If you are relatively new to the piano, you may wonder why this instrument is called that. At first glance, the name doesn’t make a lot of sense.

You’ve been taught that “piano” is the musical term for “soft” (or “quiet”). And why would this large, heavy object full of hammers and metal be called “the soft”? Or even “the quiet”? (It can be anything but quiet — as you’re probably aware.)

Actually, the term “piano” is only a nickname. The instrument’s full name, used only rarely today, is “pianoforte.”

What? This makes even less sense! You know that “piano” is the musical term for “soft or quiet.” You also know that “forte” is the musical term for “strong” (or “loud”). So the instrument’s more formal name means, literally, “the soft-strong” or “the quiet-loud.”

Why? The answer goes back to the piano’s origins.

The piano is a stringed keyboard instrument, as distinct from a stringed instrument without a keyboard, such as a violin. It was invented in Italy at around 1700, by a harpsichord maker named Bartolomeo Cristofori. At that time, the best-known stringed keyboard instruments were the clavichord and the harpsichord. The harpsichord produced sound by means of plucking the strings with a quill, while the clavichord’s strings were struck by a small metal blade called a tangent.

As versatile and widely-accepted as these instruments were, they lacked dynamic range.

The harpsichord’s strings were plucked with the same force no matter how forcefully the player’s fingers struck the keyboard. The clavichord, while offering a greater subtlety in dynamic range, was rather quiet, since the tangent remained in contact with the string after it was struck. (This has the effect of both producing the sound and damping it, or keeping it quiet.) The clavichord was best suited to intimate chamber music and would have been drowned out if accompanied by a full orchestra, as in a concerto performance.

So when Cristofori invented his instrument, it had this great advantage over these forerunners: Dynamic range.

As you know, the piano can produce a sound that is either soft and quiet, or large, forceful, and loud — all depending on the force with which the player strikes the keys. So revolutionary was this capability, that its original name in Italy, the land of its birth, was “clavicembalo col piano e forte.” This translated literally as, “harpsichord with soft and loud.” Such a rather unwieldy handle became shortened to “pianoforte,” and since then, to “piano.”

So now you know why your favorite stringed keyboard instrument is called “the piano” — even though its very capability to play more dynamics than “soft” is its hallmark, and the source of that name.

Take advantage of this capability the next time you play. Whether you’re playing for your teacher, a packed auditorium, or just yourself, make sure you use that full dynamic range. And enjoy it.

There are many keyboard instruments besides the piano. The pipe organ is one of the most impressive as well as the most challenging. Mozart called the pipe organ “the king of instruments.” Think you know the pipe organ? Read on! Test your knowledge of this versatile keyboard instrument.

1. You can usually see all the pipes in a pipe organ. True or False?

Answer: False. Most pipe organs have several ranks of pipes (groups of pipes organized by timbre and pitch). Most of these pipes are enclosed in a windchest; usually only the main principle stop is visible.

2. The pipe organ is one of the oldest musical instruments still in general use today. True or False?

Answer: True! The basic form of the pipe organ still in use today is essentially unchanged from a keyboard instrument developed in the early 1500’s. In fact, one of the earliest precursors of today’s organ was invented in about 250 B.C. !

3. When an organist “pulls out all the stops” this is akin to…
A. A full choir singing together, with no soloists.
B. A return to the most primitive form of the pipe organ.
C. Turning on all the faucets in your home at once.
D. All of the above.

Answer: D. In its earliest form, the pipe organ had no stops; all pipes played all the time. This is similar to tutti passages in a choir or orchestral work when all parts are being performed simultaneously. To enable the pipe organ to produce more nuanced sounds, a slider was developed which would selectively “stop” air from entering a particular rank of pipes, and therefore prevent that type of pipe from sounding. When an organist “pulls out all the stops,” this enables air to flow through all the organ’s pipe ranks, producing a sound that is full, rich, complex — and usually fortissimo.

