A keyboard instrument is any musical instrument played using a musical keyboard. The most common of these is the piano. Other widely used keyboard instruments include organs of various types as well as other mechanical, electromechanical and electronic instruments. In common language, it is mostly used to refer to keyboard-style synthesizers.
The clavichord and the harpsichord appeared during the 14th century, the clavichord probably being the earlier. The harpsichord and the clavichord were both very common until the widespread adoption of the piano in the 18th century, after which their popularity decreased. The piano was revolutionary because a pianist could vary the volume (or dynamics) of the sound by varying the vigor with which each key was struck. The piano's full name is "gravicèmbalo con piano e forte" meaning "harpsichord with soft and loud" but can be shortened to "piano-forte", which means "soft-loud" in Italian.
Keyboard instruments were further developed in the early 20th century. Early electromechanical instruments, such as the Ondes Martenot, appeared early in the century. This was a very important contribution to the keyboard's history. There is a now a saying "If you can play piano, you can play anything!".
On most keyboard instruments, a "black note" is one of the smaller keys that stand above the "white notes". All the black notes found within an octave form a pentatonic scale. Black notes can be referred to as sharps of the white note below, or as flats of the white note above. In keyboard percussion instruments with a layout similar to that of the piano, the corresponding notes are often also called "the black notes" though in reality the bars producing those notes are of the same color as the rest of the instrument's bars.
These notes act as the "accidentals" to the original notes, allowing the player to play sharps or flats of a given note. However, not all notes have a sharp or flat version, and the sharp of one can be the same note as the flat for another, for example C# and Db are the same note.
The five accidentals written as sharps are: C#, D#, F#, G# and A#.
Significant development of the synthesizer occurred in the 1960s and has continued ever since. The most notable early synthesizer is the Moog synthesizer, which used analog circuitry. In time, digital synthesis, using actual piano samples, has become common.
ar:آلة مفاتيح bg:Клавирен инструмент ca:Instrument de teclat cs:Klávesový nástroj da:Keyboard (instrument) de:Tasteninstrument et:Klahvpillid el:Πλήκτρα es:Instrumento de teclado eo:Klavarinstrumento fa:ساز کلیدی gl:Teclado (instrumento musical) ko:건반 악기 hi:कीबोर्ड उपकरण is:Hljómborðshljóðfæri it:Tastiera (strumento musicale) he:כלי מקלדת kn:ಕೀಬೋರ್ಡ್ ವಾದ್ಯ (ಕೀಬೋರ್ಡ್ ಇನ್ ಸ್ಟ್ರಮೆಂಟ್ ) lv:Taustiņinstrumenti hu:Billentyűs hangszerek mk:Клавијатурен инструмент nl:Toetsinstrument no:Keyboard ja:鍵盤楽器 pl:Instrument klawiszowy pt:Instrumento de teclas ro:Clape qu:Yatana waqachina ru:Клавишные музыкальные инструменты simple:Keyboard instrument sk:Klávesové nástroje sl:Glasbila s tipkami sr:Клавијатуре fi:Kosketinsoitin sv:Klaverinstrument ta:கிளபம் uk:Клавішні музичні інструменти zh:鍵盤樂器
This text is licensed under the Creative Commons CC-BY-SA License. This text was originally published on Wikipedia and was developed by the Wikipedia community.
The World News (WN) Network, has created this privacy statement in order to demonstrate our firm commitment to user privacy. The following discloses our information gathering and dissemination practices for wn.com, as well as e-mail newsletters.
We do not collect personally identifiable information about you, except when you provide it to us. For example, if you submit an inquiry to us or sign up for our newsletter, you may be asked to provide certain information such as your contact details (name, e-mail address, mailing address, etc.).
When you submit your personally identifiable information through wn.com, you are giving your consent to the collection, use and disclosure of your personal information as set forth in this Privacy Policy. If you would prefer that we not collect any personally identifiable information from you, please do not provide us with any such information. We will not sell or rent your personally identifiable information to third parties without your consent, except as otherwise disclosed in this Privacy Policy.
Except as otherwise disclosed in this Privacy Policy, we will use the information you provide us only for the purpose of responding to your inquiry or in connection with the service for which you provided such information. We may forward your contact information and inquiry to our affiliates and other divisions of our company that we feel can best address your inquiry or provide you with the requested service. We may also use the information you provide in aggregate form for internal business purposes, such as generating statistics and developing marketing plans. We may share or transfer such non-personally identifiable information with or to our affiliates, licensees, agents and partners.
We may retain other companies and individuals to perform functions on our behalf. Such third parties may be provided with access to personally identifiable information needed to perform their functions, but may not use such information for any other purpose.
In addition, we may disclose any information, including personally identifiable information, we deem necessary, in our sole discretion, to comply with any applicable law, regulation, legal proceeding or governmental request.
We do not want you to receive unwanted e-mail from us. We try to make it easy to opt-out of any service you have asked to receive. If you sign-up to our e-mail newsletters we do not sell, exchange or give your e-mail address to a third party.
E-mail addresses are collected via the wn.com web site. Users have to physically opt-in to receive the wn.com newsletter and a verification e-mail is sent. wn.com is clearly and conspicuously named at the point of
collection.If you no longer wish to receive our newsletter and promotional communications, you may opt-out of receiving them by following the instructions included in each newsletter or communication or by e-mailing us at michaelw(at)wn.com
The security of your personal information is important to us. We follow generally accepted industry standards to protect the personal information submitted to us, both during registration and once we receive it. No method of transmission over the Internet, or method of electronic storage, is 100 percent secure, however. Therefore, though we strive to use commercially acceptable means to protect your personal information, we cannot guarantee its absolute security.
If we decide to change our e-mail practices, we will post those changes to this privacy statement, the homepage, and other places we think appropriate so that you are aware of what information we collect, how we use it, and under what circumstances, if any, we disclose it.
If we make material changes to our e-mail practices, we will notify you here, by e-mail, and by means of a notice on our home page.
The advertising banners and other forms of advertising appearing on this Web site are sometimes delivered to you, on our behalf, by a third party. In the course of serving advertisements to this site, the third party may place or recognize a unique cookie on your browser. For more information on cookies, you can visit www.cookiecentral.com.
As we continue to develop our business, we might sell certain aspects of our entities or assets. In such transactions, user information, including personally identifiable information, generally is one of the transferred business assets, and by submitting your personal information on Wn.com you agree that your data may be transferred to such parties in these circumstances.