal was invented by Cristofori and thus appeared on the very earliest pianos. In the 18th and early 19th centuries, the soft pedal was more effective than today, since it was possible at that time to use it to strike three, two or even just one string per note—this is the origin of the name "una corda", Italian for "one string". In modern pianos, the strings are spaced too closely to permit a true "una corda" effect—if shifted far enough to strike just one string on one note, the hammers would also strike the string of the next note over. On upright pianos, the soft pedal is replaced by a mechanism for moving the hammers' resting position closer to the strings. This reduces volume, but does not change tone quality as a true "una corda" pedal does. Digital pianos often use this pedal to alter the sound of other instruments like organs, guitars, and harmonicas. Pitch bends, leslie speaker on/off, vibrato modulation, etc. increase the already-great versatility of such instruments. The sostenuto pedal or "middle pedal" maintains in the raised position any damper that was raised at the moment the pedal was depressed. It makes it possible to sustain some notes (depress the sostenuto pedal before releasing the notes to be sustained) while the player's hands have moved on to play other notes, which can be useful for musical passages with pedal points and other tricky situations. The sostenuto pedal was the last of the three pedals to be added to the standard piano, and to this day many cheap pianos—and even a few good ones— do not have a sostenuto pedal. (Almost all modern grand pianos have a sostenuto; most upright pianos do not.) A number of twentieth-century works call for the use of this pedal. Over the years, the middle pedal has served many different functions. Some upright pianos have a practice pedal in place of the sostenuto. This pedal, which can usually be locked in place by depressing it and pushing it to one side, drops a strip of felt between the hammers and the keys so that all the notes are greatly muted— a handy feature for those who wish to practice at odd hours without disturbing others in the house. The practice pedal is rarely used in performance. Other uprights have a bass sustain as a middle pedal. It works the same as the damper pedal except it only lifts the dampers for the low end notes. Irving Berlin's famed Transposing Piano used the middle pedal as a clutch to shift the keyboard with a lever. The entire action of the piano would shift to allow the operator to play in any key.

Materials

Many parts of a piano are made of materials selected for extreme sturdiness. In quality pianos, the outer rim of the piano is made of a hardwood, normally maple or beech. According to [http://www.speech.kth.se/music/5_lectures/conklin/thepianocase.html Harold A. Conklin], the purpose of a sturdy rim is so that "the vibrational energy will stay as much as possible in the soundboard instead of dissipating uselessly in the case parts, which are inefficient radiators of sound." The rim is normally made by laminating flexible strips of hardwood to the desired shape, a system that was developed by Theodore Steinway in 1880. The thick wooden braces at the bottom (grands) or back (uprights) of the piano are not as acoustically important as the rim, and are often made of a softwood, even in top-quality pianos, in order to save weight. The pinblock, which holds the tuning pins in place, is another area of the piano where toughness is important. It is made of hardwood, and generally is laminated (built of multiple layers) for additional strength and gripping power. Piano strings (also called piano wire), which must endure years of extreme tension and hard blows, are made of high quality steel. They are manufactured to vary as little as possible in diameter, since all deviations from uniformity introduce tonal distortion. The bass strings of a piano are made of a steel core wrapped with copper wire, to increase their flexibility. For the acoustic reasons behind this, see Piano acoustics. The plate, or metal frame, of a piano is usually made of cast iron. It is advantageous for the plate to be quite massive. Since the strings are attached to the plate at one end, any vibrations transmitted to the plate will result in loss of energy to the desired (efficient) channel of sound transmission, namely the bridge and the soundboard. Some manufacturers now use cast steel in their plates, for greater strength. The casting of the plate is a delicate art, since the dimensions are crucial and the iron shrinks by about one percent during cooling. The inclusion in a piano of an extremely large piece of metal is potentially an aesthetic handicap. Piano makers overcome this handicap by polishing, painting, and decorating the plate; often plates include the manufacturer's ornamental medallion and can be strikingly attractive. The numerous [http://www.pianosupply.com/anonftp/grand1.jpg grand parts] and [http://www.pianosupply.com/anonftp/upright.jpg upright parts] of a piano action are generally hardwood (e.g. maple, beech. hornbeam). World War II brought about plastics which were originally incorporated into some pianos in the 1940s and 1950s, but were clearly disastrous, crystallizing and losing their strength after only a few decades of use. The Steinway firm once incorporated Teflon, a synthetic material developed by DuPont, for some grand action parts in place of cloth, but ultimately abandoned the experiment due to an inherent "clicking" which invariably developed over time. More recently, the Kawai firm has built pianos with action parts made of more modern and effective plastics such as nylon; these parts have held up better and have generally received the respect of piano technicians. nylon The part of the piano where materials probably matter more than anywhere else is the soundboard. In quality pianos this is made of solid spruce (that is, spruce boards glued together at their edges). Spruce is chosen for its high ratio of strength to weight. The best piano makers use close-grained, quarter-sawn, defect-free spruce, and make sure that it has been carefully dried over a long period of time before making it into soundboards. In cheap pianos, the soundboard is often laminated; i.e. made of plywood. Piano keys are generally made of spruce or basswood, for lightness. Spruce is normally used in high-quality pianos. Traditionally, the sharps (black keys) were made from ebony and the flats (white keys) were covered with strips of ivory, but since ivory-yielding species are now endangered and protected by treaty, plastics are now almost exclusively used. [http://www.pianoparts.com/pcgi/finder/keyword=7e05127 Legal ivory] can still be obtained in limited quantities. At one time the Yamaha firm innovated a plastic called "Ivorine" or "Ivorite", since imitated by [http://www.pianoparts.com/pcgi/finder/keyword=7e05121 other makers], that mimics the feel and/or look of ivory on the player's fingers. The requirement of structural strength, fulfilled with stout hardwood and thick metal, makes pianos heavy. Even a small upright can weigh 136 kg (300 lb), and the Steinway concert grand (Model D) weighs 480 kg (990 lb). The largest piano built, the Fazioli F308, weighs 691 kg (1520 lb).

