Daily Archives: December 31, 2010

December 31, 2010

How Parents Can Help the Teacher

By ms-ye

 

Please note:  The following material was written by Martha Beth Lewis, Ph.D.

 

When your child begins lessons, the child does the piano-playing, but -you- make a commitment of time, energy, and money. Here are some tips which will help you realize the greatest reward from your investment.

Find the Best Teacher You Can

Obviously, this is the first step!

Don’t forget the lesson!

Your child needs contact with and input from the teacher on a regular basis. Put the lesson on your calendar every week. If a holiday or something else intervenes that makes it “feel like today’s not Tuesday,” your calendar will remind you that it is. If your child has a calendar, help him enter lesson

Have a piano.

Unless the teacher says it’s perfectly ok for the child to have a digital piano or an electronic keyboard at home indefinitely, make a real piano available to your child as soon as possible. You want your child to play the piano, yes? A digital piano and an electronic keyboard are different animals. True, all have keyboards (accordions and carillons also have keyboards!), but the touch is very different and the ability to do certain pianists techniques is different on them all (and not possible on some!).

A digital piano is expensive, so it should -not- be considered a half-way stop. An electronic keyboard (usually with 66 keys instead of 88), also called a synthesizer or synth, is far less expensive, and most teachers will say it’s ok for starting lessons. (To my beginners, I say 6 months, maximum. The synth is great to take to the mountain cabin or to Grandma’s house, whether you go over the river and through the woods or not!)

If you aren’t ready to buy an instrument, rent one.

Maintain the piano.

Twice a year, your piano should be “given a tune up.” Literally. Your piano will need tuning twice a year. Actually it will need tuning more than that – – usually at each season change – – but most parents cannot afford piano service this often!

You may not think that your piano needs tuning, but it does. You’re just “used to” how it sounds.

Your piano may need other maintenance, too. You wouldn’t drive a car 100,000 miles without a tune-up, but some people think nothing of letting a piano go 5 years without service! The longer you let a piano go, the harder it is to get it “running correctly,” and thus the more expensive it is to bring it back to proper working order.

Likewise, you wouldn’t ignore it if your child’s computer produced a K every time she pressed the E key!

Don’t make your child “fight” the instrument in addition to learning how to play it!

Make practice a regular activity.

Your child will need your assistance with time management, especially a young child or a beginner (or both!). Help him make piano playing (I prefer this term to “piano practice,” which smacks of drudgery) a regular part of every day. Choose a time of day and make it a routine activity; select a time for weekend days, too. Split piano time in two part if needed (before school and after), which is particularly good for young ones (pre-school through pri 2).

Make sure the home is conducive to piano playing when the time comes. This is a great time for siblings to do homework. This way, the musician is assured that “something cool” isn’t going on elsewhere in the house and he is missing out while at the piano.

Carry out the assignment the teacher has given you.

This may be on-the-bench time with your child, or it may be playing music games, listening to weekly “recitals,” and so on. It also may be keeping-company time while your child plays; you read, balance the checkbook, etc. (Don’t offer suggestions or point out errors unless your child asks for your input. These activities are the teacher’s domain and why you hired him!)

Check in with your child after the lesson. What did the teacher say? What went well? What needs more work (rather than “did not go well”)? Celebrate successes with “family parties.” Did the lesson go especially well? Let the child choose the dinner menu for the next night or get two servings of dessert on lesson night.

Ask the teacher what else you can do.

Teachers will be delighted to know your interest in the child’s musical education extends so far that you want to know what else you can do to further it! There may be nothing, but if you ask there may be something more than you are currently doing.

Note: The teacher also may ask you to distance yourself, especially from a student of several years’ study. Be prepared for this, too. For example, as noted above, if you are calling out corrections from your home office as the child practices in the living room, this is probably detrimental, even though you mean it to be useful and are doing it out of love.

Note:  Lessons are at 45 min or an hr a week, parental roles are very important!!

 

( Article taken from:  http://www.serve.com/marbeth/help_teacher.html )

 

Copyright 2011, Martha Beth Lewis, Ph.D.  Used with permission.   marthabeth.com  Please contact her for permission to reproduce this material for your students or your site.  This material is   her property and may not be used without permission.  Thank you for honoring copyright.

