The nineteenth century pianoforte is a hybrid instrument, a product of both traditional musical practice and the industrial revolution. Essential to the pianoforte are three elements: a large, rectangular wooden body, a set of metal cords fixed at both ends inside this wooden body, and a keyboard mechanism which triggers hammers that strike specific cords. Essentially, this instrument resembles a mechanized zither.
A descendent of the zither, its relatives include the clavichord (a smaller keyboard instrument with a gentler hammer action), the harpsichord (whose strings are plucked by quills), and a series of portable lap organs which inspired more contemporary keyboards. By the mid 1880s, innovations in both the keyboard action and the actual shape of the instrument rendered the pianoforte relatively obsolete.
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