Keyboard has been a part of the musical instrument family since pipe organ was invented in the 3rd century B.C. Since then various types of the keyboard has been created and adopted. Such two instruments are harpsichord and piano where they both look a lot alike and yet are very much different.
Harpsichord
It was originally built by Andreas Ruckus in 1646 and then later on modified and expanded by Pascal Tuskin in 1780. It was mostly played by the aristocrats of society. The sound in this instrument is created by plucking strings with plectrums and vibrating them. Harpsicords emits a more harmonic sound than piano. Due to its structure, the sounds produced are not of different strength but only of one kind of strength. Thus a harpsichord player has no control over the volume of the sound. It also comes with varieties in models with a single keyboard, double keyboard and sometimes even triple keyboard. Harpshicord’s keys are slimmer so each key needs to be played separately. Also, it only has five octaves.
Piano
Another type of keyboard is the piano. Invented in Italy by Bartolomeo Cristofori during 1700 was originally named as Fortepiano. In this instrument, the sound is produced when the strings are struck by hammer where the hammers are connected to its own keys. It mostly removes the harmonic sound and pours out a sweet sound. The piano started as being played mostly in classical music but now it is played in different genres of music. There are several kinds of piano that are not only very popular but also played in these genres. It came to be known as the revolutionary instrument because of its characteristics of forte and piano and a pedal that can keep maintaining the sound. A piano player can play both soft and loud sounds. The keys of the piano are wide enough where it either can be banged or just glided over. The piano has seven octaves.
Similar to harpsichord and piano, there are other types of keyboards too which look alike but yet are very different. Global Music is one of the best musical keyboard suppliers in the Philippines where you can find similar looking yet different keyboards.