Leave a comment | posted in Frequently Asked Questions, Parental Roles in Music Learning, Piano Learning

December 31, 2010

Parental Roles

By ms-ye

 

Please note:  The following material was taken from –      http://pianoeducation.org/pnotchld.html#Parent .

 

Many successful musicians regard their parents’ influence and inspiration as the most important in sparking their own interest in serious music. Whether or not your child makes a career of music, your efforts in bringing the world of music to your child will make his or her life fuller and happier. You can help your child learn faster and enjoy lessons more by doing a few simple things:

  • Become Involved With Your Child’s Piano Training. Discuss with your teacher the kind and degree of involvement which makes the best sense for your child. Should you attend lessons and, if so, how often? Should you supervise or coach practice sessions and, if so, how should you go about that? Communicate often with your child’s teacher to monitor progress and learn what you can do to be helpful to the learning process.
  • Encourage Your Child As Much As Possible. Be sure to praise effort as well as accomplishment. Even if your child does not learn as fast as another, in the long run, hard work will determine the final result. There is no better way to bring about the hard work than to reward the effort. Try to express interest in what your child is doing, even if you are getting tired of hearing “Chopsticks”. Encourage your child in every way possible to perform for family and friends in relaxed settings.
  • Avoid Negative Criticism. Most of us respond better to thoughtful, loving help than undirected criticism. If your child seems uncooperative, it may mean that they need more help, encouragement, and support. Punishment is usually not a long-term solution.
  • Make Sure Your Child Knows That You Consider Music a Serious Commitment. Schedule piano practice time for your child just as regularly as you do Little League or soccer practice. See to it that practice sessions are as free as possible from distractions. If the piano is in the living room, try to limit access to the living room during your child’s allotted practice time. If your child has not practiced for some reason, do not cancel lessons. If you find the child’s interest in lessons waning, the best thing to do it to discuss the problem with your child’s teacher; often, this can be solved with proper stimulation and supervision by you and the teacher working together.
  • Provide As Much Cultural Enrichment As Possible. The experience of listening to music without the pressure of having to play the notes correctly can add greatly to your child’s appreciation for music generally and lessons in particular. Go to concerts with your children whenever possible. Introduce your children to the works of the masters by playing the music in your home. These days, computer technology, especially the advent of CD-ROM disks, has made it possible to explore great music in a way that is fun for the entire family. If you have a CD-ROM drive equipped computer, try any of several different CD-ROM’s of this type.

Taking an Active Role in Your Child’s Piano Training

It is important to choose a teacher who can not only teach your child how to play the piano, but provide musical enrichment experiences like performance opportunities (home concerts, recitals, and competitions), encourage access to professional music concerts, and develop an overall appreciation of and interest in serious music. What may not be so apparent to parents and students is that these extra activities represent a major commitment of largely unreimbursed and uncompensated time and money for the teachers who make them possible. This fact of life is especially noteworthy in light of the fact that only a small fraction of teachers make them available at all, precisely because of the time and financial burdens required to bring them about. Thus, the task of bringing these activities into being falls disproportionately on a few active and committed teachers. Even if your child’s teacher doesn’t actively support such enrichment experiences, your child benefits from the efforts of other teachers and volunteers who do the extra work to put on a competition or recital.

You can have a major impact on the quality of the music education your child and other children receive by volunteering your time and/or contributing money or goods to support such enrichment activities. Volunteering can take only a few hours of your time a year, but can be of tremendous help to already overburdened teachers who run such events. Such volunteer service generally requires no special training, but can be critical in producing the best possible experience for your child. It can also be a lot of fun for you!

For example, by volunteering to provide and handle refreshments offered to students at competitions, you can not only make the competition more fun and enjoyable for your child and other children, but take some of the load from the teachers who must run the competition itself. You can also serve as a monitor, receptionist, or usher for the competition. When your or another teacher mounts a studio outing to the symphony or other performance, offer to drive and chaperone a car full of kids. You’ll get to see the glow in the kids’ eyes as they experience their first professional performance. If your teacher does recitals or home concerts, you can lift a major burden from the teacher by offering to organize refreshments or a bring-a-dish dinner after the recital. If your time is limited, we can say without fear of contradiction that monetary contributions to your local music teachers organization will be greatly appreciated and well-used to enrich your child’s musical training.

