Brno, Czech Republic

Piano

Master's
Language: EnglishStudies in English
Years of study: 2
University website: www.jamu.cz/
Piano
The piano is an acoustic, stringed musical instrument invented in Italy by Bartolomeo Cristofori around the year 1700 (the exact year is uncertain), in which the strings are struck by hammers. It is played using a keyboard, which is a row of keys (small levers) that the performer presses down or strikes with the fingers and thumbs of both hands to cause the hammers to strike the strings. The word piano is a shortened form of pianoforte, the Italian term for the early 1700s versions of the instrument, which in turn derives from gravicembalo col piano e forte and fortepiano. The Italian musical terms piano and forte indicate "soft" and "loud" respectively, in this context referring to the variations in volume (i.e., loudness) produced in response to a pianist's touch or pressure on the keys: the greater the velocity of a key press, the greater the force of the hammer hitting the strings, and the louder the sound of the note produced and the stronger the attack. The first fortepianos in the 1700s had a quieter sound and smaller dynamic range.
Piano
The piano ain't got no wrong notes.
Thelonious Monk, in response to a guest expert who said he, Monk, created extraordinary music, in spite of "playing the wrong notes on the piano" (March 1976), as quoted in Thelonious Monk: The Life and Times of an American Original (Kelley, 2009), p. 444
Piano
Play always as if in the presence of a master.
Robert Schumann, Advice to young musicians (1860), p. 10
Piano
The piano has been drinking, not me.
Tom Waits, from his 1977 album Small Change
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