Care and maintenance

:Main article: Care and maintenance of pianos Pianos are regularly tuned to keep them up to pitch and produce a pleasing sound; they are, ideally, tuned to the internationally recognised standard concert pitch of A = 440 Hz. The hammers of pianos are voiced to compensate for gradual hardening. Top-quality but aged pianos can be restored, replacing a great number of their parts to produce an instrument closely similar to a new one.
Role of the piano
The piano is a crucial instrument in Western classical music, jazz, film, television and electronic game music, and most other complex musical genres. A large number of composers are pianists, and they frequently use the piano as a tool for composition. Pianos were and are extremely popular instruments for private household ownership, especially among the middle- and upper-class. As such, pianos have gained a place in the popular consciousness, and are sometimes referred to by nicknames, including: "the eighty-eight," "the ivories," and "the black(s) and white(s)." See also: Social history of the piano
Further reading

- The authoritative New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians (available in libraries and online as a fee site), contains a wealth of information on the piano. Main article: "Pianoforte".
- The Encyclopedia Britannica (available in libraries and online as a fee site) also includes a great deal of information about the piano. In the 1988 edition, the primary article can be found in "Musical Instruments".
- The Piano Book by Larry Fine (4th ed. Jamaica Plain, MA: Brookside Press, 2001; ISBN 1-929145-01-2) gives the basics of how pianos work, and a thorough evaluative survey of current pianos and their manufacturers. It also includes advice on buying and owning pianos.
- The pianist's guide to pedaling by Joseph Banowetz (Bloomington : Indiana University Press, 1985) offers a history of the three piano pedals and covers the wide variety of ways in which they are used by professional pianists.
- Piano roles : three hundred years of life with the piano by James Parakilas (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1999) provides much history of the instrument.
See also

- Innovations in the piano
- Musical tuning
- Pianist
- Piano acoustics
- Piano key frequencies (in equal temperament)
- Player piano
- Piano roll
- Piano practice
- Prepared piano
- Social history of the piano
- String piano
- Tangent piano
Related lists

- Lists of solo piano pieces
- List of famous piano makers
Other types of pianos
With the exception of the toy piano, these instruments are called "piano" by virtue of being keyboard instruments but are electric or electronic in nature, not acoustic.
- Digital piano
- Electric piano
- Rhodes piano
- Stage piano
- Toy piano
Related instruments

- Clavichord
- Hammered dulcimer
- Harpsichord
External links

- [http://www.uk-piano.org/history/history.html UK Piano Page, Piano History]
- [http://www.ashburnham.org/Frederickcollection/index.htm The Frederick Historical Piano Collection]
- [http://www.ptg.org Piano Technicians Guild]
- [http://www.steinway.com/technical/caring.shtml "Caring for your Steinway"] from Steinway and Sons
- [http://www.schimmel-piano.de/e/guter-rat.html Maintenance advice from the Schimmel piano company]
- [http://www.newmusicbox.org/page.nmbx?id=54tp00 88 Keys to Freedom: Segues Through the History of American Piano Music] by 'Blue' Gene Tyranny
- [http://rvpiano.syntheway.net/ Syntheway´s Realistic Virtual Piano ]
- [http://www.geocities.com/kumiko1400/ List of musical instruments software ]
- [http://members.aol.com/cc88m/PianoBook.html Multilingual advice on professional piano practicing techniques]
- [http://www.hammerfluegel.net history of the grand piano - photoarchive]
- Category:Keyboard instruments ko:피아노 ja:ピアノ th:เปียโน

Organ (music)

at Notre-Dame de Montréal Basilica, Montreal]] The organ is one of the oldest musical instruments in the western musical tradition, with a rich history connected with the Christian religion and civic ceremony. Its sound output is continuous rather than decaying, i.e., the sound continues for as long as a key is depressed and does not depend on how hard the key is struck—as is the case with a (velocity sensitive) piano—nor decay quickly, as with the harpsichord and clavichord. Some modern electronic organs, however, have the capacity for velocity sensitivity and for aftertouch (pressure sensitivity) responding to how hard a key is held down. Organs range in size from a single, short keyboard to large instruments intended to play a full range of repertoire, which typically have three or four manuals, sometimes as many as seven, plus a two-and-a-half octave pedalboard. Most classical music for the organ is written on three staves; the upper two for the manuals and the lower one for the pedals. The bar lines are broken between the lowest two staves.

Pipe organs

See the main article at pipe organ for more details and the history of the pipe organ. The original organ was the pipe organ, and many organ enthusiasts still regard all other forms as imitations. Pipe organs may be broadly divided into three categories:
- The church organ was developed originally for congregational singing, and is still found in many houses of worship. Accompaniment of human voices, whether a congregation, a choir or a cantor or soloist is the primary purpose of the church organ, and it is highly developed to be suitable for this task. Often just called a pipe organ (whether it actually has pipes or not), it may be called a church organ or classical organ to differentiate it from the theatre organ, which is a distinctly different instrument. However, as classical organ repertoire was developed for the church organ and in turn influenced its development, the line between a church and a concert organ is hard to draw. Instruments of any size may include some stops designed for independent performance of this music rather than for accompaniment.
- The theatre organ (see that article) or cinema organ was designed to replace orchestras or instrumental ensembles that accompanied silent movies with a single performer. These instruments differ from church organs in three main ways:
- Their pipes are designed and voiced for this role, rather than as accompaniment to voices.
- They may include a far greater variety of non-organ sounds, notably drums and other percussion and sometimes a piano in larger instruments.
- Even the largest instruments tend to rely unashamedly on extension to produce the maximum variety of sound from the minimum number of pipes.
- The concert organ or symphonic organ which flourished during the first third of the twentieth century in town halls and other secular public venues, particularly in the United States and the UK. As these were developed primarily to perform repertoire originally written for the church organ, the line between the two types can be hard to draw, to the point that two identical instruments, one in a church and the other in a concert hall, might be termed one a church organ, the other a concert organ.

