First, you’ll need to know that a keyboard instrument is any musical instrument on which different notes can be sounded by pressing a series of keys, push buttons, or parallel levers. In almost all cases in Western music the keys are equivalent to consecutive notes in the chromatic scale, and they run from the bass, the left side of the keyboard, to the treble, the right side of the keyboard. Since, the keyboard allows …show more content…
The King James Version is as follows, “And his brother’s name was Jubal: he was the father of all such as handle the harp and organ.” The predecessor of the modern organ was the Hydraulis, the first instrument to have a keyboard. The hydraulis was built in about 220 B.C. in Greece. In Greece and the Roman Empire the organ was commonly used at important festivities by the Second Century A.D.
The hands, wrists, fists, knees, or feet were used to play the first keyboards. Rather than the twelve tone chromatic scale we use today, the scales were diatonic (as in GABCDEF) until the 13th Century.
Earlier technological innovations were used to invent the piano. During the 14th and 15th Centuries, different kinds of keyboard stringed instruments were created. The chekker, dulce melos, and clavichord came with hammers to strike the string and make noise. Others were plucked like the virginal, spinet, and …show more content…
Many American songs created at the time were related to the American Revolution. The songs involved dynamic melodies that were used to describe the war.
During and after Ludwig van Beethoven’s life (1770 - 1827), the piano gained more keys, which not only increased the size but the sound levels grew. Piano builders began building the instrument out of iron to make the noise louder and give it more depth in dynamics. Pianos began to join orchestras, which caused the orchestra to become a very popular source of entertainment. This also caused concert halls to be built bigger and have more seats.
Pianists gained popularity that paralleled the rock stars of today, often bringing men to tears, causing women to weep, and the audience to shower the stage in flowers. One such musician was Franz Liszt (1811 - 1886) of Hungaria. Liszt introduced the solo piano instead of the entire orchestra and wrote more than 600 compositions. Frederic Chopin (1819 - 1849) of Poland, a pianist who most likely had tuberculosis, was a favorite pianist who gave private lessons to many of the elite in Paris. In America, there was Louis Moreau Gottschalk (1829 - 1869) from New Orleans became known all over the world for his “tremolo” technique, which is were you play one key rapidly or switch between one or