These are just a few of the ways you can help. Getting involved is easy. Just talk with your teacher about how you can help in the studio’s activities or call the local music teachers organization to volunteer. Your piano teacher should be able to give you the phone number of a contact person there, as well. If these kinds of activities aren’t readily available locally, talk with your teacher about the possibility of starting them with your help. If they are available and your teacher doesn’t participate in them, encourage the teacher to participate and to volunteer as well. We think you’ll find that you’ll enjoy helping to better music education for all the students in your area.

 

Article taken from:

–      http://pianoeducation.org/pnotchld.html#Parent         

 

Leave a comment | posted in Parental Roles in Music Learning, Piano Learning

December 31, 2010

Some Common Misconceptions About Piano Lessons

By ms-ye

 

Please note:  The following material was taken from  http://pianoeducation.org/pnolsmis.html .

 

Starting Lessons

“You only need lessons if you want to play the classics.”

Learning piano is a lot more than just being able to “plunk out” a few tunes. If you’re going to carry any skills over to other music, no matter the type, you’ll need to learn how to:  read music, adopt basic posture and technique, follow melodic and harmonic lines in each hand simultaneously, finger chords, practice properly and much, much more. Most people take lessons to help them learn to play most anything that might come along, not because they are interested in a particular genre. Would you be happy if, after taking lessons, you could only play a few tunes from a given type of music?

“I’m too old (young) to take lessons.”

While it is possible to start children on piano too young to gain maximum benefit from lessons, most children can benefit from lessons at early ages. On one of our Tips for Parents and Students pages, you’ll find some helpful hints about how to measure your child’s physical and mental development to determine if they are ready for lessons. The requirements are very easy to meet for most kids. Older students have some considerable advantages over children in terms of both focus and motivation, even if they have lost some of the flexibility that characterized their younger years. So long as an older student has the time and desire to learn, he can start at just about any age.

“It’s okay to start lessons without making a commitment to them.”

Many people don’t realize that lessons undertaken without commitment almost always lead to failure. Lessons take real time and involvement on the part of teachers, students and parents. A new student should assume that, to be successful, he will have to devote just as much time to practice and lessons as he would give to a school team sport. Just as with a sport, playing piano requires both knowledge and skill. You can get the knowledge by study, but can get the skill only by practice.

“Somehow my children will find time for lessons and practice, even though they are scheduled with activities every day of the week.”

Given the amount of time (not to mention psychological) commitment needed to be successful in learning to play the piano (see above), an overly scheduled child or adult student will find it difficult to be successful learning piano for sheer lack of time. Consider if you really have the time to commit at least an hour per day to effective practice.

Parental Role

“Paying for the lessons is all the piano parent must do.”

Just as parental involvement is important to a child’s success in school, his/her success in piano lessons will require support from the parents. The teacher will provide information, technique and encouragement. However, remember that the teacher only sees the student for 30 to 60 minutes per week, while the parents spend most of the non-school hours with him. If the parents don’t see to it that their children practice and attend lessons regularly, the teacher’s effort will likely be for naught, no matter what her skills as a teacher. Even more helpful to lesson success is regular interest and encouragement of their children from parents. For more specific tips about how you can help your child succeed in lessons, see our Being a Supportive Parent of a Piano Student section of our Tips for Parents and Students pages.

“The teacher must be failing if the child isn’t making progress at an acceptable rate.”

In rare cases, it may be the teacher’s “fault” if your child isn’t progressing. Before you conclude that you need to change teachers though, take a look at whether you and your child have been serious about lessons. Are you practicing correctly and frequently enough? Are you attending all scheduled lessons? Are you rewarding accomplishment at the piano with as much praise as you would accomplishment on the athletic field? Is learning piano a priority or just another part of a busy day?

Taking Lessons

“Playing piano is all about “talent”; you have it or you don’t.”