Reed organs

Prior to the development of electric and electronic organs, the only alternative to the pipe organ was the reed organ, which generated its sounds using reeds similar to those of a piano accordion. Smaller, cheaper and more portable than the corresponding pipe instrument, these were widely used in smaller churches and in private homes, but their volume and tonal range was extremely limited, and they were generally limited to one or two manuals, pedalboards being extremely rare. piano accordion A development of the reed organ was the chord organ, which provided chord buttons for the left hand, again similar to a piano accordion in concept. A few chord organs were later built using frequency divider technology.

Electric and electronic organs

See the main article electronic organ for more details and history. Since the 1930s, pipeless electric instruments have been available to produce similar sounds and perform similar roles to pipe organs. Many of these have been bought both by houses of worship and other potential pipe organ customers, and also by many musicians both professional and amateur for whom a pipe organ would not be a possibility. Far smaller and cheaper to buy than a corresponding pipe instrument, and in many cases portable, they have taken organ music into private homes and into dance bands and other new environments, and have almost completely replaced the reed organ.

Electric organs

The Hammond organ (see that article) was the first successful electric organ, and was sold beginning in the 1930s. It utilized mechanical, rotating tonewheels to produce the sound waveforms. The Hammond controlled registration by a system of drawbars that took advantage of the possibility of setting the volume of each set of tonewheels individually, rather than merely imitating the on/off function of a pipe organ stop. It also provided new vibrato-like sounds, both by devices that acted on the drive belts and later by revolving loudspeakers. These features gave it new sounds that organists eagerly explored. The Hammond organ became popular in jazz, particularly soul jazz, and in gospel music. Since these were the roots of rock and roll, the Hammond organ became a part of the rock and roll sound. It was widely used in rock and popular music during the 1960s and 1970s. During the 1980s the polyphonic synthesizer became popular, replacing the organ in most pop acts. The Hammond enjoyed something of a resurgence in popularity in pop music around 2000, in part due to the availability of clonewheel organs that were light enough for one person to carry.

Frequency divider organs

With the development of the transistor, electronic organs that used no mechanical parts to generate the waveforms became practical. The first of these was the frequency divider organ, the first of which which used twelve oscillators to produce one octave of chromatic scale, and frequency dividers to produce other notes. These were even cheaper and more portable than the Hammond. Later developments made it possible to run an organ from a single radio frequency oscillator. Frequency divider organs were built by many companies, and also offered in kit form to be built by hobbyists. A few of these have seen notable use, such as the Lowrey played by Garth Hudson. Its electronic design made the Lowrey easily equipped with a pitch bend feature that is unavailable for the Hammond, and Hudson built a style around its use. During the period from the 1940s through approximately the 1970s, a variety of more modest self-contained electronic home organs from a variety of manufacturers were popular forms of home entertainment. These instruments often simplified the traditional organ stops into imitative voicings such as "trumpet" and "marimba" and as technology progressed they increasingly included automated features such as one-touch chords, electronic rhythm and accompaniment devices, and even built-in tape players. These were intended to make playing complete, layered "one-man band" arrangements extremely easy, especially for those not necessarily trained as organists. While a few such instruments are still sold today, their popularity has waned greatly, and many of their functions have been incorporated into more modern and inexpensive portable keyboards. The Lowrey line of home organs is the epitome of this type of instrument. In the '60s and '70s, a type of simple, portable electronic organ called the combo organ was popular, especially with pop and rock bands, and was a signature sound in the pop music of the period (e.g. The Doors, Iron Butterfly). The most popular combo organs were manufactured by Farfisa and Vox.

Digital organs

The development of the integrated circuit enabled another revolution in electronic keyboard instruments. Electronic organs sold since the 1980s utilize digital sampling to produce the sound. Also available are hybrids, incorporating a few ranks of pipes to produce some sounds, and using digital samples for other sounds and to resolve borrowing collisions. Major manufacturers include Allen Organ and Rodgers. There are also custom digital organ builders like Phoenix Organs[http://www.phoenixorgans.com]with several representatives throughout the US[http://www.qualityorgans.com].

Similar instruments

Other instruments which are played from a reservoir of gas and have separate tone-producing mechanisms for each pitch include:
- the accordion and concertina, in which the bellows is operated by the squeezing action of the instrumentalist;
- the melodeon, a reed instrument with an air reservior and a foot operated bellows, popular in the USA in the mid-19th century;
- the Harmonium or parlor organ, a reed instrument usually with many stops and two foot-operated bellows which the instrumentalist operates alternately;
- the steam calliope, being essentially a pipe organ operated on steam rather than air;
- the band organ, essentially a pipe organ, but instead of a keyboard, mechanical means are used to play a prepared song.
- the barrel organ made famous by the organ grinder in its portable form, and relatively invisible in its larger form because it was then often fitted out with keyboards to give the option for totally a human performance
- the portative organ, a small portable medieval instrument
- the positive organ, a somewhat larger though still portable medieval instrument
- various sorts of novelty instruments operating on the same principles. Other wind instruments that have no reservoir of gas but use a separate tone-producing mechanism for each pitch
- the harmonica, where the musician effectively blows directly onto the reeds is also known as a mouth organ;
- the pan-pipes Other wind instruments that are played from a reservoir of gas but do not use a separate tone-producing mechanism for each pitch
- bagpipes

