The Clacking Of The Keys - The Lowdown On Pianos, Organs And More

The piano, oddly enough, is categorized as belonging to three distinctive musical groups. It is a percussion, keyboard and string instrument. A piano makes sound when the player hits a key that then pushes the felt hammer against the steel strings. The vibrations caused by this are then sent to the soundboard. Pianos can alter the loudness simply by how hard the keys are hit.

Originally called the fortepiano it was invented in the early seventeen hundreds in Italy. As time went on the name was shortened and others made their own models with pedals being added to them. Mozart liked the sound and wrote many of his concertos and sonatas for them. They had a different sound then, lighter, and this is what reflected his music so well.

Although pianos come in many sizes they only come in two styles; grand pianos and upright pianos. In the grand piano the strings extend from the keyboard horizontally. This means that grand pianos are very large. Even a baby grand requires almost a whole room to itself. Upright pianos, sometimes called vertical pianos, have the strings mounted vertically. It is felt that because of the way the hammers must hit the strings the sound is not as good.

The keys have been made of different materials over time. Beginning in the seventeen hundreds they made them out of ivory. They have also been made of mother-of-pearl, tortoise shell, bone and a variety of polished and unusual woods. In the middle nineteen hundreds the keys were hollow and made of plastic so tended to split and break. Most are now made of a strong acrylic plastic.

The organ is one of the oldest instruments known to the western civilization. Beginning its journey in the churches. Unlike the piano, pressure on the keys does not affect loudness, but holding the key will keep the note until removal of the finger. The most known of all the organs is the pipe organ. These amazing instruments can be small or so huge that they have ten thousand pipes. In the nineteen thirties pipeless organs started to appear. They were called electronic organs. They can sound very similar to the pipe organs for far less in price and size. The Hammond organ is very well know and been used by gospel, jazz and soul musicians.

Harpsichords are piano like instruments, with a difference. The sound is made by a string being plucked not hit like with the piano. The clavichord, which makes its sound by the key hitting a lever that then hits the string, has its strings run from side to side.

What about those keyboard instruments that have disappeared with time. There were many that were patented but never were popular enough to become mainstream instruments. In the middle eighteen hundreds, there was a keyboard made specifically with children in mind, to make it easier for them to play. Around the same time a concave keyboard was invented to make it easier to reach all the keys without the stretch. In the later eighteen hundreds a piano was invented that had two keyboards, one for each hand. The keys on the left side were reversed making the keys furthest left the highest pitched.

Accordions are also a keyboard instrument. The movement of the bellows generates the sound. When it expands and contracts this pushes air over the reeds. The keyboard then controls which reeds get the air and so how the tones are made. The rectangular body of the accordion is divided into two parts that are separated by the bellows. On each side there is a keyboard. This has on it buttons, levers and keys that resemble those on a piano. These instruments are often used to play polkas or tangos.

No matter which keyboard instrument interests you, which sound pleases your ears the most, there are always opportunities to listen to your kind of music. Whether it was Lennon playing Imagine on his white grand piano, Eubie Blake at the jazz piano, or Johannes Brahms playing a symphony keyboard players have been entertaining people for hundreds of years and will keep doing so for e along time to come.