How we make instruments shapes what music we do

Music has been with us for a long time albeit in quite different forms through the years. I am sure that I don‘t need to convince you of that. Just think about the evolution of music from the 1950s to the 2000s. Muddy Waters and Nirvana didn‘t play the same way. Instruments too come and go out of fashion in turn. What you might not realize is that what instruments are available will inevitably shape how we make music. To further explain that phenomenon, let me describe a short history of a perennial classic - the piano.

A piano is at its core a string instrument. The first string instrument we can solidly trace is the monochord. If you read my post on Pythagoras, a monochord was what he used to produce his “perfect“ harmonies. In brief, a monochord is a single string strung over a wooden box. Underneath the string were marked sections and divisions corresponding to the intervals needed for specific scales. Think something similar to guitar frets. With such an instrument, you could therefore make clean harmonious notes - one at a time. From what we know, it was used by Greeks to dictate monophonic chorus singing. It would also be common in late-Roman churches. Yet, the monochord has its limitations. For one, as I mentioned, you could produce only a single note. But, more importantly at the time, church officials worried about the fact that the instrument was inexact. After all, it was easy to place the finger just a tad wrong, warping the scales. Remember that clear harmonious sounds were crucial for Christian churches. Guido of Arezzo would come to the rescue (around the year 100) and add a movable bridge to the monochord. This made it easier to pinch the cord at specific places, or should we say, at specific notes. Further inventions would come through the Middle Ages the most important of which would be the addition of separate keys to the monochord, which made it more practical - and much more visually closer to its children.

With time, people would realize that more strings offered richer harmonies and so an instrument with multiple strings - arranged in string length to form a triangle - would be born. It would be called the calvicytherium. Based on research made by Alfred Dolge, that particular instrument would be invented around 1300 in Italy. Germans would copy it and improve gradually until we came to our first important piano milestone: the clavichord. The first clavichords had few strings (about 20) and those were made to vibrate (not be plucked). Its shape already looked a lot like our modern piano but still in a rectangular box. With further improvements, this instrument would become the favourite of the Renaissance and would still be in use through the Baroque era. The major limitation of the clavichord was the fact that each string was associated with two keys. Key execution to produce the right sound could therefore still be tricky. We would have to wait for Daniel Faber (1725) for the very first clavichord where each key had his string.

Faber‘s clavichord would be ground-breaking since this is the first instrument with pretty much every characteristic we associate with pianos: independent keys, metal strings, strings mechanically vibrated (not plucked) and the presence of dampers. Critically, the clavichord allowed players to play notes in a variety of tones. The tones were still quite weak, but you could reflect some emotion in the gradation of intonation itself. This breakthrough explains in part the start of the musical baroque golden age. Johann Sebastian Bach would become the king of the clavichord - producing music of greater emotional depth than ever before. Still, as an organ player, Bach felt the need for something stronger than the clavichord and pushed piano makers for more innovation. Mozart would also largely discard the clavichord for new instruments. Also pushing piano makers ever forward to meet his needs.

This is what the piano maker Spinnetti (and later Stein) tried to do. At the start of the 16th century, he would make a sort of clavichord with longer strings and a larger soundboard. The sound produced could therefore be louder. It would be called the spinet but later evolved to be the harpsichord thanks to Stein (himself pushed by Mozart). Yes, the harpsichord could offer more tone volume in the music hall, yet its strings were too heavy for the original clavichord‘s mechanism and needed to be pricked. We had come back to the same problems and limitations as the monochord. It explains why composers would prefer the harpsichord for a long time. Still, some dabbled with it, to exploit the larger sound it could offer. That would include Beethoven (with his 1802 Moonlight Sonata for example).

But even the harpsichord wasn‘t enough for Beethoven. He wanted more octaves, more sound… and more solid pianos. Beethoven was famous for drilling pianos to their breaking point, regularly changing instruments even after a single session. After Mozart, Stein would make further improvements under Beethoven‘s influence.

The happy marriage between both the clavichord and the harpsichord‘s strengths would come from three independent musicians at about the same time. First, Christofori in 1707, then Marius in 1716 and finally Schröter in 1717. What was that breakthrough? Hammers. By regulating the fall of the hammer, Christofori could both produce exact notes with thicker strings and still match (exceed even) the tonal expression that made the clavichord famous. It was called the pianoforte (or grand piano).

Through the 19th century, the grand piano would be improved even further: more pedals, gentle touch, more octaves and richer sound (thanks to an iconic curved case), The modern grand piano is a marvel of acoustic accuracy. Our last great master who greatly pushed piano makers to follow Bach, Mozart and Beethoven‘s legacy would be Franz Liszt. For our needs, see him as an even more extreme Beethoven. If Beethoven broke pianos from time to time, Liszt looked like he almost deliberately broke them (almost has publicity stun). Yet, these broken instruments were probably what the industry needed to reach the highs the grand piano would achieve in sound, strength and flexibility.

As ever, you can see that necessity is the mother of invention. Composers' ideas of music were shaped by what instruments they that relationship went both ways. There is no greater influence on the piano‘s evolution than its composers themselves. I know that I went VERY fast today. I still hope you learned something. History might seem to shape us to its mold but take this survey as a reminder that we can still shape it in turn.

In any case, enough rambling. See you next time.

References

• Pianos and their makers - A Comprehensive History of the Development of the Piano from the monochord to the Concert Grand Player Piano, Alfred Dolge, 1911.