4. An “eight-foot pitch” refers to…
A. The length of the pipe for the lowest C on the pipe organ keyboard.
B. A note that is one octave below the four-foot pitch.
C. An extremely poor performance in baseball.
D. Both A and B.
E. None of the above.

Answer: D. The main principle tone for most organs is produced by a rank of pipes whose lowest C results from vibrating an eight-foot column of air. Very often, another rank of pipes produces a C from a four-foot pipe; the notes of this rank are all one octave above the notes produced by the pipes of the eight-foot pitch.

5. There’s no difference between closed pipes and open pipes. True or false?

Answer: False. Open pipes produce the principle pitch and the full range of harmonics. Closed pipes are capped on the top end, and produce a sound one octave below that produced by an open pipe of the same length. In addition, closed pipes produce only odd harmonics (1X, 3X, 5X, 7X, etc.) rather than the full range. Hence the quality of their sound is quite unique compared to that of open pipes.

6. Some of the largest pipe organs may have over 20,000 pipes and 7 keyboards!

7. The term “Swell to Great” describes the organ music of J.S. Bach. True or False?

Answer: False! In fact, the terms Swell and Great refer to two different divisions frequently found in pipe organs. Several ranks of pipes are organized into divisions, and each division usually is played using its own keyboard. If the organ is equipped with a coupler, this allows the stops of one division to be played on the keyboard of another. Hence, the label “Swell to Great” is applied to a coupler which enables the stops on the Swell division to be played using the Great keyboard.

8. Pipe organ wind pressures are roughly…
A. 0.01 psi.
B. 0.1 psi.
C. 1.0 psi.
D. 10.0 psi.

Answer: B, about one-tenth of a pound per square inch. Actually, pipe wind pressures are often measured by organ manufacturers in terms of inches of water! The 0.1 psi mentioned above would equate to roughly 2-3/4 inches of water. This odd-sounding metric comes from a “U-nique” tool used to measure the pressure, a water-filled manometer. This is a U-shaped device containing water, and the metric indicates the relative difference in water level in each of the two legs of the U. Where wind pressure coming out of the organ pipe is greater than the surrounding atmospheric pressure, the water level is pushed downward on the organ-pipe side of the U.

As you can see, the pipe organ is quite a complicated mechanism. No wonder people have been fascinated with this instrument for over 2,000 years!

We can’t really discuss Johann Sebastian Bach without mentioning that during his life, Bach was known more widely as an organist than a composer. He also held several posts under local nobility or royalty as court organist, Kapellmeister, and Kantor, the latter two positions indicating responsibility for directing choirs in addition to organ performance.

In 1704, early in his career, young J. Sebastian walked nearly 250 miles to study under the most noted organist of that time, Dieterich Buxtehude. Intending to stay for one month, he stayed for five; Buxtehude’s style became a firm foundation for Bach’s own work on the organ. To this strong foundation in the German tradition, Bach showed a flair for incorporating styles of other regions, notably French and Italian influences.

Bach’s most productive years for organ composition were from 1708 – 1714, while he served as court organist in Weimar. During this time he wrote some of his most famous pairs of toccatas & fugues and preludes & fugues. These included the “Chromatic” Fantasia & Fugue in D minor (BWV 903), the “Dorian” Toccata & Fugue in D minor (BWV 538), the Toccata, Adagio and Fugue (BWV 564), the Fantasia & Fugue in G minor (BWV 542), and of course, the ever-popular Toccata & Fugue in D minor (BWV 565). The familiar theme from this work has been quoted in all sorts of unlikely venues, from rock music to horror movies to ring tones. (Ironically, some musicologists dispute the authenticity of this work as a Bach composition.)

During his Weimar years, Bach also developed an early version of his Orgelbuchlein or “Little Organ Book” to help teach his son to play. Bach originally intended this piece as a set of 164 chorale preludes accompanying the liturgical year. He only completed 46 chorale preludes, however. The “Little Organ Book” is still popular in organ pedagogy today, and showcases Bach’s commitment to teaching. He did not neglect pedagogy despite all the other demands on his time — as a virtuoso soloist himself, choir director, and composer.

