The Stupid 365 Project, Day 38: Piano Forte
November 8th, 2010
In the 1970s it became politically correct to downplay the cultural accomplishments of Western civilization, especially in those citadels of bone-headedness called universities.
In tandem with this wholesale junking of much that’s great in our world, people began to speak, with a certain amount of scorn, the phrase, “Dead white men.” The idea, if it even qualifies as an idea, was that education was a zero-sum game and the only way to make way for a broader curriculum was to dump vast tracts of cultural acreage. So Sophocles, Cervantes, Bach, Shakespeare, Galileo, Dante, Beethoven, Darwin, Freud, and hundreds of other underachievers were shelved in favor of left-handed, transgendered, minority haiku poets translated from the Farsi, and we all benefited greatly from the exposure.
Sorry. I really didn’t mean to go there. What I wanted to do was much less argumentative. I wanted to explain why I would choose the piano as emblematic of the best of pre-Industrial Revolution Western culture, and why I think it deserves to be placed near the pinnacle of human achievement.
I make this sweeping statement because of what the piano is and what it implies.
Mechanically, the piano is a highly evolved harp that traces its roots back to the ancient instruments that are found on Egyptian paintings more than 6000 years old and mentioned in the Book of Genesis, probably written around 1450 BC. In the West, harps were refined by the Greeks and then branched off into hundreds of variations, including ancestors of the guitar, until the 15th century when brilliantly designed bowed string instruments began to be produced in Italy. So at that point, strings had been plucked, as in the harp and the earliest ur-guitars, and bowed.
By the Middle Ages, some unknown genius had the idea of attaching an organ keyboard to a set of strings and arranging a lever system that would pluck a string when a key was pressed. One immediate effect of this was substantial range — harpsichords, spinets, virginals, and other early keyboards had a range of anywhere from four octaves to five and a half. But they all had limited dynamics – no matter how hard the player struck the key, the string was plucked with the same force. Pounding a chord on a harpsichord produces the same volume as coaxing it with the fingertips.
Enter the hammer, and the modern piano. The clavichord — essentially a harpsichord with hammers that struck the strings rather than plectrums — had been in existence since the14th century, but it couldn’t be played loudly enough to be heard by large groups. Then, around 1700, Bartolomeo Cristofori created what he called the pianoforte, which he called the Gravicembalo col piano e forte, Italian for ”harpsichord with soft and loud.” The fact that the keys were hammered instead of plucked gave the performer an ability to thunder or whisper, and the hammer mechanism, unlike the plectrum, also allowed notes to sustain as long as the string vibrated. The modern piano, with its 7 1/3 octave range, was only a short way off.
By the way, forte not only means loud, but also “the strong point, that in which one excels.” The pianoforte met both definitions.
So what?
So over centuries, artists, crafstmen, woodworkers, metalworkers, priests, kings, and upstart musicians collaborated to create this extraordinarily complex object — not to win battles or conquer territory or triumph in disputes, but to play music. This obviously implies the existence of a Klondike-rich vein of music in the Western heritage, an ever-evolving cloud of imagination and aspiration that supported the development of the piano, making it both possible and necessary. Once the instrument appeared, it became the primary tool of composition for more music as it replaced Bach’s harpsichord and opened new possibilities for Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven. And virtuoso artists arose to play the instrument, and following Beethoven orchestras grew in size to create even richer tone colors and take advantage of the piano’s ability to be heard over pretty much anything.
I see the piano as a physical manifestation of much that’s best about humanity — a concoction of wood, metal, gut, and resins, the beneficiary of a broad range of skills, the repository of centuries’ worth of problem-solving, and the simultaneous tool and voice of creativity, often present at the center of the holy moments when people are at their finest: one group, pouring their hearts, souls, and skills into creating art as the other group loses itself in listening to art. And the art is pure, abstract beauty, free of argument, comparisons, enmity, anxiety, negativity. It proposes nothing and denigrates nothing. It exists only as it’s being created, in the very air, and when it’s over, it exists differently inside those who played and those who listened. There is absolutely nothing wrong with it whatsoever.
I’m not knocking any other culture. All I’m saying is that the piano is eloquent testimony to much that’s best in the Western one.
