Hey everyone, in this post I'm going to post some facts about the keyboard instruments which are piano, clavichord, harpsichord, and pipe organ.

The Keyboard Instruments

Piano

• Piano was invented towards the end of the 17th century by Bartolomeo Cristofori
• It only gained popularity in the classical period and gradually replaced the harpsichord as the favourite keyboard media
• There are 88 keys on the modern piano, the high-pitched notes are to the player's right and the low-pitched notes are to the left
• There are three pedals on the piano :

1. Left 'soft' pedal/'una corda' pedal softens the tone produced when depressed. To release the left pedal, the term 'tre corde' is used
2. The middle 'sostenuto' pedal sustains selected notes when depressed
3. The right 'sustaining' pedal or 'damper' pedal lifts the dampers off the strings when it is depressed to sustain the notes and to enrich the tone produced

Clavichord

• The clavichord is a small keyboard instrument with a compass of about four octaves
• It has no pedals
• The tone on the clavichord is produced by metal tangent hitting at the string when the key is depressed
• It is capable of producing soft and delicate sound
• It is used as a solo keyboard instrument from the 15th century to the 18th century 

Harpsichord

• The harpsichord was the favourite keyboard media in the Baroque period
• The tone on the harpsichord is produced by quills plucking at the strings when a key is depressed. There are two or more strings to each note
• The range of dynamic is narrow for the harpsichor, it is not capable of producing very loud or very soft tone
• The harpsichord usually has two keyboards, sometimes even three
• The harpsichord has very little sustaining power, that is why ornaments are often used in Baroque music to emphasize a note
• The harpsichord uses pedals to control the quality of tone by selecting the type of quills used to pluck the strings.

Pipe Organ

• The organ has :

1. a pedal board (played by the feet) called Pedal Organ
2. two to five manual keyboards (played by the hands)

• There are two main kinds of stop on the organ :

1. Flue stop
2. Reed stop (for high-pitched notes)

• Other common stops that were used are the : 

           Diapason stop, Mutation stop, Mixture stop, Bourbon stop

• Combination of different stops on different keyboards produce varied tone
• The tone on the organ is produced by wind blowing through a series of pipes which is connected to a keyboard

That's all for keyboard instruments in this post!
I hope that you'll be able to learn something from this post, see you in next post!

Note : the pictures are not mine, credits to respective owners