In five pages this research paper considers the evolution of the piano from Cristofori's early 18th century instruments, how they differed from their keyboard predecessors, and then considers the Broadwood innovations. Three sources are cited in the bibliography.
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history, changing the course of European musical development (Shepp, 1995). While this revolutionary moment occurred sometime in the early eighteenth century, the idea of an instrument with string that operated
by stringing strings with hammer had its genesis as early as the fourteenth century, and certainly by the fifteenth (Grover, 1998). This early predecessor of the modern piano,
the harpsichord, employed strings and a keyboard, but the strings were plucked, rather than struck (Grove4r, 1998). Likewise, another predecessor, the clavichord also used a keyboard, but the strings were
struck with miniature tangents (Grover, 1998). In both cases, these instruments produced a muted sound, not loud enough for concert halls, and also suffered from the limitation in that neither
instruments was responsible to the players touch, that is, striking the keys harder did not produce a louder side. In the late seventeenth century, composers were becoming responsive to
the possibilities contained in broad melody, specifically to the uses of a phrase growing progressively louder then softer (Grover, 1998). The demand for more expression in music provided the impetus
for piano development. There fore a growing demand for a keyboard instrument that could not only produce more authoritative sound, but also give the performer greater control over dynamic expression
than was possible with the harpsichord, clavichord, or organ (Leland, 1995). This need was met by a Paduan harpsichord maker named Bartolommeo Cristofori, who constructed the first piano sometime
between 1709 and 1711 (Grover, 1998). Cristofori gave his new instrument the lengthy name of "gravicembalo col piano e forte," which is Italian for "harpsichord with soft and loud" (Grover,
1998). This name was soon shortened to "pianoforte," and then simply to "piano." In shape and also in its general construction, this instrument resembled a harpsichord, but it operated with