It's Just A Piano

This portfolio is designed to let me explore some aspect of jazz that is hitherto unknown to me. As I have contemplated what I would like to research and write about I realized that even though I have a background in both classical and jazz piano, I have little knowledge on the changing role of the piano in music culture and more specifically in jazz.

The piano is in reality called a pianoforte. This name comes from the Italian words piano and forte which are used in music. Respectively, they mean soft and loud. This function of the piano, the ability to play loud or soft, was one that its predecessors lacked. Both the clavichord and the harpsichord were restricted by a extremely small range of dynamics. However, the design of both of these instruments was integral to the invention of the piano.

Bartolomeo Cristofori invented the piano around 1700. Unlike the harpsichord which had strings that were plucked or the clavichord which had tangents, the piano consisted of hammers that struck the strings and then rebounded so the sound would continue. It was at first seen as just another keyboard type novelty but that would soon change.

Because of the popularity of the piano both in the home and in popular music it is hard for us to understand how different a harpsichord or clavichord are from the piano. Though this is a jazz portfolio, I have never heard of jazz played on a harpsichord or clavichord so we will examine some classical music to see the difference. The following piece is Sonata in B minor K.27, L.449 composed by Domenico Scarlatti.

Clavichord

Harpsichord

Piano

From the differences in these three videos, it is obvious that the piano had the ability to become a much more versatile instrument than either the harpsichord or the clavichord. The harpsichord, though loud enough to play at concerts, had virtually no change in its loudness. The clavichord could change its volume but was still so quiet that it could be heard from no more than a few feet away. The piano would meet both of these requirements. It is especially important to note the ability to use a wider range of dynamics because by being able to drastically change the volume of the performance the piano would be capable of not only being used as a solo instrument, but as a part of an ensemble. 

As composers such as Johann Sebastian Bach (who had formerly composed for the harpsichord), Ludwig van Beethoven, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Frederic Chopin, and Claude Debussy made the piano more well-known and well-liked through the ages up to the twentieth century, it became a common household item. This phenomenon ushered in the entrance of the piano into jazz.