(Source: www.uk-piano.org)

History of Keyboards

This article provides a short history of keys and keyboard compass. The German word "Klavier," which can refer to any keyboard instrument, possibly derives from the Greek word "celava" which means club (because most of the early organ keys were hit not played); but it is more likely that it came from the Latin word "clavis," meaning key, as this is where the English word key derived from. On early organs, the keys were marked with the pitch. These were translated into letters which were called "clavis."

The Roman water organ had a row of little levers. Evidence for this can be found on mosaics and carvings dating from before the collapse of Imperial Rome. During the tenth century there was an organ at Winchester Cathedral with 40 stops and two manuals, probably consisting of lever type keys, all naturals with no accidentals, taking, it is said, three men to play it. The organ was the first instrument with a keyboard, and the weight of its keys, like that of many other instruments, varied. So much so, that it took the strength of a man's fist to push down one of the crude levers, which to us would hardly be recognisable as a key. It was not unknown for players to be called "organ beaters." Organ players began complaining of uneven touch on the organs. A contract between an organ builder and Rouen Cathedral in 1382 refers to the repair of the keyboard with the purpose of making it more uniform and lighter in touch. However, parts of an organ dated 226 AD and found near Budapest had keys no heavier than those of a modern piano. Throughout the ages, touch has been one of the gripes of the performer. Even the great Silberman, who trained most of the great piano makers of the 1700s, was criticised by J. S. Bach, who said that Silberman pianos were too hard to play. This was around 1733.

The first sharp to be added to the keyboard was probably the F sharp, according to academic research. A painting by Van Eyck suggests that the fashion around 1430 was for narrower keys than in earlier years, with the use of sharps confirmed. Since around 1450 the keyboard has remained virtually the same except for minor variations in the width of the keys and the coverings of the short and long keys respectively as white and black or black and white.

By the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, keyboards consisted of what we would call the naturals, or white note keys, with the church modes as the basis for the musical system. The interval of an augmented fourth, between the notes we would call F and B, was considered discordant, so the B was often lowered, bringing in an extra note, B flat, shorter and narrower, between the A and the B. After the B flat probably

came the E flat, then C sharp and finally G sharp. They would have been tuned more or less as pure thirds to the natural keys, that is, the B flat as a true third below D, F sharp as a true third above the D etc. But today's arrangement of naturals and sharps or flats was depicted in a painting as long ago as 1361. Almost 300 years later, in 1619, Praetorius wrote that there were still to be seen a few keyboards with one short key, the B flat. Attempts were being made to play on two keyboards with one hand at the same time by 1555 or soon after.

Until the beginning of the 19th century the naturals were slightly shorter from their fronts to the sharps (this is more to do with playing technique than design) and often the naturals were darker in colour and the sharps lighter. The custom of having the naturals a darker colour was said to have originated in France to show off the player's hands to better advantage. A piano made by Zumpe in 1766 had the black notes divided into two sections controlling different strings, to allow for the tuning of sharps as sharps and flats as flats. Each octave could be divided into thirty-nine steps. The practical difficulties of playing such a thing ensured that it did not catch on.

It seems that around 1700 ivory was used for key covering at times. Many and varied materials have been used for this purpose, including bone, mother-of-pearl, porcelain, tortoise-shell, silver, boxwood, cedar, ebony, pear and other rare and polished woods. At times the fronts of the naturals were beautifully carved. In 1816 a set of new replacement keys for a Broadwood grand would have cost £3 s0 d0, and for a square £2 s15 d0.

The English and Viennese actions arrived on the scene around 1772 and the fronts of the Viennese keys were more often ivory, like those on a modern piano. Silberman's keys used very thick ivory, 2.5 mm. French and English keyboards had moulded, inverted step-like keys which used decorative box woods and sometimes the fronts were carved as well. Sometime in the 1830s they changed to the key front shape we know to day.

Clagget in 1788 patented the idea of putting glass on keys and later the French were using porcelain. This was all an attempt to get the customer to buy the cheap end of the piano lines.

I n 1862 Cellulose was first made artificially from gun-cotton by A.Parkes, of Birmingham UK. Called "Parkesine", it could simulate ivory. In 1869 John & Isaiah Hyatt (1837 - 1920), of New York, produced Celluloid from camphor and pyroxlin (cellulose nitrate), and in 1870 Hyatt was granted a patent in the USA. Cellulose has been used for the key coverings on the cheaper pianos since then.

From about 1959, the most common covering for both white and black keys has been acrylic plastic. The keys made by Lindner for about ten years from 1961 were of plastic and hollow and tended to break.

In 1963 Pratt, Read & Co. introduced a moulded plastic shell wrapped around the wooden core of the keys so that no wood was exposed. At present there is an embargo on the use of ivory for key coverings.