Piano When you walk into a living room with a grand piano that looks sleek and elegant

8.3.2 Piano When you walk into a living room with a grand piano that looks sleek and elegant

next to the picture window, you would be likely to associate the owner with good social standing and culture. The owner must be able to afford the large cost and space that a piano demands, and some family member might have undertaken expensive and time-consuming piano lessons for many years. This family can gather around the piano and sing together, give solo performances in the living room or perform with other instruments. The modern piano is the result of a very long history of innovations and inventions.

Music and dance are among the oldest expressions of joys and sorrows by a few performers for a larger audience or by the entire community. Primitive people had simple music to express their joys in celebrations and their sorrows in mourn- ing, which may begin with little more than rhythmic clapping or drumming to accompany dances and processions. Melody and harmony were added later to make music more complex and moving. Music today has three elements: rhythm or beat, such as the dactyl in a waltz (-..-..-..), melody or tune such as the Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star (do do so so la la so), and harmony of several notes together at the same time such as the major triad (do mi so).

In classical mythology, the inventors and users of musical instruments were the gods, including Hermes, who invented the lyre when he found a dried-out tortoise on the banks of the Nile; Apollo, who played the lyre that was the divine instrument; and Pan, who played the panpipe that was a common instrument. David played music on the harp to chase the demon from the soul of Saul, and Joshua’s trumpet brought down the walls of Jericho.

The oldest known musical instrument is a bone-flute created 35,000 years ago in southwest Germany, which was constructed from a vulture leg bone with four holes. From the excavations in the first cities in Sumer and Akkad were found flutes, trumpets, and drums. Harps and lyres were depicted in paintings on walls and objects. Egyptian tomb paintings showed many musical instruments. The number of strings in a lyre or kithara varied from 3 to 12. Plato suggested that music should

8.3 ARTS

be one of the basic influences in Greek education, as music shapes the soul and character. Confucius said, “It is by the odes that the mind is aroused. It is by the Rules of Propriety that the character is established. It is from music that the finish is received.” Good music guarantees a well-ordered community, whereas bad music brings the state into danger. The oldest book of Chinese poetry is the Shi Jing that dates from 10 BCE, and the first poem is “Guan Ju:”

Guan, guan, sang the great birds On an island in the river Modest, retiring young lady Sought by the accomplished gentleman Modest, retiring young lady We befriend with qin and she Modest, retiring young lady We rejoice with zhong and gu

The “qin” is a fretted (like the guitar with bars across the fingerboard) long instrument with 7 strings; the “she” is unfretted (without bars, like the violin where the pitch can change continuously) long zither with around 25 open strings in pentatonic tuning; the “zhong” is a bell, and the “gu” is a drum.

The main types of musical instruments can be divided by the vibrating element:

Strings: Put into vibration by plucking (harp), bowing (violin), or hammering (piano).

Air columns: Put into vibration by blowing, woodwind (flute, oboe), brass (trumpet), and organ.