External links

- [http://www.lawrencephelps.com/Documents/Articles/Beginner/pipeorgans101.html Pipe Organs 101]
- [http://www.die-orgelseite.de/index_e.html The World's Largest Organs]
- [http://www.organfocus.com/links/index.php?CID=17 OrganFocus.com Link Directory]
- [http://qualityorgans.com D.L. Simmons & Company Church Organs] Category:Electronic music instruments Category:Keyboard instruments Category:Pipe organ ja:オルガン

Organ (music)

Pipe organs

Reed organs

Electric and electronic organs

Electric organs

Frequency divider organs

Digital organs

Similar instruments

External links

Clavichord

A clavichord is a small, very quiet, European keyboard musical instrument. It was invented in about the fourteenth century and continued to be made until the 1840s, and was revived by Arnold Dolmetsch at the end of the 19th century. From the mid-18th century it principally flourished in German-speaking lands, Scandinavia and Iberia. Although most of the instruments built before the 1730s were small (perhaps 4 x 1 x 1/3 feet and four octaves in range), the last instruments built were up to seven feet long with a six octave range. In the clavichord the strings run transversely from an anchorage at the left-hand end to tuning-pegs on the right; towards the right end they pass over a curved wooden bridge. The action is simple, with the keys being levers with a small brass 'tangent' at the far end which strikes the strings (normally paired) above. The note is sustained as long as the tangent is in contact with the string. The volume of the note can be changed by striking harder or softer, and the pitch can also be affected by varying the force of the tangent against the string (known as bebung) and can be used to give a form of vibrato. Since the string vibrates from the bridge only as far as the tangent, multiple keys with multiple tangents can be assigned to the same string (like a monochord). This is called a fretted clavichord. This technique simplifies the construction since fewer strings are required, but it limits the abilities of the instrument, since only one note can be played at a time on each string. As a result there are rarely more than two notes assigned to each string. They are usually chosen so that notes which are rarely heard together (such as C and C#) are on the one string. In the late 18th century, clavichords were often built unfretted, with a separate pair of strings for each key. Instruments were built with one or two manuals and pedals, for the practice use of organists. This use was common in the days before the invention of the electric blower, and there is speculation that some practice etudes labeled organ by the composers and now regarded as organ repertoire were in fact more accurately written for the pedal clavichord. Much of the music written for harpsichord, piano, and organ from the period circa 1400-1800 can be played on the clavichord; however, it is too quiet to use in any but the smallest ensembles. J. S. Bach's son Carl Philipp Emmanuel Bach was a great proponent of the instrument. There are now numerous clavichord societies around the world, and some 400 recordings of the instrument have been made in the past 70 years. Leading modern exponents of the instrument include Derek Adlam, Christopher Hogwood, Paul Simmonds, Richard Troeger, and Miklos Spanyi, and fine modern copies have been made by makers including Peter Bavington, Martin Kather, Joris Potvleighe, Karin Richter, Ronald Haas, Paul Irvin, and Thomas Steiner. The clavinet — used in funk and rock music — is essentially an electric clavichord which uses a magnetic pickup to provide a signal for amplification. Category:String instruments Category:Keyboard instruments Category:Composite_chordophones

Harpsichord

A harpsichord is the general term for a family of European keyboard instruments, including the large instrument nowadays called a harpsichord, but also the smaller virginals, the muselar virginals and the spinet. All these instruments generate sound by plucking a string rather than striking one, as in a piano or clavichord. The harpsichord family is thought to have originated when a keyboard was affixed to the end of a psaltery, providing a mechanical means to pluck the strings.

