Posted by JACOB on Nov. 1, 2013, 8:30 p.m.
This article is about keyboard
instruments. For keyboards on musical instruments, see musical keyboards.
The piano, a common keyboard instrument
A keyboard
instrument is a
musical instrument played using a keyboard. The most
common of these is the piano. Some other types of keyboard
instruments include celestas, which are
struck idiophones operated by a keyboard, carillons, which are
highly different instruments that are usually housed in bell towers or belfries of churches or
other municipalbuildings,
and other non-acoustic instruments, such as various electronic organs, synthesizers,
and keyboards designed to imitate the sound of other musical sounds.[1]
Today, the term "keyboard" is mostly commonly used
to refer to keyboard-stylesynthesizers.
Under the fingers of a sensitive performer, the keyboard may also be used to
control dynamics, phrasing, shading, articulation,
and other elements of expression, depending on the design and inherent
capabilities of the instrument.[2]
Among the earliest keyboard instruments are the pipe organ, hurdy gurdy, clavichord and harpsichord. The organ is without doubt the oldest of these,
appearing in the third century BC, though this early instrument, called hydraulis, did not use a keyboard in the modern sense. From
its invention until the fourteenth century, the organ remained the only
keyboard instrument. Often, the organ did not feature a keyboard at all, but
rather buttons or large levers operated by a whole hand. Almost every keyboard
until the fifteenth century had seven naturals to each octave.
The clavichord and the harpsichord appeared during the 14th
century, the clavichord probably being the earlier. The harpsichord and the
clavichord were both common until the widespread adoption of the piano in the
18th century, after which their popularity decreased. The piano was
revolutionary because a pianist could
vary the volume (or dynamics) of the sound by varying the vigor with which each
key was struck. The piano's full name is gravicèmbalo con piano e forte meaning harpsichord with soft and loud but can be shortened topiano-forte,
which means soft-loud in Italian. In its current form, the piano is a product of the
20th century, and is far removed in both sound and appearance from the
"pianos" known to Mozart, Haydn, and Beethoven. In fact, the
modern piano is significantly different from even the 19th-century pianos used
by Liszt, Chopin, and Brahms.[3]
Keyboard instruments were further developed in the early
twentieth century. Early electromechanical instruments, such as the Ondes Martenot, appeared early in the century. This was a very
important contribution to the keyboard's history.[4]
Modern keyboards[edit]
Much effort has gone into finding an instrument that sounds
like the piano but lacks its size and weight. The electric piano were
early efforts that, while useful instruments in their own right, were not
successful in convincingly reproducing the timbre of the piano. Electric and electronic organs were
developed during the same period.