The History of the Piano
The piano has seen many sights and has been a part of countless
important events in the past and present, and is said to have
dominated music for the past 200 years (Welton). Throughout
history, inventions come along that "take art away from princes
and give it the people" (Swan 41). Not unlike the printing
press, the piano made what was once intangible possible: the
poorest of peasants could enjoy the same music that their beloved
rulers did. The piano can be played by "the rankest of amateurs,
and the greatest of virtuosos" (Swan 41); so even if a person is
not very intelligent, a simple tune can easily be learned. In
addition to being a key factor in almost all western music
styles, the piano has had a rich and eventful history.
The piano can be directly linked to two instruments of
centuries past. The first is the clavichord, a box-like
structure in which strings are stretched, and struck by metal
blades to produce notes and pitches. The clavichord could be
manipulated to produce different chords, but even at it's best,
could barely be heard by anyone other than the player (Swan 42).
Intent upon creating a superior to the clavichord, musical
engineers created the harpsichord. The harpsichord used a frame
similar to modern grand-pianos, but utilized a wooden bar and a
quill to pluck strings (the jack), which amplified the sound of a
clavichord greatly. Harpsichords were more expensive
clavichords and became a fad in sixteenth and seventeenth century
England (Rice 185).
The harpsichord was a particularly important development
leading to the invention of the piano. "Its ability to project
sound more loudly than its predecessors, and refinements in the
acti...
... middle of paper ...
...os of today, the piano has
and always will be one of the centerpieces of all kinds of music.
Bibliography:
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Came to Be. in The Lives of the PIANO. ed. James R. Gaines. New
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The clarinet is a woodwind instrament consisting of a cylindrical wood, metal, or ebonite pipe with a bell-shaped opening at one end and a mouthpiece at the other end, to which a thin reed is attached. The clarinet has five different sections, the mouthpiece, the barrel, the upper section, the lower section, and the bell. The length of the entire instrument is 60 cm long. The mouthpiece section consists of a slotted cylinder, to which a reed is attached by a metal clamp called a ligature. The mouthpiece plugs into the next section which is a barrel. The barrel is simply a connecting cylinder to which the mouthpiece and the upper section plugs into. The upper section is a cylindrical pipe consisting of 4 holes and 9 keys placed in different locations along the pipe. On the back of the pipe there is a hole and a key that is used by the thumb. The lower section plugs into the upper section and is also connected via a special bridge key. This piece consists of 3 holes and 8 keys. On the inward facing side of the pipe, there is a protruding piece of metal called a thumb rest, which supports the entire clarinet. The bell plugs into the lower section. It consists of a cylinder that flares out into a bell shape and ends the clarinet.
Howard, John Tasker, and George Kent Bellows. A Short History of Music in America. New York: Thomas Y. Crowell Company, 1957. 342-3. Print.
Boy Willie is the protagonist in the play The Piano Lesson, which is written by August Wilson. He is a foil character to his sister Berniece. He wants to sell the family piano. His biggest obstacle is his past, and his sister. Berniece wants to salvage the piano and keep it as a namesake. The quarrels revolving around legacies is the central conflict of the play. Boy Willie’s “Super-objective” contains two parts: fear and legacy resulting in memory.
Janice B. Stockigt, Jan Dismas Zelenka, 1679 – 1745: A Bohemian Musician at the Court of Dresden (Oxford, 2000)
The Web. 21 Oct 2010. Writer, Staff. The "mechanical piano 40 (MP40)." www.militaryfactory.com.
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This essay, as the title suggests, will be about the origins of jazz music. Starting from the roots when African slaves arrived in North America, they helped the development and the emergence of early jazz a great deal. It is also important to not forget the significance of the Congo Square which kept the music alive in New Orleans, never letting it die out. Then, continuing on with the slavery theme, the essay will talk about why and how jazz music appeared in its widely considered birth place, New Orleans. Also, as early jazz developed into different styles, the text will mainly be focusing on its two most prominent ancestors: ragtime and blues. Additionally, jazz would not exist as it is known today without the assistance of some of the
Music has shaped the lives of people throughout history. Even in its earliest forms, music has included use of instruments. One of the oldest musical instruments known is a variation of the flute; the original flute is thought to date back nearly 67,000 years ago. Tonight we are going to move throughout the eras with a history of instrumental music. This concert will begin with the Renaissance Era and continue through time until we have reached modern instrumental music.
Wilson, August. "The Piano Lesson." Drama: A Pocket Anthology. Ed. R. S. Gwynn. 5th ed. New York: Pearson, 2012. 362-442. Print.
Racism, persecution, and finally extermination; these were the terrible things that Gypsies, Russians, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Homosexuals and Jews had to face during World War II. Hitler took power in January 30, 1933 becoming the prime minister of Germany (Judy L. Hasday p. 12). By 1945, Germans, or the Nazis, had killed nearly two out of every three European Jews as part of the "Final Solution," the Nazi policy to murder the Jews of Europe (U.S. Memorial Museum). More than six million Jewish men, women, and children had been annihilated (Judy L. Hasday p. 12). German authorities were exterminating Jews and many others that were considered inferior to the Aryans. Hitler believed any one that was not an Aryan was inferior to their pure race. He believed in a race that included fair skin, blond hair, and blue eyes a pure German blood. The ones who did not meet these standards were considered a menace to the world. The Holocaust was their “Final Solution” (Gerald Reitlinger 1953). In the movie The Pianist, Wladyslaw Szpilman and all Jews were segregated from everything they had to share with Germans, this included restaurants, bars, and simple things like sidewalks. When Hitler had gotten to power he ordered to boycott all Jewish stores. This made it harder for Jews to survive. Then the authorities took everything the Jews had away, even their coins were worth less than a regular piece of metal. But why would anyone stay in the place where they are not wanted? The Pianist is a film that is historically correct because it portrays the cruelty that took place during the holocaust; it showed how much families struggled together to survive in the concentration camps.
During the Holocaust in Poland, thousands of Jewish people were taken out the comfort of their homes and even their cities. They were separated from their loved ones and taken away to places completely foreign to them. The Nazis reduced the Jewish community during the Holocaust drastically by killing anyone that produced the slightest amount of trouble or if they didn’t contribute in the camps as productively as others due to health or old age. All of the old customs and traditions that the Jewish people used to have were all stopped. All the money, food, and even the homes they used to own were all taken away from them. Without their approval, the Nazis went in and practically took all the valuables that they could find inside the homes. There are many movies and books that try to explain the brutality of this event but the high majority underestimate how terrible this event is. The Pianist, directed by Roman Polanski shows the event in the eyes of a famous Jewish pianist named Wladyslaw Szpilman.# This movie accurately portrays the the extreme differences of the Polish town...
The two stories ‘The Kite Runner’by Khalid Hosseini and ‘A Place on the Piano,’ by Eva Ibbotson, both have a set of friends each. In the Kite Runner we have two boys who are oblivious to the fact that they are half brother but they both have been raised as friends in the same home in Afghanistan. On the other hand, A Place on the Piano, has two people who become friends. Marianne is an orphaned girl living in Germany, and only speaks German. Whereas Michael, is also poor but he only speaks English.