“Talent” at the piano is real, but, as in so many other areas of human endeavor, greatly overrated. If you are committed to learning piano and are willing to do the regular (i.e. daily) practice that building skill requires, you will learn to play to a considerable degree, irrespective of the level of your “native” talent. As with so many other skills, playing the piano requires hard work and inspiration in about a ten to one (or higher) ratio, respectively.

“My kid should have excellent piano skills in 6 months of lessons.”

Sometimes, parents come into a piano studio having heard the many “play in a day” claims out there. Some can’t understand why their child isn’t ready for a concert tour after 6 months of lessons. Unfortunately, you can’t really learn to play piano using any “play in a day” approach. Often, this approach does more harm than good. You might be able to master a single tune to a small degree, but you won’t have learned much to carry over to the next one.

“It’s my second lesson. I want to play the Maple Leaf Rag”

Many people take lessons because they would like to be able to play some particular work or genre of music. It’s not surprising that they might want to play works that are well beyond their level of training and capability. Keep in mind the fact that you are taking lessons from a teacher because he or she knows more about piano than you do. The teacher probably knows what’s best for your training, especially in the first year. It’s perfectly fine to tell your teacher that you have an interest in some work or works and ask if they could be worked into your lesson program, as feasible. In the end, though, you’re probably best served by following the teacher’s program of training and repertoire.

“I couldn’t come to the lesson (or practice the piano), because I had a (football, baseball, basketball, soccer, track, hockey, lacrosse, etc.) (practice, game)”

Piano teachers hear these statements so often that it’s practically impossible to list all the variations. In the end, they all come down to students and parents placing a higher priority on these alternative activities than on piano. All of us must make decisions everyday about how we will use our time. However, we can hardly hold a school teacher responsible for our failure to learn (and the resulting F grade) if we don’t attend class regularly or do any of the homework. The same is true for piano. The difference is that you’re wasting your own money, not just that of the taxpayers, if you take that view with regard to piano lessons.

“My child has a digital keyboard, so he doesn’t need an acoustic piano.”

Digital keyboards, especially top-of-the-line ones, have become remarkably good at reproducing much of the sound and some of the feel of the acoustic piano. Although individual teachers have their own, often strong, feelings on this subject, it’s fair to say that most feel that a good digital keyboard is fine to start lessons on. Indeed, digital keyboards now outsell acoustic pianos by a substantial margin worldwide and especially in the U.S. That said, no knowledgeable pianist would argue that a digital keyboard is the best way of learning to play the acoustic piano. Probably no later than the end of the first year of lessons, you should plan on getting an acoustic piano. As I have discussed numerous times all over The Piano Education Page, the digital keyboard is best seen as a separate instrument with different capabilities, which, by good fortune, can serve as a stand-in for a short period of time for an acoustic piano. Students should learn how to play both instruments for their own separate qualities and attributes.

Practicing

“”An hour of practice a day” is just a suggestion.”

You can either “practice” or you can practice. Too many people think that, if an hour of practice is required, that a half hour is almost as good and that half hour can be spent watching TV while “practicing.” Real practice requires both mental and physical devotion, in which you don’t simply repeat mistakes, but correct them before proceeding on. One expert pianist I know says that you should practice a problem area until you can do right ten times for every time you do it wrong. It’s not the amount of time you spend, but how well you use the time that counts. If you practice several hours a day and simply repeat the same mistakes each time through, you have not practiced effectively. For some good tips about how to practice effectively, see our article, Suggested Practice Techniques. In passing, allow me to note that failure of the student to practice properly and adequately is the single biggest item that piano teachers note as contributing to the failure of lessons.
 

“I’ll wait to practice until just before the next lesson.”

Piano teachers hear this one often. Imagine what a sports coach would say if his teams took this view. Playing piano is a skill and, as such, must be constantly refined and developed. You simply can’t learn by only practicing just before the lesson.


The Teacher

“Since lessons are paid for, the teacher should give any amount of unpaid time for free.”

Although they wouldn’t work for free themselves, many parents, in particular, think that extra time spent preparing a child for a contest or concert should be given free by the teacher. The average piano teacher probably has in excess of thirty students and each one deserves the best the teacher can give. If you need or want extra time from your teacher, expect to pay for the time.