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11 Responses to “The Stupid 365 Project, Day 38: Piano Forte” -
Bonnie Says:
November 8th, 2010 at 11:17 am
I don’t really have anything to add to this except that a series of mysteries I recently discovered, thanks to DorothyL, written by Steven Havill and taking place in New Mexico, explore in the last couple of volumes a child prodigy and his relationship to the piano. It’s very imaginative and enjoyable to read.
And that forte is probably one of the most mispronounced words in English when used in the context ones strength or ability. I always assumed it was like the Italian music loudness modifier, but apparently when used in “That’s not my forte” the word is from French and thus the final e is silent. Who knew? Pedantic as I am, I forge ahead and assume most people think I’m saying it wrong.
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fairyhedgehog Says:
November 8th, 2010 at 11:54 am
Bonnie, if I thought I had to pronounce it accurately in French I’d do the French r and then I really would sound pretentious. I’ll stick with “fortay” 
I’ve never looked at pianos like that; I have a mild dislike of them (sorry Tim!). What I really love is woodwind and I need to get back to learning my clarinet again. Nothing beats the feeling of the column of air starting deep inside you, travelling through you then down that wooden column and making music!
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Phil Hanson Says:
November 8th, 2010 at 1:40 pm
“By the way, forte not only means loud, but also ‘the strong point, that in which one excels.’”
To clarify what Bonnie said, Tim, forte, as used in the context of loud or forceful, is pronounced “for-tay. When referring to one’s area of expertise, it’s pronounced “fort.” Wait! What? The student schooling the master?
It took most of the weekend, but the paint finally dried and I was able to get your appeal for more readers posted to my blog. All one of my regular readers is now on high alert.
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Lil Gluckstern Says:
November 8th, 2010 at 2:26 pm
This was really interesting; I never knew that about harpsichords. To me the piano is liquid music, very pure, and beautiful. (My own attempts not withstanding). How does this relate to “dead white guys?” Well, again, it’s a matter of purity, and accessibility, and universality-those guys speak to truths with the beauty of the English language. While it is fine to introduce new forms and language to make a point, I guess beauty is very important to me. As far as language is concerned, I think that people who have lived in other cultures, and particularly in Central Europe, like you, Bonnie, develop an ear for dissonances, and pronunciation. My parents went to Haiti from
Austria, so my second language was French, and I shudder when I hear folks mangling words. I imagine it must be hard for you because you were exposed to so many languages. This is the beauty of Europe and South Eastern Asia, small distances, and instant exposure to different cultures. What this has to do with anything is a question, but I think exposure to other peoples, customs, food, and language makes us far richer as human beings. Whew, I will stop now.
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Suzanna Says:
November 8th, 2010 at 2:39 pm
My daughter has a piano sitting mostly unused since she ended her piano studies in her junior year of high school. That was about two and a half years ago. It now acts as a reminder of all that it brought to our lives, and a pretty fancy piece of furniture to put family photos, our shell collection, and a recently acquired humming bird nest.
It is my hope that either she will one day have the time and interest to return to her piano studies, or even less likely, but nonetheless just as possible, that I will one day be inspired to learn how to play even half as beautifully as she has.
One thing that I was able to acquire through proximity was becoming acquainted with some of the most beautiful music I have ever known.
While my daughter learned complex classical pieces by Chopin, Beethoven, and Mozart it demanded a lot, from all of us. From her, the countless hours of practice when she had mounds of homework waiting for her, and finger biting, sweat inducing recitals, as well as enduring, the nagging, and idle threats from her parents to get her to practice. Add to that the countless mad dash drives across town during rush hour to get her to her teacher’s house on time with some sort of half-ass dinner churning in our bellies, and you begin to get the less romanticized version of what it takes for a young girl to learn how to play the piano.
But the pay off for her is so much greater than all the sacrifice. From her time at the piano some of the more obvious benefits were that she developed a profound love of music and a confidence few other activities have even come close to giving her.
There is a piano piece by Brahms that I am currently obsessed with. I heard it on the radio one day and as soon as I got home I hunted down every version I could find on youtube. As I listened to each one it became clear that each pianist had their own unique way of listening and learning and being inspired by this beautiful piece. One day I hope to hear it live.