Another notable feature of Bach’s Weimar period is that he began to claim certain aspects of Italian style as his own. Among these stylistic elements were dramatic openings, clarity of bass lines, and dynamic rhythms. Although Bach produced other major works for organ after this period, the sheer volume of his production for organ fell off after the Weimar years.

Later influential organ works included The Art of the Fugue, Bach’s last major work, the 14th Fugue of which was never finished. Despite some controversy over the instrumentation Bach intended for this work, it is generally considered as most likely intended for a keyboard instrument and is regularly performed by organists. And the final work that Bach ever produced was a work for organ, a chorale prelude that he dictated to his son-in-law while on his deathbed. This work is known as Before thy throne I now appear (BWV 668a), and is often played after the unfinished 14th Fugue to conclude performances of The Art of the Fugue.

From beginning to end Bach devoted his life to music, and organ music occupied a central place in that life. As a performer of the organ, consultant regarding the instrument, composer for it, and teacher of younger organists, Johann Sebastian Bach made tremendous contributions to organ repertoire.

We’ve already talked about J.S. Bach’s life and times, and his well-known piano work, the “Inventions and Sinfonias.” Now we’ll take a look at another of Bach’s masterpieces for piano pedagogy: “The Well-Tempered Clavier.”

“The Well-Tempered Clavier” is another collection of short works for keyboard instruments by Bach. Although the work was not printed until over 50 years after his death, manuscript copies were distributed throughout Europe by Bach’s students, and their students in turn. Beethoven and Mozart were among later pianists who received copies. Thus “The Well-Tempered Clavier” was widely influential and remains so right up to the present.

Bach wrote “The Well-Tempered Clavier” as an educational work for his students. The work contains a paired Prelude and Fugue in each of the 12 major and minor keys, each one a minor masterpiece. Bach seems to have been inspired to take advantage the “Well Temperament” system of piano tuning that was developed during his day. A keyboard instrument tuned according to Well Temperament could be played in any key without needing to be retuned. This represented an advance from the previous popular tuning method, Meantone Tuning, in which some keys were unplayable even though others were in tune.

Did Bach sit down and bang out a series of etudes moving up the chromatic scale, all in one short period? Well, no. As a gifted composer, performer, and teacher, Bach was not satisfied until each piece was a small gem, rich with symbolism and artistry.

In fact, one could argue that Bach did this twice. The “Well-Tempered Clavier” that we use in piano pedagogy today is actually a combination of two works which Bach wrote twenty years apart. The first set of 24 pieces is dated 1722 and is specifically dedicated to the “profit and use of musical youth desirous of learning, and especially for the pastime of those already skilled in this study.” In 1742, Bach produced a similar collection of short pieces, two in each key, this time labeled simply, “Twenty-four Preludes and Fugues.” Nowadays, we refer to the first set as WTC-I and the second set as WTC-II, and together they make up the whole of “The Well-Tempered Clavier.”

The short works contained in “The Well-Tempered Clavier” embrace diverse forms and styles, leaving out no popular style of Bach’s day. Moreover, they also illustrate the religious and numerological symbolism of which Bach was so fond. This even applies to the preludes, in contrast to the usual practice of the era. In the Baroque era, preludes, as the name implies, were typically short and light, meant only to introduce the key in which the following fugue would demonstrate the composer’s, and the performer’s, virtuosity. In “The Well-Tempered Clavier,” by contrast, even the preludes are works of art in their own right.

In Bach’s own teaching, he appears to have reserved “The Well-Tempered Clavier” for later study. He usually had students begin with his “Inventions and Sinfonias,” and only after the student had mastered those would Bach provide “The Well-Tempered Clavier.” To gain mastery over the keyboard even today, the pianist must include “The Well-Tempered Clavier” in his or her repertoire.

