• Natalie

    A Dropped Hammer Becomes a Piano!

      Bartolomeo Cristoferi had intended to construct a harpsichord, but when his bag of tools fell into the wooden body of the half-finished instrument he was building, he instead changed the course of musical history. The clamor of tiny hammers striking metal strings was unique — deep and grand. Indeed, the sound struck a chord in Cristofori, and it inspired him to substitute the plucking mechanism of the harpsichord with the hammers in his tool bag. Isn’t it amazing that the din of Cristoferi’s falling tools would become the sound of Beethoven’s “Moonlight Sonata” and “Fur Elise”? Each weight on a key translates to the strike of a hammer on…