“The teacher has plenty of free time to give me or my child.”

Some people feel it’s okay not to show up for a lesson and not to give notice, but expect immediate scheduling of a free makeup lesson. Others think that they can use their piano teacher as an unpaid baby sitter by leaving their child unsupervised at the piano studio for an hour or two after the scheduled end of the lesson. People should remember that the teacher teaches more students than just their children. If he/she has to watch over students left past lesson times or has to wait for a student who never arrives, he can’t give full attention to other students. In effect, those who leave their children at the studio past the scheduled end of the lesson are stealing the teacher’s time and attention from the next student.

“My piano teacher must be getting rich, because the hourly lesson rate is higher than my hourly rate.”

Most people don’t consider that they get benefits (health insurance, paid vacation, retirement plan, etc.) for “free” as a part of their compensation package, while most piano teachers must pay for those same benefits out of their hourly fee. Since typical company benefits run anywhere from half the nominal salary to equal the salary (or more), the real (“fully-loaded”) compensation is much higher than the amount people think of as salary. Considered in that light, most teacher’s fees are quite low, especially when you consider that the majority of teachers have degrees and/or other advanced training.
 

It’s Up to You!

I hope that understanding some of the common misconceptions about piano and lessons will help parents and students make the most of their lesson experience, without being burdened by misconceptions and misapprehensions which hold back their progress as pianists. This listing is not all-inclusive. You or your child can be a pianist, if you’re willing to devote time and work to it.

 

( Article taken from: http://pianoeducation.org/pnolsmis.html )

 

Leave a comment | posted in Adult Piano Learning, Frequently Asked Questions, Parental Roles in Music Learning, Piano Learning, Piano Lessons

December 31, 2010

Developments of the Modern Piano

By ms-ye

Interior of an upright piano, showing the felt-covered hammers. The tuning pins can be seen at upper left. In the treble range shown, each note has three strings.

In the period lasting from about 1790 to 1860, the Mozart-era piano underwent tremendous changes, which led to the modern form of the instrument. This revolution 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 7⅓ (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 octaves by 1810 (in time for Beethoven to use the extra notes in his later works), and seven octaves 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 center of innovation had shifted to Paris, where the Érard firm manufactured 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. When the invention became public, and as revised by Henri Herz, the double escapement action gradually became the standard action for grand pianos, and is used in all grand pianos currently produced.

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, 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 single piece cast iron frame was patented in 1825 in Boston by Alpheus Babcock, combining the metal hitch pin plate (1821, claimed by Broadwood on behalf of Samuel Hervé) and resisting bars (Thom and Allen, 1820, but also claimed by Broadwood and Érard). Babcock later worked for the Chickering & Mackays firm which patented the first full iron frame for grand pianos (1843). Composite forged metal frames were preferred by many European makers until the American system was fully adopted by the early 20th century.
    •  
      • Felt hammer coverings, first introduced by Henri Pape in 1826, gradually replaced skillfully layered leather hammers; the more consistent material permitted wider dynamic ranges as hammer weights and string tensions increased.
      • The sostenuto pedal invented in 1844 by Jean Louis Boisselot and improved by the Steinway firm in 1874.
      • The over strung scale, also called “cross-stringing”; the strings are placed in a vertically overlapping slanted arrangement, with two heights of bridges on the soundboard, rather than just one. This permits larger, but not necessarily longer, strings to fit within the case of the piano. Over stringing 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.

Duplex scaling: Treble strings of a 182 cm. grand piano. From lower left to upper right: dampers, main sounding length of strings, treble bridge, duplex string length, duplex bridge (long bar perpendicular to strings), hitchpins.

  • Duplexes or aliquot scales; In 1872 Theodore Steinway patented a system to control different components of string vibrations by tuning their secondary parts in octave relationships with the sounding lengths. Similar systems developed by Blüthner (1872), as well as Taskin (1788), and Collard (1821) used more distinctly ringing undamped vibrations to modify tone.

Today’s upright, grand, and concert grand pianos attained their present forms by the end of the 19th century. Improvements have been made in manufacturing processes, and many individual details of the instrument continue to receive attention.

Some early pianos had shapes and designs that are no longer in use.