The lightbulb is a useful invention. So is the telephone. Johann Sebastian Bach also produced some Inventions that pianists have found useful for over two hundred years.

As mentioned in an earlier post, J.S. Bach was one of the most influential Baroque composers. He wrote over 1,000 works not only for the piano, but for other keyboard instruments such as the harpsichord and pipe organ, as well as vocal music, chamber music, and even orchestral works. He wrote the Inventions and Sinfonias to help him in teaching piano to his son Wilhelm Friedemann Bach. For the rest of his life, he used this work in teaching his other pupils, and manuscript copies circulated widely, although it did not appear in print until after his death.

Since then, these Inventions (along with their friends the Sinfonias) have become staples of the piano student’s repertoire. The two halves of this work are sometimes published separately, with the result that some pianists are more familiar with the title Two-Part Inventions, referring to the first part of the work.

Why are they still so highly regarded? Let’s take a look at Bach’s own words to help understand what he was trying to accomplish. Here’s what he wrote as an introduction to the work:

“Straightforward Instruction, in which amateurs of the keyboard, and especially the eager ones, are shown a clear way not only (1) of learning to play cleanly in two voices, but also, after further progress, (2) of dealing correctly and satisfactorily with three obbligato parts; at the same time not only getting good inventiones, but developing the same satisfactorily, and above all arriving at a cantabile manner in playing, all the while acquiring a strong foretaste of composition.”

In other words, Bach wanted to provide his son with music that was not too challenging for a strong beginner, yet would still help him learn vital skills in rhythm, articulation, fingering, phrasing, and ornamentation. He would begin with the Inventions, fifteen pieces in the most popular keys of the day, each of which is written with two independent, interlocking parts. Once these were mastered, he would add complexity by moving on to the three-part Sinfonias.

The Inventions are excellent examples of contrapuntal music, a style for which Bach was justly famous. In contrapuntal music, there are two independent musical lines which interact harmoniously with one another while retaining their individuality. What this means in practical terms is that the part played by the left hand is in no way subordinate to that played by the right. The two parts must be played with equal rigor — and are equally challenging. For right-handed piano students working to master Bach’s Inventions, this means the left hand gets quite an unaccustomed work-out.

Finally, it should be noted that Bach did not want his son or other students to master technique alone. His ultimate goal (”above all”) in writing these Inventions was to help them “arrive at a cantabile manner of playing.” Cantabile means “with a singing tone,” so it is clear that Bach did not intend for students to master technique alone, at the expense of musicality. While the student will certainly find the Inventions technically challenging, it is not enough to play them note-perfect. The student must strive to make them sing.

These short masterpieces were never intended to be mere finger-exercises alone, but true music. Perhaps that is why they are still such an essential part of the pianist’s repertoire.

You’ve probably heard the old joke: “Hey, Mister, how do you get to Carnegie Hall?”

The answer: “Practice, Practice, Practice!”

The funniest thing about this joke, though, is that it’s absolutely true. Whatever goals you have for your piano studies, practicing is the only thing that will get you there.

Maybe you just want to play the next piece in your piano book. Maybe you want to strengthen that pesky 4th finger. Maybe your uncle has asked you to play a piece during his wedding. Maybe you want to nail your piece at the next recital. Or maybe you do want to get to Carnegie Hall… as a performer, not an audience member.

Whatever your personal goals, your fate is in your own hands. Literally. Your teacher can give you guidance, but the progress you make will come from what you do between lessons. As the saying goes, your teacher can open the door, but you have to walk through it yourself.

Practice guidelines for children: It depends on the child, of course, but for most young students just starting out, fifteen minutes at a time is plenty. Once the child has taken lessons for some time and has reached the age of seven or eight, he should be able to manage half an hour of daily practice. If your child is willing and able to progress more rapidly than this, by all means encourage him to do so; but don’t push if he seems reluctant. Older children and adults can practice as much as they have time for, but a minimum of half an hour daily should be achieved.

