Keyboard instruments - history of creation

2024 Author: Leah Sherlock | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 05:25

Keyboard instruments appeared quite a long time ago and are widely used. They are characterized by a keyboard sound extraction system with the help of special levers. As a reference, it should be clarified that such tools have a keyboard - an ordered set of keys arranged in a strictly defined order.

Keyboard instruments have a rather rich history that dates back to the distant Middle Ages. By right, one of the first such devices is considered to be an organ. The first organs were equipped with special valves. They were large and extremely uncomfortable. The latches were quickly replaced by levers, which were still not pleasant enough to press. Already in the eleventh century, levers were replaced by wide keys. They could even be pressed by hand. However, comfortable narrow keys familiar to contemporaries appeared only at the end of the fifteenth - beginning of the sixteenth century. Therefore, the first keyboard musical instrument with a modern key system is the organ.

As another ancient instrument, the clavichord can and should be called. If the organ is based on pipes for sound extraction and canbe considered to some extent wind, then the clavichords are the first stringed keyboard instruments. They appeared in the period from the fourteenth to the sixteenth century. Unfortunately, even researchers and music historians cannot provide more precise dates. The arrangement of the clavichord is reminiscent of a modern piano. It has a soft, quiet sound. The clavichord was rarely played for large audiences. Since such keyboard instruments are quite compact, they were often played at home. Rich people and the nobility preferred to play music on small "home" clavichords. Especially for such instruments, wonderful musical works by such famous composers of the Baroque era as Mozart, Beethoven, Bach were created.

It is impossible not to mention such keyboard musical instruments as harpsichords. They appeared in the fourteenth century in Italy. Harpsichords are plucked-type keyboard instruments. The sound is produced by the fact that the string is plucked by the pick at the moment the key is pressed. In the Middle Ages, the plectrum was made from a bird's feather. The strings of the harpsichord are already parallel to the keys, unlike the piano or clavichord. His sound is sharper and weaker. The harpsichord was often used as an accompaniment in chamber music. In many cases, this tool was even considered as a decorative element.

Naturally, one cannot fail to mention such an instrument as the piano. It was designed in Italy at the beginningeighteenth century. It was the piano that helped keyboard instruments compete with the violin. The impressive range and dynamics have raised it to a high level of popularity. Inventor Bartholomew Christofi gave the instrument its name, saying it could play "both loud and soft". The principle of operation of the piano is simple: when a key is struck, a hammer is activated, which makes a certain string vibrate.