The evolution and development of piano can be roughly divided into two stages, the ancient piano stage and the modern piano stage. The clavichord originated in Europe, and its original structure was relatively simple. A flat-headed metal nail is fixed at the back end of the key. When playing, the flat-headed nail directly hits the tight metal string on the wooden frame to pronounce. This clavichord was created between 12 and15th century.
Modern piano is the development and evolution of ancient piano and harpsichord. Harpsichord, also known as harpsichord, is a kind of ancient piano. It was invented in Germany in the late16th century. It has a metal wire on it, and the wheel wrapped in parchment is turned by shaking the handle. When the key is pressed, the wheel rubs the strings to make them vibrate and pronounce.
The world's first truly modern piano was born in Italy. 1709, Bartolomeo Christofi improved the harpsichord, successfully made a mallet by wrapping leather on the wood core, and invented a mechanical piano hammer (hereinafter referred to as piano), which laid the foundation for modern piano keyboard machinery. At that time, besides Christopher Leigh, there were also studies on piano manufacturing in France and Germany, so according to some documents, some people regarded Schroeder of Germany as the inventor of the piano. Later, Stein, a German piano developer who studied under Gulberman, was praised by Mozart for adding a "disconnection" device to the hammer percussion machine. Mozart has been playing the piano with this device for the rest of his life. With the rapid development of piano playing art, pianists began to seek a string striking device that can "take off" and "repeat" quickly even if their fingers are not completely off the keys. This strong demand has promoted the speed of French Esdrd in studying string striking. In 1809, he finally developed a new generation of percussion device, and in 65438+ years. This invention is considered to be of epoch-making significance. With the adoption of additional die rods and springs, the speed of the string striking machine is greatly accelerated, and the touch is sensitive and comfortable, which is more suitable for playing difficult music.
We can see from some pictures in the literature that Haydn and Mozart did not step on the piano when they were young. In Broadwood, England, before the invention of stepping on the foot, a device similar to the handle of an organ sound changer was extended from the piano keyboard. Although it has some similar stepping functions, it has some uncontrollable shortcomings. Braud Wood invented dampespdeal in 1780 and obtained a patent in 1783. Since then, he has devoted himself to the improvement of grand piano and made outstanding contributions to the piano manufacturing industry.
In America, the upright piano was created by Howkins in 1800. He improved the creel, shaft and percussion instrument. By 1826, he improved the piano by using axle pins, axle stands and climbing belts. The implementation of these improvements has a great influence on later generations, and also contributed to the establishment of the foundation of American piano manufacturing.
Since then, the piano has been further improved by Chic—Kering, Steinway and Beehstein in the United States, from supporting strings and wooden frames to iron plate structures cast with pig iron.
185 1 year, Chiklin of the United States invented the cast iron chord frame (now commonly known as "steel plate"). Later, the iron string frame was improved, from "straight steel plate" to "inclined steel plate", from semi-steel plate to all-steel plate used so far, which enhanced the ability of the string frame to bear the huge string tension after the strings were tightened, and changed the situation that the strings were loose due to the deformation of the wooden string frame. This improvement has laid a good foundation for the stability of piano pitch and the extension of its service life.
After continuous improvement and development in the later period, 1857, Steinway of the United States invented the forked string arrangement, which made the tenor string, the chord surface and the bass string divided into two layers, leaving a certain distance between the two layers to avoid the collision between the two layers, making the string layout structure more reasonable.
Piano strings, from the initial use of ordinary iron wire steel wire to the current use of alloy steel wire. After 1830, piano strings began to use steel wires as strings. The bass strings are wound around the strings, which increases the quality of the strings, makes the timbre and volume richer and more beautiful, and endows the modern piano with sufficient volume, perfect tone quality and expressive force.
Many examples show that "modern piano" was formed around 1850. Regarding the development of piano, some people divide the development of piano into early stage, middle stage and late stage, each period is about 50 years. On the development of modern piano, many piano producers and performers have made great contributions. For example, Steinway's double overtone device 1872 patent, multi-layer chord board (six layers) 1963 patent and cast iron board 1872 patent. Steinway's cast iron plate is above the wooden tenon and does not touch the soundboard. It is slightly arched, so there is a relatively large space between it and the soundboard. In this space, * * * has been strengthened. Another function of cast iron plate is that it can bear chord tension as high as 16-20 tons without deformation.