History

psaltery The origin of the harpsichord is obscure, but is known to have begun some time during the high or late Middle Ages. The earliest written references to the instrument date from the 1300s and it is possible that the harpsichord was indeed invented in that century. This was a time in which advances in clockwork and other forms of early pre-modern machinery were being made and thus a likely time for the invention of those mechanical aspects that distinguish a harpsichord from a psaltery. A Latin manuscript work on musical instruments by Henri Arnault de Zwolle, c. 1440, includes detailed diagrams of a small harpsichord and three types of jack action. The earliest complete harpsichords still preserved come from Italy, the oldest specimen being dated to 1521. The Royal Academy of Music in London, has an instrument of a curious upright form which may be older; unfortunately it lacks the action. These early Italian instruments can however shed no light on the origin of the harpsichord, as they represent an already well-refined form of the instrument. The Italian harpsichord makers made single-manual instruments with a very light construction and relatively little string tension. This design persisted with little alteration among Italian makers for centuries. The Italian instruments are considered pleasing but unspectacular in their tone and serve well for accompanying singers or other instruments. A revolution in harpsichord construction took place in Flanders some time around 1580 with the work of Hans Ruckers and his descendants, including Ioannes Couchet. The Ruckers harpsichord was more solidly constructed than the Italian. Because they used longer strings (always with the basic two sets of strings; either one 8-foot and a 4-foot, or both at 8-foot pitch), greater string tension, and a heavier case, as well as a very slender and responsive spruce soundboard, the tone was more powerful than with the Italian harpsichord, and served as the basis for subsequent harpsichord building in most other nations. The Flemish makers also innovated the two-manual harpsichord, which was initially used merely to permit easy transposition (at the interval of a fourth) rather than to increase the expressive range of the instrument. However, later in the 17th century the additional manual was also used for contrast of tone with the ability to couple the registers of both manuals for a fuller sound. The Flemish harpsichords were often elaborately painted and decorated. The Flemish instrument received further development in 18th-century France, notably with the work of the Blanchet family and their successor Pascal Taskin. These French instruments imitated the Flemish design, but were extended in range, from about four to about five octaves. In addition, two-manual French instruments used their manuals to vary the combination of stops being used (that is, strings being plucked) rather than for transposition. The 18th century French harpsichord is often considered one of the pinnacles of harpsichord design, and it is widely adopted as a model for the construction of modern instruments. A striking aspect of the 18th-century French tradition was its near-obsession with the Ruckers harpsichords. In a process called grande ravalement, many of the surviving Ruckers instruments were dissasembled and reassembled, with new soundboard material and case construction adding an octave to their range. It is considered likely that many of the harpsichords claimed at the time to be Ruckers restorations are fraudulent, though they are superb instruments in their own right. In England, two immigrant makers, Jacob Kirckman (from Alsace) and Burkat Shudi (from Switzerland), achieved eminence with harpsichords noted for their powerful tone and exquisite veneered cases. The sound of Kirckman and Shudi harpsichords has impressed many listeners, but the feeling that it overpowers the music has led to very few modern instruments being modeled on them. The Shudi firm was passed on to Shudi's son-in-law John Broadwood, who adapted it to the manufacture of pianos and became a leading creative force in the development of that instrument. German harpsichord makers roughly followed the French model, but with a special interest in achieving a variety of sonorities, perhaps because some of the most eminent German builders were also builders of pipe organs. Some German harpsichords included a choir of 2-foot strings (that is, strings pitched two octaves above the primary set). A few even included a 16-foot stop, pitched an octave below the main 8-foot choirs. One still-preserved German harpsichord even has three manuals to control the countless combinations of strings that were available. The 2-foot and 16-foot stops of the German harpsichord are not particularly favored among harpsichordists today, who tend to prefer the French type of instrument. At the peak of its development, the harpsichord lost favor to the piano. The piano quickly evolved away from its harpsichord-like origins, and as a result the knowledge of how to build good harpsichords died out for over a century. In the early 20th century, an awakening interest in authentic performance led to the revival of the harpsichord. This included crude "modernizations" of antique instruments, as well as the construction of harpsichords resembling modern concert grand pianos. These instruments sounded surprisingly weak for their size, because their frames and soundboards were too heavy to properly match the thin and lightly tensioned strings of the harpsichord. Builders typically included a 16-foot stop in these instruments to bolster the sound, even though in historical times the 16-foot had played only a minor role. Ultimately, it was acknowledged that to make fine modern harpsichords it would be necessary to learn the methods followed by the old builders. Two important pioneers in the process of rediscovery were the builder-scholars Frank Hubbard and William Dowd, who took apart and inspected many old instruments and consulted the written material on harpsichords from the historical period. Today, harpsichords that are based on the rediscovered principles of the old makers are built in workshops around the world. The workshops often also construct kits, which are assembled into final form by amateur enthusiasts.

Action

The action is fairly similar in all harpsichords: William Dowd
- The keylever is a simple pivot which rocks on a pin passing through a hole drilled through it.
- The jack is a thin, rectangular piece of wood which sits upright on the end of the keylever, held in place by the guides (upper and lower) which are two long pieces of wood with holes through which the jacks can pass. William Dowd
- In the jack, a plectrum juts out almost horizontally (normally the plectrum is angled upwards a tiny amount) and passes just under the string. Historically, plectra were normally made of crow quill or leather, though most modern harpsichords use a plastic (delrin or celcon) instead.
- When the front of the key is pressed (2), the back is lifted up, the jack is raised, and the plectrum plucks the string (3). celcon
- Upon lowering the key, the jack falls back down under its own weight, and the plectrum pivots backwards to allow it past the string (4). This is made possible by having the plectrum held in a tongue which is attached with a hinge and a spring to the body of the jack.
- At the top of the jack, a damper of felt sticks out and keeps the string from vibrating when the key is not depressed (1). celcon celcon

Variants

While the terms used to denote various members of the family have been quite standardized today, in the harpsichord's heyday, this was not the case.

Harpsichord

In modern usage, a harpsichord can either mean all the members of the family, or more specifically, the grand-piano-shaped member, with a vaguely triangular case accommodating long bass strings at the left and short treble strings at the right; characteristically, the profile is more elongated than that of a modern piano, with a sharper curve to the bentside. A harpsichord can have from one to three, and occasionally even more, strings per note. Often one is at 4-foot pitch, an octave higher than the normal 8-foot pitch. Single manuals, or keyboards, are common, especially in Italian harpsichords, though other countries occasionally produced double manuals and there are a few examples of three manual German instruments.

Virginals

The virginal or virginals is a smaller and simpler rectangular form of the harpsichord (that looks somewhat like a clavichord), with only one string per note running parallel to the keyboard on the long side of the case. The origin of the word is obscure, perhaps from latin word virga (?). Note that the word "virginal" in Elizabethan times was often used to designate any kind of harpsichord; thus the masterworks of William Byrd and his contemporaries were often played on full-size, Italian-style harpsichords and not just on the virginals as we call it today. Virginals are described either as spinet virginals (the usual type) or muselar virginals.

Spinet virginals

In spinet virginals, the keyboard is placed on the left, and the strings are plucked at one end as in other members of the harpsichord family. This is the more common arrangement, and an instrument described simply as a "virginal" is likely to be a spinet virginal.