The square piano had horizontal strings arranged diagonally across the rectangular case above the hammers and with the keyboard set in the long side, it is variously attributed to Silbermann and Frederici and was improved by Petzold and Babcock. Built in quantity through the 1890s (in the United States), Steinway’s celebrated iron framed over strung squares were more than two and a half times the size of Zumpe’s wood framed instruments that were successful a century before, their overwhelming popularity was due to inexpensive construction and price, with performance and sonority frequently restricted by simple actions and closely spaced strings.

The tall vertically strung upright grand was arranged with the soundboard and bridges perpendicular to keys, and above them so that the strings did not extend to the floor. Diagonally strung Giraffe, pyramid and lyre pianos employed this principle in more evocatively shaped cases. The term was later revived by many manufacturers for advertising purposes.

The very tall cabinet piano introduced by Southwell in 1806 and built through the 1840s had strings arranged vertically on a continuous frame with bridges extended nearly to the floor, behind the keyboard and very large sticker action.

The short cottage upright or pianino with vertical stringing, credited to Robert Wornum about 1810 was built into the 20th century. They are informally called birdcage pianos because of their prominent damper mechanism. Pianinos were distinguished from the oblique, or diagonally strung upright made popular in France by Roller & Blanchet during the late 1820s.

The tiny spinet upright was manufactured from the mid 1930s until recent times. It saved space by using a “drop action” arranged below the level of the keys.

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December 31, 2010

Early history

By ms-ye

Although there were various crude earlier attempts to make stringed keyboard instruments with struck strings, it is widely considered that the piano was invented by a single individual: Bartolomeo Cristofori of Padua, Italy. It is not known exactly when Cristofori first built a piano, but an inventory made by his employers, the Medici family, indicates the existence of a piano by the year 1700. The three Cristofori pianos that survive today date from the 1720s.

 Like many other inventions, the piano was founded on earlier technological innovations. The mechanisms of keyboard instruments such as the clavichord and the harpsichord were well known. In a clavichord the strings are struck by tangents, while in a harpsichord they are plucked by quills. Centuries of work on the mechanism of the harpsichord in particular had shown the most effective ways to construct the case, soundboard, bridge, and keyboard. Cristofori, himself an expert harpsichord maker, was well acquainted with this body of knowledge.

 Cristofori’s great success was in solving, without any prior example, the fundamental mechanical problem of piano design: the hammers must strike the string, but not remain in contact with the string (as a tangent remains in contact with a clavichord string) because this 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 followed. While Cristofori’s early instruments were made with thin strings and were much quieter than the modern piano, compared to the clavichord (the only previous keyboard instrument capable of minutely controlled dynamic nuance through the keyboard) they were considerably louder and had more sustaining power.

 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 because 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, with one important addition: Silbermann invented the forerunner of the modern damper pedal, which lifts all the dampers from the strings at once.

Silbermann showed Bach one of his early instruments in the 1730s, but Bach did not like it at that time, claiming that the higher notes were too soft to allow a full dynamic range. Although this earned him some animosity from Silbermann, the criticism was apparently heeded. Bach did approve of a later instrument he saw in 1747, and even served as an agent in selling Silbermann’s pianos.

 Piano-making flourished during the late 18th century in 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. Viennese-style pianos were built with wood 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 of his music. The pianos 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 instrument from later pianos.

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December 31, 2010

Piano

By ms-ye

Piano is the general name given to a musical instrument classified as a keyboard, percussion, or string instrument, depending on the system of classification used. The piano produces sound by striking steel strings with felt hammers that immediately rebound allowing the string to continue vibrating at its resonant frequency. These vibrations are transmitted through the bridges to the soundboard, which amplifies them.

The piano is widely used in western music for solo performance, chamber music, and accompaniment. It is also very popular as an aid to composing and rehearsal. Although not portable and often expensive, the piano’s versatility and ubiquity has made it among the most familiar of musical instruments.

The word piano is a shortened form of the word pianoforte, which is seldom used except in formal language and derived from the original harpsichord with soft and loud). This refers to the ability of the piano to produce notes at different dynamic levels depending on the speed with which a key is depressed.

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