Clearly, developing an appreciation for global cultural accomplishments is the ideal, but to subjugate the masterful accomplishments of Western Civilization in order to broaden our global cultural awareness is something, I hope for everyone’s sake, is a tendency of the past, and no longer has a legitimate platform at the institutions we entrust to help educate and shape our society.
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Timothy Hallinan Says:
November 8th, 2010 at 3:48 pm
Bonnie — will read the Havill books. Few things interest me more than prodigies, Malcolm Gladwell notwithstanding. Just finished writing a book (CRASHED) that deals with one of the tragic prodigies, the ones whose miraculous talents begin to fade. Since these poor kids have no idea where the gift came from in the first place, they also have no idea how to reclaim them.
FHH, no problem with preferring a woodwind. I mean, it’s incomprehensible to me and, I’m sure, to all people of taste and discernment, but, geez — wait. Let me begin again. Music is the king of the arts, as far as I’m concerned. And without woodwinds we wouldn’t have woodwind players, and without woodwind players, who’d play all the woodwind parts? Whole orchestra scores would have to be gone over heavily with white-out. Tootle away — I’m just being insufferable.
Phil, I don’t actually recall prounouncing the word in the post. I just ASSUMED that people would ASSUME that I knew the difference, but no – I have to prove myself to you day after day after day. Beating my head against this keyboard until blood fills the screen. Oh, okay. Forget it. And thanks for the plug — I can use all the readers I can get.
Why is EVERYONE talking about how to pronounce the word in its various meanings? You would think I got up on live global TV and said nucular over and over. I swear, I silently pronounced it right EVERY TIME I wrote it. And in the headline, when it could have been either way, I pronounced it twice. Silently. Right.
Et tu, Lil? Well, I’ll agree that exposure to other cultures, other viewpoints, and other art forms makes it more difficult for us to remain narrow and parochial and even makes it more likely that we’ll know how to pronounce “forte” under differing circumstances. In fact, apropos of almost nothing, I’m always amazed that some Islamic extremists have been all over the place, including Western Europe and the US, without any of it filtering through their tiny, pitiful, bigoted, misogynistic, benighted perspectives.
Beautiful story, Suzanna, and how fortunate for Maya that you guys were willing to make room in your lives for all that — the furniture, the lessons, the frustration, the wrong notes — all of it. Music is a different way of using the mind, and I think it opens up neural pathways that might not be opened any other way. And I hope you’re right about the educational future, but post-secondary educators are often the first to embrace, and the last to renounce, flawed perspectives.
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Larissa Says:
November 8th, 2010 at 3:51 pm
Check this out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Zjt9QTj6V8
You may have already heard the piece but just watching these two play is enough to add new interest. (c:
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Sharai Says:
November 8th, 2010 at 4:12 pm
Bravo #38!!!
Makes me think of hearth baked chewy bread(your blog) encased in ‘upper crust’ (the comments)! Together you’ve covered so many evolutions of our humanness. If only it didn’t take soooo loooong! Evolution not the writing. I only ask that we leave some DWM lie. The chaff must always be winnowed from the grain.
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Phil Hanson Says:
November 8th, 2010 at 5:44 pm
I know you know the difference, Tim, hence the “disclaimer” following my pedantic comment. I posted it for the benefit of the millions of readers who will soon visit your blog, and who may not know the difference. That there is no difference seems to be a common misperception; too often, I hear someone say, “That’s not my fortay.” It’s just one of those irksome things that drives me batsquat crazy.
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Timothy Hallinan Says:
November 9th, 2010 at 2:59 pm
Oh, Phil, I was just messing with you, being a jerk. To tell you the truth, I’ve never in my life give a moment’s thought to how to pronounce it. It’s one of those words (“tenebrous” is another) I’ll probably never say out loud. And if I did, I’d probably get it wrong.
Beautiful, Riss — BTW, Amazon has Rach’s piano concerti 3&4 for $3.99 as a download right now. They’re on my eyepod.
Yayyy, Sharai, and bravo back atcha. I think of the comments as upper crust, too. This is an extraordinary micro-demographic.
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Sylvia Says:
November 10th, 2010 at 8:16 am
I never knew that about how to say forte.
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