The violin is arguably the world’s most popular instrument. Its expressive tones suit a variety of musical styles, from fast and furious to slow and sanguine. Becoming popular in the 16th century with both commoners and nobles, the violin has remained a democratic instrument, universal and versatile. (See also: 1,700-year-old musical instrument found, and it still works.)The development of the modern violin was gradual and complex, evolving from a variety of other stringed instruments. The pear-shaped lira, found in Europe as early as the ninth century, was played in an upright position and bowed. The influence of the two-stringed rabab, an Arabian fiddle introduced to western Europe in the 11th century, and the three-stringed rebec, which appeared in Spain between the 11th and 13th centuries, likely as a result of the Crusades, is also reflected in the modern violin. The French vielle, like the rebec, was usually supported on the chest or under the chin and was widely used by troubadours in the 13th to 15th centuries to accompany singing and dancing. Stringed instruments have a long history in folk music, but the violin became more standardized after it went to court.Most historians agree that today’s violin emerged in the early 16th century in northern Italy, an area which would maintain the violin-making tradition over the coming centuries. Maple and spruce, the two types of wood most favored by violin makers then and since, were readily available in the Lombardy region. The city of Brescia, located at the foot of the Alps, was the earliest to excel in the crafting of violins, but Cremona, home to the world’s most famous luthiers, Giuseppe Guarneri, Antonio Stradivari, and the Amati family, became synonymous with the art of violin making. (See also: Inside Einstein’s love affair with ‘Lina’–his cherished violin.)

The story of the piano begins in Padua, Italy in 1709, in the shop of a harpsichord maker named Bartolomeo di Francesco Cristofori (1655-1731). Many other stringed and keyboard instruments preceded the piano and led to the development of the instrument as we know it today. Mankind’s knowledge that a taut, vibrating string can produce sound goes back to prehistoric times. In the ancient world, strings were attached and stretched over bows, gourds, and boxes to amplify the sound; they were fastened by ties, pegs and pins; and they were plucked, bowed or struck to produce sounds. Eventually, a family of stringed instruments with a keyboard evolved in Europe in the 14th century. The earliest of these was a dulcimer, a closed, shallow box over which stretched wires were struck with two wooden hammers. The dulcimer led to the development of the clavichord, which also appeared in the 14th century. These were followed by the spinet, virginal, clavecin, gravicembalo, and finally, the harpsichord in the 15th century. The harpsichord, however, was limited to one, unvarying volume. Its softness and loudness could not be varied while playing. Therefore, performing artists could not convey the same degree of musical expression as that of most other instruments. The artistic desire for more controlled expression led directly to the invention of the piano, on which the artist could alter the loudness and tone with the force of one’s fingers. The harpsichord was a particularly important development leading to the invention of the piano. Its ability to project sound more loudly than its predecessors, and refinements in the action (or touch) inspired many more musicians to compose for the keyboard and thus, to perform keyboard works. First exhibited in Florence in 1709, Cristofori’s new instrument was named gravicembalo col piano e forte (roughly “soft and loud keyboard instrument”). Eventually, it was shortened to fortepiano or pianoforte, and finally just piano. His earliest surviving instrument dates from 1720 and is on display at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. Despite many improvements during the past 300 years, it is truly astonishing to observe how similar Cristofori’s instruments are to the modern piano of today. New Technology in Pianos We are living in perhaps the most exciting time in history to buy, own or play that eternal instrument, the piano. Whether your goal is to purchase something as small as software that can record what you play, a newly designed player piano, a digital instrument or a classic acoustic model, there have never been as many choices for the consumer.