Muselar virginals

In muselar virginals,( muselaar, Netherlands ), or muselars, the keyboard is placed to the rightor in the center so that the strings are plucked in the middle of their sounding length. This gives a warm and rich sound, but at a price: the action for the left hand is inevitably placed in the middle of the instrument's sounding board, with the result that any mechanical noise from this action is amplified. An 18th century commentator said that muselars "grunt in the bass like young pigs" ( muselar with arpichordum ). In the 16th and 17th centuries, muselars were nonetheless popular, but they fell out of use in the 18th century. In addition to mechanical noise, the central plucking point in the bass makes repetition difficult, because the motion of the still-sounding string interferes with the ability of the plectrum to connect again. Thus the muselar was better suited to chord-and-melody music without complex left-hand parts.

Spinet

Finally, a harpsichord with the strings set at an angle to the keyboard (usually of about 30 degrees) is called a spinet. In such an instrument, the strings are too close to fit the jacks between them in the normal way; instead, the strings are arranged in pairs, the jacks are placed in the large gaps between pairs, and they face in opposite directions, plucking the strings adjacent to the gap.

Clavicytherium

A clavicytherium is a harpsichord that is vertically strung. Few were ever made. The same space-saving principle was later embodied in the upright piano. It's action was modified to make the vertical form possible simply by modifying the shape of the jacks so that the body curved like a quarter circle.

Variations

Unsurprisingly, for an instrument that was produced in large numbers for over three centuries, there is a great deal of variation between harpsichords. In addition to the varied forms that the instrument can take and the different dispositions, or registrations, that can be fitted to a harpsichord as mentioned above, the range can vary greatly. Generally, earlier harpsichords have smaller ranges and later ones larger, though there are frequent exceptions. In general, the largest harpsichords have a range of just over five octaves and the smallest have under four. Usually, the shortest keyboards were given extended range using the method of the "short octave".

Harpsichordists

Modern harpsichord playing can be roughly divided into three eras, beginning with the career of the influential reviver of the instrument, Wanda Landowska (1879–1959). Landowska used a harpsichord made by Pleyel of the heavy, piano-influenced type discussed above. Such instruments, though now considered inappropriate for earlier music, retain some historical importance for the works that were specifically composed for them (concertos by Falla and Poulenc, for example). An influential later group of English players using post-Pleyel instruments by Thomas Goff and the Goble family included George Malcolm and Thurston Dart. The next generation of harpsichordists were the pioneers of modern performance on instruments built according to the authentic practices of the earlier period, following the research of such scholar-builders as Frank Hubbard and William Dowd. This generation of performers included such players as Ralph Kirkpatrick, Igor Kipnis, and Gustav Leonhardt. More recently, many other outstanding harpsichordists have appeared, including Trevor Pinnock, Kenneth Gilbert, Christopher Hogwood, Ton Koopman, Pappas Iakovos, Christophe Rousset, and Andreas Staier. For a list of harpsichord performers, see Harpsichordist.

Music for the harpsichord

Classical

The first music written specifically for solo harpsichord came to be published around the middle of the 16th century. Composers who wrote solo harpsichord music were numerous during the whole Baroque era in Italy, Germany and, above all, France. Favorite genres for sole harpsichord composition included the dance suite, the fantasia, and the fugue. Besides solo works, the harpsichord was widely used for accompaniment in the basso continuo style (a function it maintained in opera even into the 19th century). Well into the 18th century, the harpsichord was considered to have advantages and disadvantages with respect to the piano. Through the 19th century, the harpsichord was ignored by composers, the piano having supplanted it. In the 20th century, however, with increasing interest in early music and composers seeking new sounds, pieces began to be written for it once more. concertos for the instrument were written by Francis Poulenc (the Concert champêtre, 1927-28), Manuel de Falla and, later, by Henryk Górecki as well as Philip Glass (2002). Bohuslav Martinů wrote both a concerto and a sonata for it, and Elliott Carter's Double Concerto is for harpsichord, piano and two chamber orchestras. György Ligeti has written a small number of solo works for the instrument (including "Continuum"). Both Dimitri Shostakovich (Hamlet, 1964) and Alfred Schnittke (Symphony No.8, 1998) used the harpsichord as part of the orchestral texture. More recently harpsichordist Hendrik Bouman has composed in the baroque style 32 solo pieces, one harpsichord concerto and two compositions of chamber music with obbligato harpsichord.

Popular music

Like almost all instruments of classical music, the harpsichord has been adapted for popular work. Here are some examples.
- The harpsichord was popular for light jazz music during the 1960s, particularly in Britain. For example, the jazz theme tunes to the Avengers and Danger Man aka Secret Agent TV programs from the 1960s both feature harpsichords. Lalo Schifrin sometimes featured harpsichords in his jazz recordings during the '60s.
- In 1996 Tori Amos featured the harpsichord on several of her songs of her album "Boys for Pele" - "Caught a Lite Sneeze", "Blood Roses", "Professional Widow", "Talula", and "In the Springtime of His Voodoo". She has performed the songs live on Saturday Night Live, playing both a harpsichord and a piano in turn.
- The Japanese psychedelic band Ghost has used the harpsichord.
- Warmen a melodic metal band uses Harpsichords in many of their songs.
- Queen used a harpsichord on their song "Fairy Feller's Master Stroke" from their album Queen II

External links

- [http://www.sankey.ws/history.html A brief history of the harpsichord]
- [http://www.bigduck.com/harp1.html A harpsichord site with images]
- [http://www-personal.umich.edu/~bpl/hpsi.html Hear the sound of various harpsichords]
- [http://www.bigduck.com/mottos.html Latin mottoes painted on harpsichords]
- [http://www.harpsichord.org.uk Extensive source of harpsichord information] Category:Keyboard instruments Category:String instruments ko:하프시코드 ja:チェンバロ

Hydraulis

Hydraulis is an early type of pipe organ that operated by converting the dynamic energy of water (hydor) into air pressure to drive the pipes. Hence its name Hydraulis = "water (driven) pipe (instrument)". It is attributed to the hellenistic scientist Ctesibius of Alexandria, an engineer of the 3rd century BC. See more about the Hydraulis and its further development in pipe organ.

