Do you want to know how to play or teach piano better? The archive contains posts about teaching the piano. In addition, it contains posts with tips for playing and notating piano music. Plus, there are posts that deal with traditional music theory and also the theory of micro tuning keyboards.
The funny thing about keyboard instruments, such as the piano and organ, they did not originally have keys. The father of all keyboard instruments is a water organ called the hydraulis.
When the Greeks developed the hydraulis, it had slat-like sliders instead of keys. Water moving from a higher chamber to a lower chamber created suction, which moved air through the pipes. The sliders controlled how air passed through the set of ranked pipes.
By the mediaeval period, the organ began to look more like the modern keyboard. However, it did not have black keys yet. Also, the “keys” actually looked more like fist sized levers, because form followed function. It took around a century and a half for the keys to shrink down to finger size.
As the theory of scales developed into the mediaeval gamut, theorists added the black keys. Bb came first. The Bb sign looks a lot like a lowercase B, because the first ever accidental started as a B. At first, the theorists thought the other black keys were accidents. Even today we call the black keys accidentals and the white keys naturals.
However, the keyboard did not always come with white naturals and black accidentals. In the 1700s, keyboards commonly switched the color of the accidentals and naturals.
The harpsichord proceeded the piano. The name “harpsichord” makes it sound like it was a harp that played chords.
However, an instrument with strings passing over a resonating body technically should be called a zither, not a harp. Of course, the name zithachord would just have sounded silly.
By the early 1700s, Bartolomeo Cristofori had perfected the hammer action of the piano. The organ and harpsichord couldn’t play dynamics through the keys, which frustrated composers.
Therefore, the piano was designed as a keyboard that could play both soft and loud. Thus, Cristofori called it the arpicembelo che fa il piano e il forte. This roughly translates into “a harpsichord that makes soft and loud.”
Historical pianos are called pianofortes or fortepianos. Eventually, people shortened the name to piano. So, when you play the piano, you are technically playing the soft.
© 2021 Geoffrey Keith
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Does your student use the wrong fingers? Color coding the fingers for music learning enables LD students to accurately finger the music for smoother playing and faster response time. Estimated reading time 3 minutes.
Tired of having your guitar or synth sound out of tune? “Intonation and Supplemented Equal Temperament” shows how to make them sound amazing! Estimated reading time 12 minutes.
Do you want your band to sound better? Have you ever been frustrated that your guitar or keyboard sounds out of tune when you play chords? Learn how to get a killer sound for your band by retuning your keyboards and guitars using Supplemented Equal Temperament. Supplemented Equal Temperament works with equal tempered instruments. It also works with variable pitch instruments such as voices, violins, and winds. Estimated reading time 5 minutes.
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Does it ever bother you that the piano chords sound out of tune? The guitar is not the only instrument that can be retuned. Retuning the keys to Supplemented Equal Temperament (SET) yields chords that sound better than equal temperament – the standard piano tuning. In SET, the triads sound incredible. Learn how to micro tune the keyboard using SET for awesome chords! Estimated reading time 4 minutes.
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