Preparing for your daily practice session:
• Make sure you have all your books or sheet music handy, along with your teacher’s notes. (Many teachers send home a notebook with the week’s assignments written in it, and other useful advice as well.)
• Have a pencil at the ready, so you can make your own notes as you go along. For example, you could mark in a fingering or circle a dynamic that you often miss.
• Get a good light source so that your music and the keyboard are clearly visible.
• Make sure your piano bench is well-positioned for comfort and proper technique. (This is especially important if you have an adjustable bench and other people use the piano, too.)
• Make your environment supportive of good concentration. Turn off the TV or radio, and attempt to minimize other noise as well. Don’t answer the phone. Turn off your cell phone.
• Some parents find that setting a timer helps their children concentrate. The child doesn’t have to wonder how much time has passed or how much time is left; if the buzzer hasn’t gone off, she should keep practicing.

Now that you’re set up, here’s how to make the most of each practice session:
• Don’t get overwhelmed; only practice one portion of the piece at a time. Remember, the journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. Break up your piece into smaller, manageable parts.
• Analyze the piece. Does the piece have a structure with repeating sections? Many pieces do, following a pattern such as ABA, ABBA, ABCA, and so on. You may only be practicing one small section, but when you encounter a similar section later on, it will already be familiar.
• Warm up your fingers by playing the key of the piece. For instance, if the piece is written in A Major, play the A Major scale a few times. This gets your fingers and ears comfortable with the feel and sound of this key.
• Write down the three most important chords of the piece. You’ll find that most of the left-hand parts are composed mostly of these three chords. Realizing this will help your sight-reading abilities as well — you can predict the chords and notes ahead of time.
• Practice each hand separately first. This is especially important when you are practicing a piece from the Baroque period. J.S. Bach, for example, often wrote pieces in which the two hands are playing different subjects.
• Practice slowly in the beginning, and only build up speed once you have a solid familiarity with the piece.
• Don’t get frustrated! Keep a positive attitude. You are making progress, even if it’s a little bit at a time. Before you know it, a piece you found challenging a month ago will be second nature to you.

Remember: Practice makes perfect, but practice isn’t perfect. You practice in order to improve. You should expect to make mistakes during practice. Mistakes mean you’re challenging yourself, stretching to reach a goal that is just out of reach. Continually stretching your skills during practice is the only way you’ll improve.

And you’ll be that much closer to reaching your personal Carnegie Hall.

If you’re thinking of signing your child up for piano lessons, finding the right piano teacher is a key first step. The right teacher can introduce your child to the lifelong joys of creating music, but if the teacher’s style or personality is not a good fit for your child, it could color her views of music education for years to come. The teacher located nearby, or the least expensive teacher, may not be the best choice.

What makes a good piano teacher? You want someone who will inspire and nurture your child, and help him lay a solid foundation of skill and knowledge that he will build on in his future studies. The child and teacher will develop a special relationship that may last years. This will work best if the teacher’s philosophy and style match the way your child learns.

Here are some important factors to consider when evaluating piano teachers:

• Performance skill. A teacher should show mastery of the instrument.
• Musical education. The piano teacher should have a solid grounding in music theory, music history, and piano technique.
• Understanding and respect for children. Awareness of how children develop and learn is at least as important as the teacher’s own playing skills. It is quite possible that a stellar performer may not connect well with children or beginning students.
• Connection to your child. Everyone is different, and some teachers may naturally be more reserved and quiet than others. But it’s important that your child feel comfortable in the teacher’s presence. At the same time, the teacher must command respect so that the child will accept guidance from him.
• What is taught, and how. It’s important that you and your child are comfortable with your piano teacher’s expectations and requirements.

So, how to go about it? First of all, ask around. Any friends, family members, classmates who are particularly happy with their piano teachers? What is it that they like about them? Is that something you think you and your child would like, too?