Hydraulis as world's first keyboard instrument

The hydraulis was the world's first keyboard instrument, and was, in fact the predecessor of the modern church organ.

Hydro-powered pipe organs

To the extent that waterfalls are often now used to produce the electricity that runs the air compressors and blowers in modern pipe organs, a modern pipe organ is a water organ in the sense that a waterfall such as Niagara Falls turns a turbine that produces the ``hydro to run the blower fan. The term ``hydro is slang for electricity, and we often speak of the ``hydro meter when we refer to our electricity bill, and to the electricity we use to power modern pipe organs.
External links

- [http://www.archaeologychannel.org/hydraulisint.html About the Ancient Hydraulis] (from the Archaeology Channel)

Tritone

:This article is about the musical interval. For other uses of the words, see tritone (disambiguation). tritone (disambiguation) The tritone, as its name implies, is a musical interval that spans three whole tones. The tritone also spans six semitones. The two most basic types of tritone are the augmented fourth and the diminished fifth. Two tritones add up to 6 whole tones - or 12 semitones - usually a perfect octave. A common symbol for tritone is π. Hear a tritone. One of the two strong dissonances in the diatonic scale, it was called diabolus in musica ("the Devil's interval") by some from the early music era to the baroque period. It was exploited more heavily after the advent of equal temperament due to its usefulness to create a modulation. The only intervals in tonal music that keep their characteristic sound in inversion are tritones. Under equal temperament, the tritone corresponds to a ratio of

1 : \sqrt

. Because this ratio is an irrational number, two bodies vibrating at such frequencies have no harmonic relationship, no matter how remote. The tritone occurs naturally between the 4th and 7th scale degrees of the major scale (for example, in C major F to B), and depending on which of the two notes occurs in the bass, it is either an augmented 4th, or a diminished 5th. Its most common occurrence is between these scale degrees, in either inversion, when played as the third and seventh of the dominant seventh chord. The sound of the tritone is what lends the strong tendency towards resolution that is characteristic of the diminished and Dominant 7th chord. The tritone interval is used in the musical Deutsch tritone paradox. In jazz harmony, the tritone is both part of the dominant chord and its substitute dominant (also known as the sub V chord). Because they share the same tritone, they are possible substitutes for one another. For example, in the key of C Major, the primary dominant G7 may be substituted with Db7 which is its substitute dominant. Note that both have the same tritone (B and F, or enharmonically Cb and F in reference to the Db7 chord). In classical music Liszt uses the tritone in the same way in "Au bord d´une source" (B as dominant for B flat) and many other places. This device can also be used in jazz improvisation, whereupon an improviser may use the chord tones of the Db7 on a G7 chord to create an altered chord characteristic of jazz improvisation. The Db7 chord tones spell out the b5, b7, b9 and maj3rd of the G7 chord, thus effectively outlining both the guide tones (maj3rd and b7) of the G7 as well as two altered notes (b5 and b9). The tritone retains its "Devil in Music" character in popular music, specifically heavy metal. The opening of Black Sabbath's signature song Black Sabbath makes heavy use of the tritone. Other metal songs with prominent tritones in their main riffs are Diamond Head's Am I Evil? and Metallica's For Whom the Bell Tolls and Enter Sandman. Perhaps the single guitarist to have made the most extensive use of the tritone is Robert Fripp of King Crimson, who used it repeatedly in King Crimson albums like Larks' Tongues in Aspic, Starless and Bible Black, and Red. Other examples are the beginning of Liszt's Dante Sonata, Sibelius's Fourth Symphony and Jimi Hendrix's Purple Haze. The tritone is also used throughout Benjamin Britten's War Requiem, as an ironic "point of reference" despite the tone's inherent instability, thereby offering subtle commentary on the nature of war itself. Slayer has traditionally used the tritone extensively, and their 1998 album titled "Diabolus in Musica" reflects that fact. Bloodrock's "DOA" might be the most thoroughgoing and effective use of the tritone in popular music. The roots of the chord progression, C F# D G# are two tritones, and the European siren-like riff played atop the chords, alternating first E and Bb, then F# and C, consists of tritones. The unsettling, never-resolved feel of the music fits the lyrics about a plane crash perfectly. Film composer Bernard Herrman uses the tritone to great effect in his score for the film The Day the Earth Stood Still, where the interval functions as a motif, played by low brass, for Klaatu's robot Gort. Leonard Bernstein underpins almost all the music in West Side Story with persistent tritones. They feature as the opening interval to some of the songs, either melodically ("Maria" and "Cool" both begin with augmented fourths) or harmonically, when a flattened fifth is sung against a major chord ("Gee Officer Krupke"). Elsewhere, tritones figure prominently within "Something's Coming" and the "Jet Song", and the last sonority in the score is that of a high major chord with its own flattened fifth in the bass. Danny Elfman uses tritones in his themes for The Simpsons (the first two notes of the opening choral "The Sim-" and the first and third notes of the main instrumental theme, for example) and Dilbert.

External links

- http://www.cameron.edu/~lloydd/webdoc1.html
- [http://tonalsoft.com/enc/index2.htm?tritone.htm Tonalsoft Encyclopaedia of Tuning]
- [http://www.tritonus.ch Tritonus: Ancient Swiss Folkmusic] Category:Intervals

Italian language

Italian (Italian: ) is a Romance language spoken by about 70 million people primarily in Italy. Standard Italian is based on Tuscan dialects and is somewhat intermediate between the languages of Southern Italy and the Gallo-Romance languages of the North. Like many languages it is written using the Latin alphabet, Italian has double consonants. However, contrary to, for example, French and Spanish, double consonants are pronounced as long (geminated) in Italian. As in most Romance languages (with the notable exception of French), stress is distinctive. Out of the Romance languages, Italian is generally considered to be the one most closely resembling Latin in terms of grammar, vocabulary and pronunciation.

