Cristofori's early instruments were made with thin strings, and were much quieter than the modern piano — but compared to the clavichord ( the only previous keyboard instrument capable of dynamic nuance via the keyboard ) they were much louder and had more sustain.

The instrument illustrates Cristofori's ingenuity in the large number of levers and extensions that permit the player great flexibility in determining which strings will sound.

Cristofori's instrument spread at first quite slowly, probably because, being more elaborate and harder to build than a harpsichord, it was very expensive.

Although Cristofori's design incorporates no specific device for repetition, the lightness of the action gives more facility for repetition than the heavier actions of the English type that developed in the first half of the 19th century, until these were provided with additions of one kind or another to facilitate repetition.

The available source materials on Cristofori's life include his birth and death records, two wills, the bills he submitted to his employers, and a single interview done by Scipione Maffei.

Our knowledge of how Cristofori's invention was initially received comes in part from the article published in 1711 by Scipione Maffei, an influential literary figure, in the Giornale de ' letterati d ' Italia of Venice.

Cristofori's invention soon attracted public attention as the result of a journal article written by Scipione Maffei and published 1711 in Giornale de ' letterati d ' Italia of Venice.

The article included a diagram of the action, the core of Cristofori's invention.

" Lastly, the Prince was evidently fascinated with machines ( he collected over forty clocks, in addition to a great variety of elaborate musical instruments ), and would thus be naturally interested in the elaborate mechanical action that was at the core of Cristofori's work on the piano.

The first reliable record of a fortepiano appears in the inventory of the Medici family ( who were Cristofori's patrons ), dated 1700.

In his left hand is a piece of paper, believed to contain a diagram of Cristofori's piano action.

Cristofori was also the first to incorporate a form of soft pedal into a piano ( the mechanism by which the hammers are made to strike fewer than the maximum number of strings ; Cristofori's was a hand stop ).

Cristofori's great success was solving, with no prior example, the fundamental mechanical problem of piano design: the hammer must strike the string, but not remain in contact with it ( as a tangent remains in contact with a clavichord string ) because this would dampen the sound.

Cristofori's piano action was a model for the many different approaches to piano actions that followed.

Silbermann's pianos were virtually direct copies of Cristofori's, with one important addition: Silbermann invented the forerunner of the modern damper pedal, which lifts all the dampers from the strings simultaneously.

Probably the most important event in Cristofori's life is the first one of which we have any record: in 1688, at age 33, he was recruited to work for Prince Ferdinando de Medici.

Cristofori's initial work space was probably in this area, which did not please him.

The term " Arpicembalo ", literally " harp-harpsichord ", was not generally familiar in Cristofori's day.

Cristofori's patron, Prince Ferdinando, died at the age of 50 in 1713.

Pollens notes further evidence from the will that this reflected no falling out between Cristofori and Ferrini, but only Cristofori's moral obligation to his caretakers.

Action: Piano actions are complex mechanical devices which impose very specific design requirements, virtually all of which were met by Cristofori's action.

Second, a piano action must greatly amplify the motion of the player's finger: in Cristofori's action, an intermediate lever was used to translate every key motion into a hammer motion eight times greater in magnitude.

Cristofori's multiple-lever design succeeded in providing the needed leverage in a small amount of space.

In Cristofori's action, this was accomplished by two means.

Cristofori's action was sufficiently complex and hard to build that it was a barrier to later builders, who tried to simplify it.

However, Cristofori's viewpoint ultimately won out ; the standard modern piano action is a still more complex and evolved version of Cristofori's original.

Hammers: The hammer heads in Cristofori's mature pianos are made of paper, curled into a circular coil and secured with glue, and surmounted by a strip of leather at the contact point with the string.

Frame: Cristofori's pianos use an internal frame member ( bentside ) to support the soundboard ; in other words, the structural member attaching the right side of the soundboard is distinct from the external case that bears the tension of the strings.

The use of a separate support for the soundboard reflects Cristofori's belief that the soundboard should not be subjected to compression from string tension.

Thus, it appears that the move toward heavier framing, a trend that dominates the history of the piano, had already begun in Cristofori's own building practice.

Since interviewing is the basic therapeutic and diagnostic instrument of modern psychiatry, the recording of interviews for playbacks and study has been a boost of Redstone proportions in new research and training.

( 2005 ) verified gravity darkening using the measurements made by the Palomar and Navy interferometers, together with new measurements made by the VINCI instrument at the VLTI.

The " Fender Bass " was a revolutionary new instrument, one that could easily be played by an electric guitarist, could be easily transported to a gig, and could be amplified to just about any volume without feeding back ".

* Quick-Scan – Cessna introduced a new instrument panel layout in the 1960s and this buzzword was to indicate Cessna ’ s panels were ahead of the competition.

From the 1960s through the end of the century Gary Karr was the leading proponent of the double bass as a solo instrument and was active in commissioning or having hundreds of new works and concerti written especially for him.

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About 30 years later American engineer and inventor Laurens Hammond filed U. S. Patent 1, 956, 350 for a new type of " electrical musical instrument " that could recreate a pipe organ-type sound.

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Within two or three decades, this led to the evolution of an entirely new and dedicated bowed string instrument that retained many of the features of the original plucked vihuela: a flat back, sharp waist-cuts, frets, thin ribs ( initially ), and an identical tuning — hence its original name, vihuela de arco ; arco is Spanish for " bow ".

On 28 August 1789, his first night of observation using this instrument, he discovered a new moon of Saturn.

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