Second, once you have identified a possible teacher, set up an interview so you can ask about teaching style and expectations. You may want to ask to observe a lesson or two, to see firsthand how the teacher interacts with her students. If she feels this would make the student uncomfortable, ask if she arranges a recital for her students, and try to attend that instead. After the interview, call any references that the piano teacher may have provided.

Here are some questions you may wish to ask during the interview:
• Tell me about your background and training in piano. How much training and experience have you had in performance vs. pedagogy (teaching)?
• Do you feel strongly that the traditional acoustic instrument is the only acceptable piano for a student, or are you comfortable if your students use electronic keyboards for home practice?
• What kinds of technology (if any) do you use in your teaching?
• Do you offer or require group lessons as well as individual ones?
• Do you arrange or require opportunities for your students to perform?
• Do any of your students take part in competitions?
• How would you feel if a student wanted to play a pop, rock, or jazz piece?
• Do you teach improvisation and other jazz techniques?
• Do you teach students how to memorize, play by ear, transpose, compose, or sight-read?
• How do you teach music theory and music history?
• How do you keep the lesson fun, yet still productive?
• How much practice time do you require each day?
• What are your policies on missed lessons, cancellations, make-up lessons, and refunds?
• How do you normally communicate with parents about a child’s progress? Do you hold regularly-scheduled conferences?

Finally, once you have selected the right teacher and your child begins lessons, support your child. Listen to him play. Help him get in the habit of practicing. Encourage him. No matter how good the piano teacher, your support as a parent makes a tremendous contribution to your child’s enjoyment and progress.

Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750) was a preeminent composer of the Baroque era. In fact, the Baroque era is widely considered to have ended with his death. During his life, he composed over 1,000 works in all musical genres except opera, yet he remained relatively obscure until composer Felix Mendelssohn gave a performance of Bach’s work, “St. Matthew Passion,” just over one hundred years after Bach had written it.

During his life, J.S. Bach was known more widely as an organist than a composer. He was a master of keyboard instruments of his day, including the organ, the harpsichord, and the clavichord. He also held several posts under local nobility or royalty as court organist, Kapellmeister, and Kantor, the latter two positions indicating responsibility for directing choirs in addition to organ performance. While other noted musicians of the day may have traveled and pursued their careers abroad, Bach remained in his native Germany throughout his career.

J.S. Bach was married twice, and fathered twenty children with his two wives, though only ten of them survived to adulthood. His second wife, Anna Magdalena Bach, was an accomplished pianist in her own right, and by all accounts thrived in her partnership with Bach. Their home became a musical center in their city of Leipzig. Not surprisingly, their children were quite musical.

Of Bach’s surviving offspring, several of them became accomplished musicians in their own rights, including Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, who became a leader of the next great musical era, the Classical.

The compositions of J.S. Bach himself stayed firmly within Baroque traditions, the most notable of which is the counterpoint, or contrapuntal, style. In the contrapuntal style, two (or more) independent lines are played simultaneously. Some well-known examples of this for the keyboard include Bach’s “Inventions and Sinfonias” and “The Well-Tempered Clavier.”

The most extreme form of contrapuntal style is the fugue, and Bach showed himself the master of it in his last major work, “The Art of the Fugue.” The final version of this work was published in 1751, after Bach’s death, and the last Fugue in the collection remains unfinished. Though the manuscript was written with each voice scored separately, the work is playable on a keyboard instrument, in contrast to most of Bach’s orchestral works which are not. This suggests that Bach had intended “The Art of the Fugue” as a keyboard work.

Another famous keyboard piece is “The Goldberg Variations,” an aria with thirty variations. This piece is highly structured, and unusual in that the variations build on the bass line of the aria rather than its melody.