History

The history of the Italian language is quite complex but the modern standard of the language was largely shaped by relatively recent events. The earliest surviving texts which can definitely be called Italian (as opposed to its predecessor Vulgar Latin) are legal formulae from the region of Benevento dating from A.D. 960-963. Italian was first formalized in the 14th century through the works of Dante Alighieri, who mixed southern Italian dialects, especially Sicilian, with his native Tuscan in his epic poems known collectively as the Commedia, to which Boccaccio later affixed the title Divina. Dante's much-loved works were read throughout Italy and his written dialect became the canonical standard that others could all understand. Dante is still credited with standardizing the Italian language. Italian has always had a distinctive dialect for each city, since the cities were up until recently city-states. Italians generally believe that the best spoken Italian is lingua toscana in bocca romana - 'the Tuscan tongue, in a Roman mouth' (Tuscan dialects spoken with Roman inflection). The Romans are known for speaking clearly and distinctly, while the Tuscan dialect (supposedly derived from Etruscan and Oscan), is the closest existing dialect to Dante's now-standard Italian. In contrast to the dialects of northern Italy, the older southern Italian dialects were largely untouched by the Franco-Occitan influences introduced to Italy, mainly by bards from France, during the middle ages. (See La Spezia-Rimini Line.) The economic might and relative advanced development of Tuscany at the time (late middle ages), gave its dialect weight, though Venetian remained widespread in medieval Italian commercial life. Also, the increasing cultural relevance of Florence during the periods of 'Umanesimo' and Rinascimento (Renaissance) made its vulgare (dialect) a standard in the arts.

Classification

Italian is most closely related to the other two Italo-Dalmatian languages, Sicilian and the extinct Dalmatian. The three are part of the Italo-Western grouping of the Romance languages, which are a subgroup of the Italic branch of Indo-European.

Geographic distribution

Italian is the official language of Italy and San Marino, and is an official language in Ticino and Grigioni cantons of Switzerland. It is also the second official language in Vatican City and in some areas of Istria in Slovenia and Croatia with an Italian minority. It is widely used by immigrant groups in Luxembourg, Germany, Belgium, the United States, Canada, Venezuela, Brazil, Argentina, and Australia, and is also spoken in neighbouring Albania. It is spoken, to a much lesser extent, in parts of Africa formerly under Italian rule such as Somalia, Libya and Eritrea. It is also widely known and taught in Monaco and in the neighbouring island of Malta and served as an official language of the country until English was enshrined in the 1934 Constitution. Italian is widely taught in many schools around the world, but rarely as the first non-native language of pupils. In anglophone parts of Canada, Italian is, after French, the second most taught language. In the United States and the United Kingdom, Italian ranks fourth (after Spanish-French-German and French-German-Spanish respectively). Throughout the world, Italian is the fifth most taught non-native language, after English, French, Spanish and German.

Official status

Italian is an official language of Italy, the European Union, San Marino, Switzerland and Vatican City. It is also an official language in the Istria County (Croatia) and municipalities of Koper, Piran and Izola (Slovenia).

Dialects and regional languages of Italy

:See Italian dialects The dialects of Italian identified by the Ethnologue are Tuscan, Abruzzese, Pugliese (Apulian), Umbrian, Laziale, Central Marchigiano, Cicolano-Reatino-Aquilano, and Molisan. On the contrary Ethnologue and the Red book on endangered languages of UNESCO consider Piemontese, Lombard, Ligurian, Emiliano-Romagnolo, Venetian, Friulian, Neapolitan-Calabrese or Tricalabro (a range including Neapolitan and Sicilian) and Sardinian as regional minority languages, structurally separated from Italian. Most Italians, however, refer to these simply as "dialect", with the exception of Sardinian, which is usually recognized language status. Also the Corsican language has strong similarities to Italian and most linguists consider it as a Tuscany dialect, the closest to modern Italian. Many of the so-called dialects of Italian spoken around the country are different enough from standard Italian to be considered separate languages by most linguists and some speakers themselves. Thus a distinction can be made between "dialects of (standard) Italian" and "dialects (or languages) of Italy". A link to an Italian site with translation features between Italian dialects and Italian: [http://www.dialettando.com]

Cultural acceptance of dialects

The dialect of Tuscany became the basis for what would become the official language of Italy, by way of the famous Tuscan author Dante Alighieri. Alighieri and other Tuscan poets were inspired by the Sicilian koine wanted by the Sicilian School under holy roman emperor Frederick II. His project (in which Giacomo da Lentini invented the sonnet) was accomplished by enriching the Sicilian language with new words adapted from French, Latin, and Apulian. The Sicilians produced a collection of love-poems which can be considered the first standard Italian ever produced, though it was only used for literary purposes until Guittone d'Arezzo. When the Svevs dynasty ended the Tuscans and Dante re-discovered it (see De Divina Eloquentia and Vita Nova)and integrated the Sicilians into Florence's linguistic heritage. Dolce stil novo, the platonic school of courtly love can be considered the link between the old southern school and Tuscan poetry which aimed to express the new intellectual sensibility and fervor of the newly-born city-states, as Florence. Dante's work, Divina Commedia was the first of its kind to be written in a dialect (though sensibly enriched compared with its spoken counterpart), as opposed to the traditional Latin. The success of his work spread the Florentine dialect, and gave it prestige and acceptance. For this he is referred to as the father of the Italian Language. By the time Italy was unified