Mikes Music Room – Music Articles

Pianos are the musical instruments that produce rhythm when they are played according to their specified process. The first piano was made in London in year 1766 and it was made by Sebastien Erard. He dedicated his life in the making and improving the technicality of the piano. In the technical process the previous model were lacking in good features. The popularity was abreast with the innovations made in the device. It underwent a lot of modifications and then according to the change in technology the innovations led to a higher stage. Over the years the piano has gained become popular very much. At the beginning they used to come in a model that had only one pedal and five octaves. Then with the inventions of the modern pianos and digital pianos it gained popularity.

Innovations led to popularity

There are many types of pianos like square pianos, modern pianos, silence pianos and digital pianos. The first invention was by Bartolomeo Cristofori. Then a lot of modifications and improvement led its way to gain popularity. As the innovations were in progress many people those who were mainly the music lovers were attracted to such modifications and they learned and played with great interest. The interest gradually generated in a lot of people and people craved for listening to such music. When these tunes were transformed in soft copies they became popular and even they were sold in CDs known to be instrumentals. Adding to the technicality it can be said that the sound or the musical rhythm produced is by striking the end of the felt hammers and the strings and thus a vibration is produced by this interaction. The musical note that is produced constitutes a nice rhythm when they are concatenated. This function remains the same in the case of pianos only there is a change in the technical process.

The innovations that were made in the piano were the main reason behind the popularity of the pianos. Many types of the pianos came to be known with the modifications but the maximum popularity was with the making of the digital pianos. The features were also very easy to follow and they were inexpensive and over the years lot of electronic modifications made in the way which added to its popularity.

Piano Tuning

Piano is delicate instrument which contains some ten thousand unique parts, and as these pianos are quite delicate they need frequent maintenance and servicing. Tuning is the most basic kind of piano maintenance. And it means adjusting the tension of each of the piano strings, using a tuning hammer to turn the tuning pins. So that the pitch of each string sounds pleasingly in harmony with every other string according to certain rules and customs. The most important cause for pianos to be tuned is the change in humidity from season to season that occurs in most temperature climates. The climate affects all the pianos whether it is old or new, good or bad, played or unplayed. Some pianos have a weak structure that actually twists slightly from season to season. These pianos go out of tune chaotically in addition to showing large seasonal variations in pitch.

Piano tuning and servicing is a very complicated process that takes a lot of training and skill to do it right. Iron made tuning is much more stable but the case and soundboard have all the propensities of wood to change in response to changes in seasonal humidity

Descent of Finger.

After the position and height of the seat and the position of the player have been determined, the Pose of the fingers must be attended to. They are to be placed, according to their various lengths, on the keys, that is, touching the surface of the keys

After examining the principles regulating the action of the hand and the mechanism of the piano, and knowing that if any of these are ignored or overlooked, no true application of the one mechanism to the other can be effected. It is necessary to begin on the keyboard work of such a nature as will develop, first of all, Independent Movement in each finger. This must be done before any thought is given to the acquirement of strength of finger. Previous to their being trained on the keyboard, the fingers have been accustomed to action of the most unin-dependent nature.

They have hitherto been moved generally in a body; they must now be taught to move one at a time. Their action when applied to the keyboard is, in the matter of direction, no new or unfamiliar one. The novelty consists in their action’s being, (1), in

The second duty of the key is its action on the damper. It has already been stated that, in fulfilling this duty, the key is being kept ” at work ” until the very moment that it rises, the “work” being that of preventing the damper from touching the string, thus allowing the tone to continue sounding.

The damper of the piano is the only means of stopping the string’s vibrations, which would otherwise continue, in many cases, longer than would be necessary or agreeable. In violin-playing, the same stoppage of tone takes place when the player ceases drawing the bow across the strings.

The continuance of the tone, in the case of the piano, depends only negatively on the action of the damper. Positively, it depends on the vibrations of the strings, assisted and reinforced by the large surface of the sounding-board, over which they are stretched.

The key, as long as it is kept down by the finger, exercises a restraining influence on the damper, and the finger may therefore be considered to have some slight extra resistance offered to it by the weight of the damper. If this resistance were great enough to be perceived by the finger while keeping the key down, some extra force would be needed to counteract it; but as the weight of the hand and arm are far more than sufficient to resist the weight of the damper, added to that of the key, no extra pressure on the ivory is necessary to keep the damper away from the string.

Considered from the side of the necessities of the hand, the hold which the hand keeps on the key after the push, must be accompanied by no continuous clinging pressure, as this after-pressure destroys the looseness or elasticity of the muscles, and makes no greater impression on the damper-mechanism, than does a hold of the lightest and loosest description.

The finger-work consists of two elements, namely, the push, necessary to make the hammer strike the string, and the hold, necessary to prevent the damper from stopping the tone. The impulse used in delivering the push should always be of the most momentary duration, as the work done by it