Bach spent his life devoted to music. Even near his death, after having gone blind, he dictated one final piece to his son-in-law, a chorale prelude for organ entitled, “Vor deinen Thron tret ich hiermit” (Before thy throne I now appear, BWV 668a). This work is often performed after the unfinished 14th Fugue of “The Art of the Fugue.”

J.S. Bach was well-regarded by other famous keyboard artists, not only of his own day but in the generations that followed. Mozart, Beethoven, and Chopin were among his admirers in the Classical and Romantic eras.

With his prodigious output of musical compositions, as well as his influence on his sons and other accomplished composers of the Classical and Romantic eras that followed him, Johann Sebastian Bach was truly a father of the musical traditions that we cherish today.

No, your piano is not about to throw a tantrum if you don’t practice! Temper, or temperament, are terms referring to methods of tuning the piano.

In Western music, most pianos nowadays are tuned using Twelve-Tone Equal Temperament, or 12-TET. This means that the twelve notes that make up an octave — the chromatic scale — represent twelve equal frequency intervals. The difference in frequency between a C and a C-sharp, or a D-flat and a D, is the same.

The goal of equal temperament is to make different keys (C, D, F-sharp, and so on) sound equally well in tune. Seems obvious, right?

Not so fast! In fact, this simple-seeming tuning technique took hundreds of years to develop. What’s more, in order to make all keys sound equally well in tune… each individual interval must be made ever so slightly out of tune.

To understand this, let’s take a step back. A musical note, or tone, is simply a sound wave of a certain frequency. Certain combination of notes, or frequencies, sound more or less pleasant to the human ear. When a piano’s strings are adjusted to enable the pleasant frequency combinations to predominate, while unpleasant combination are minimized, the piano sounds “in tune.”

One of the earliest methods of tuning was Pythagorean Tuning. In this method, particular intervals were based on whole-number ratios (i.e., 3:2 or 4:3). These intervals are particularly pleasing to the ear, and are known as “just intervals.” Unfortunately, when one key (for example, C), is “in tune” using just intervals, other keys are perceived as being out of tune — in some cases, quite badly. Imagine giving a concert where all the pieces had to be in the key of C, because anything in the key of F-sharp would have sounded out of tune!

Why? Because just intervals cannot be fit evenly into an octave if there are only 12 tones in the octave. There’s a little extra frequency left over, called the “Pythagorean comma.”
To solve this problem, the just intervals are “tempered,” or degraded slightly from their purest form. How best to achieve this has preoccupied pianists and tuners for centuries.

A popular tuning system widely used in the Renaissance was “Meantone” Temperament. In meantone temperament, the just tuning of certain intervals was compromised in favor of others. Certain musical fifths might be narrowed (the top note made slightly flat) in order to allow the musical major third to more closely approach its just ratio. These out-of-tune fifths were known as “wolf” fifths and were concentrated in certain keys, which were sacrificed to the better tuning of other keys. Composers of the day simply avoided using the unplayable keys with wolf fifths.

During the time of Johann Sebastian Bach, Well Temperament was developed. Well temperament is an “irregular” temperament, meaning that the intervals between adjacent notes are not equal. This represented a major advance over meantone tuning, since all keys were playable without the instrument having to be retuned. However, the keys still sounded slightly different from each other, a phenomenon known as “key color.” For example, a particular key might be described as “dark” or “melancholic” and therefore be seen as more appropriate for certain pieces and less appropriate for others. Bach wrote two books of preludes and fugues to take advantage of well temperament. The title? “The Well-Tempered Clavier,” of course!

About a hundred years ago, modern Equal Temperament was developed, and it remains in general use today. Believe it or not, it was once controversial! Natural or just intonation was seen as reflecting God’s order; equal temperament, which debased all intervals for the sake of the overall effect, was seen by some as detrimental to the purity of music. Others lamented the loss of key color. Indeed, there are some purists even today who hold that music written for other temperaments betrays the composer’s intentions when played on an equal-tempered piano.

Now you know your piano’s temperament — and why your piano tuner should be given the utmost respect!