Concert flute – History The flute is one of the oldest musical instruments of all and is regarded as the first ever wind instrument. It has been in use at least since the Stone Age. Flute playing has a particularly long tradition in the Orient. The Sumerians and Egyptians were among the first to add three or four finger-holes to their bamboo flutes, which enabled them to produce several notes. The Ancient Greeks also had quite sophisticated flutes, which were blown at the open upper end and had six finger-holes. However, the flute was regarded as an instrument of the common man and as such was held in scant regard. In contrast, the aulos , a distant precursor of the oboe, was always associated with high social standing. The flutes used in today’s orchestras are transverse flutes, as opposed to the Greeks’ end-blown flutes and the (modern) recorder. The first evidence of the use of transverse flutes in Europe comes from Etruscan iconographs from the 4th to the 1st centuries BC. Side-blown flutes were also known to the Romans. The Middle Ages and the Renaissance – drums and consorts Between the fall of Rome and the 11th century no evidence is known to exist for the use of transverse flutes. It is probable that the instrument returned to the West from the Orient by way of the Byzantine Empire. The transverse flute of the Middle Ages was made of a single piece of wood and had six finger-holes. It was used in military contexts and was even played at court. Traveling minstrels acquainted their audiences with it all over Europe, and since they originally came from Germany the instrument also became known as the fistula Germanica. It was usually accompanied by a drum. In the 16th century the flute consort, an ensemble consisting of three different-sized transverse flutes, became an established part of musical practice. At the same time broken consorts, ensembles combining various instruments such as the viol, lute and flute, were also popular. The most common flute was in D and had a range of D4–D6 (which could be extended if the player was skillful enough). Since the instrument was tuned to D the notes of other keys could only be produced either by half covering the finger-holes or by using cross-fingerings. This gave the instrument a certain chromaticism but meant that intonation remained uncertain, which placed the flute at a disadvantage compared to the other woodwinds. Baroque – the sound ideal remains unattainable From the middle of the 17th century the flute underwent several sweeping changes. From 1660 onward it consisted of three separate parts: the cylindrical headjoint, the body with six finger-holes, and the footjoint. The body and footjoint were conical. An additional hole was added to the footjoint and fitted with a key to make D# playable. These innovations, which probably originated from the Hotteterres, a French flute-making family, represent the start of the development of the transverse flute as we know it. In 1681 a Hotteterre flute with a range of 2½ octaves (D4–G6) was used in Jean-Baptiste Lully’s (1632–1687) opera orchestra, its first appearance in an orchestra of this type. Its wide range and brilliant timbre meant that the transverse flute soon became a serious rival to the recorder. The recorder (or fistula Anglica), an end-blown instrument, had originated in England and gained popularity in Europe at the same time as the transverse flute, becoming established as an orchestral instrument. But from the middle of the 18th century the description flauto in musical scores no longer referred to the end-blown recorder but the transverse flute (which had hitherto been described as the flauto traverso). The sound quality of the baroque transverse flute was still far from homogeneous and consistent, however. The irregularities in its range and the subsidiary notes which resulted from the use of cross-fingerings and had a different timbre were felt to be irksome in modulations. If it was possible to compensate for the shortcomings of the baroque flute’s intonation then only by means of exceptional virtuosity. The common practice of changing the body only accentuated these problems; to achieve a different tuning it had become customary to insert either a longer or shorter body, but no change was made to the arrangement of the finger-holes, which would have been necessary to accommodate the instrument’s altered acoustic properties. The introduction of the exchangeable body is attributed to the virtuoso flutist Pierre Gabriel Buffardin (ca. 1690–1768). Efforts to improve the transverse flute soon spread from France to other countries. The Prussian flutist and composer Johann J. Quantz (1697–1773), Frederick the Great’s flute teacher, studied the intonation problems of the instrument in great detail, later becoming a flute maker himself. He invented the tuning slide, experimented with various shapes and sizes of tone hole and added another key. These improvements, along with his treatise “Versuch einer Anweisung, die Flöte traversiere zu spielen” (An Essay on Instruction in the Art of Playing the Transverse Flute), published in Berlin in 1752, and his approximately 400 compositions for the instrument (chiefly concertos for flute and strings) boosted its popularity and brought it to the attention of ever more composers.

Guitar, plucked stringed musical instrument that probably originated in Spain early in the 16th century, deriving from the guitarra latina, a late-medieval instrument with a waisted body and four strings. The early guitar was narrower and deeper than the modern guitar, with a less pronounced waist. It was closely related to the vihuela, the guitar-shaped instrument played in Spain in place of the lute. The guitar originally had four courses of strings, three double, the top course single, that ran from a violin-like pegbox to a tension bridge glued to the soundboard, or belly; the bridge thus sustained the direct pull of the strings. In the belly was a circular sound hole, often ornamented with a carved wooden rose. The 16th-century guitar was tuned C–F–A–D′, the tuning of the centre four courses of the lute and of the vihuela. From the 16th to the 19th century several changes occurred in the instrument. A fifth course of strings was added before 1600; by the late 18th century a sixth course was added. Before 1800 the double courses were replaced by single strings tuned E–A–D–G–B–E′, still the standard tuning. The violin-type pegbox was replaced about 1600 by a flat, slightly reflexed head with rear tuning pegs; in the 19th century, metal screws were substituted for the tuning pegs. The early tied-on gut frets were replaced by built-on ivory or metal frets in the 18th century. The fingerboard was originally flush with and ended at the belly, and several metal or ivory frets were placed directly on the belly. In the 19th century the fingerboard was raised slightly above the level of the belly and was extended across it to the edge of the sound hole. Facts Matter. Support the truth and unlock all of Britannica’s content. Start Your Free Trial Today In the 19th century the guitar’s body also underwent changes that resulted in increased sonority. It became broader and shallower, with an extremely thin soundboard. Internally, the transverse bars reinforcing the soundboard were replaced by radial bars that fanned out below the sound hole. The neck, formerly set into a wood block, was formed into a brace, or shoe, that projected a short distance inside the body and was glued to the back; this gave extra stability against the pull of the strings. The 19th-century innovations were largely the work of Antonio Torres. The instrument that resulted was the classical guitar, which is strung with three gut and three metal-spun silk strings. Nylon or other plastic was later used in place of gut. lyre-shaped guitar lyre-shaped guitar A lyre-shaped guitar from the 1800s. AdstockRF Among variant forms of the guitar are the 12-stringed, or double-course, guitar, and the Mexican jarana and the South American charango, both small five-course guitars. Lyre-shaped guitars were fashionable in 19th-century drawing rooms. Other forms of the guitar include the metal-strung guitar played with a plectrum in folk and popular music; the cello guitar, with a violin-type bridge and tailpiece; the Hawaiian, or steel, guitar, in which the strings are stopped by the pressure of a metal bar, producing a sweet, gliding tone; and the electric guitar, in which the instrument’s sound and tone depend almost entirely on the electronic detection and amplification of its vibrating strings.