Hear the idea before you study it.
The piano's defining innovation is the hammer action: unlike a typical harpsichord, it lets players shape how loudly a note sounds through their touch.
Part 01
Before the piano: organs, clavichords and harpsichords
Long before the piano, musicians played keyboards attached to very different sound-making mechanisms. In a pipe organ, pressing a key allows air to speak through a pipe. A harpsichord uses a small quill-like plectrum to pluck a string.
On your keyboard, play a short phrase with the same notes but different loudness. Listen for how the dynamics change its meaning.
04 · Go deeper into before the piano: organs, clavichords and harpsichords
The clavichord takes another approach: a metal tangent touches the string and responds subtly to finger pressure, although it is generally far quieter than a piano. Each instrument offered a different kind of expression.
Harpsichords could be brilliant and articulate, but varying the force of a key press generally didn't produce the piano's graded changes in volume. Instrument makers were searching for more direct control over a musical phrase.
- Organ
- Air flows through pipes to produce a sustained tone.
- Harpsichord
- Strings are plucked by a mechanism.
- Clavichord
- A tangent strikes and stays in contact with the string; quiet but expressive.
Part 02
Around 1700: Cristofori changes the keyboard
Bartolomeo Cristofori, working for the Medici court in Florence, developed the first recognisable piano around 1700. Instead of plucking strings, his mechanism sent small hammers to strike them. An escapement allowed a hammer to fall away after the strike so the string could vibrate.
Read The Met's article on Cristofori and compare a recording of the 1720 instrument with a modern concert grand.
04 · Go deeper into around 1700: cristofori changes the keyboard
The new instrument became known as the pianoforte—roughly 'soft-loud' in Italian—because finger touch could influence volume more directly. Cristofori's design was surprisingly sophisticated, although the instrument spread gradually.
The oldest surviving piano, built by Cristofori in 1720, is in The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. It has 54 keys, rather than the 88 of most modern concert grands, and a noticeably different sound. Our modern PianoTry samples are not intended to recreate that early timbre.
- c. 1700
- Cristofori's hammer-action piano emerges in Florence.
- 1720
- Date of the oldest surviving piano, held by The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
- Pianoforte
- An instrument designed to answer the player's soft and loud touch.
Part 03
From the fortepiano to the concert grand
During the eighteenth century the piano spread through Europe. Music associated with Mozart and Haydn grew alongside the lighter touch and narrower compass of early fortepianos. Beethoven's career overlapped with a period of rapid instrumental development and increasing range.
Listen to a phrase with and without the sustain pedal on an acoustic or digital piano. Can you hear which notes connect?
04 · Go deeper into from the fortepiano to the concert grand
In the nineteenth century, stronger frames, higher string tension, improved actions and changing string layouts helped the piano become more powerful and sustaining. Composers and players explored bigger contrasts, denser textures and singing melodic lines.
The modern grand piano's familiar arrangement commonly offers 88 keys, from A0 to C8. Its lid, soundboard, hammers and pedals all affect the sound. An upright folds a different string and action design into a more compact instrument.
- Hammer
- Strikes a string when you press the key.
- Soundboard
- A resonant wooden surface that projects the strings' vibrations.
- Sustain pedal
- Lifts the dampers so notes can keep ringing after key release.
- 88 keys
- The common modern range: A0 to C8, though other sizes exist.
Part 04
The piano becomes digital, but the musical ideas endure
Twentieth-century electric and electronic keyboard instruments opened new sounds, while digital pianos made sampled and modelled acoustic tones more accessible. MIDI created a standard way for electronic instruments and software to exchange performance messages.
Open PianoTry and try the same four chords in two styles. Notice how articulation and register change the experience even though the chord names are identical.
04 · Go deeper into the piano becomes digital, but the musical ideas endure
A modern controller can send note velocity, sustain information and other gestures into music software. Good digital instruments try to capture more than correct pitches: touch, note decay, release and the timing between notes all influence the feeling of a performance.
PianoTry belongs to this newer chapter. You can explore chords and harmonies in a browser before sitting at a physical piano. The technology is different, but the musical question is much the same: which notes, played how, make something worth hearing?
Further reading
For historical background, explore these museum resources:
Try the ideas for yourself.
Hear a progression, follow the keyboard and make a variation that feels like yours.