Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
On a mechanical-action organ, a coupler may connect one division's manual directly to the other, actually moving the keys of the first manual when the second is played. Some organs feature a device to add the octave above or below what is being played by the fingers. The "super-octave" adds the octave above, the "sub-octave" the octave below. [1]
Layout of a musical keyboard (all octaves shown) The musical keyboard of a Steinway concert grand piano. A musical keyboard is the set of adjacent depressible levers or keys on a musical instrument.
A typical, full-size organ manual consists of five octaves, or 61 keys. Piano keyboards, by contrast, normally have 88 keys; some electric pianos and digital pianos have fewer keys, such as 61 or 73 keys. Some smaller electronic organs may have manuals of four octaves or less (25, 49, 44, or even 37 keys).
The earliest known keyboard instrument was the Ancient Greek hydraulis, a type of pipe organ invented in the third century BC. [2] The keys were likely balanced and could be played with a light touch, as is clear from the reference in a Latin poem by Claudian (late 4th century), who says magna levi detrudens murmura tactu . . . intonet, that is "let him thunder forth as he presses out mighty ...
The 30-note pedalboard of a Rieger organ. A pedalboard (also called a pedal keyboard, pedal clavier, or, with electronic instruments, a bass pedalboard [1]) is a keyboard played with the feet that is usually used to produce the low-pitched bass line of a piece of music.
The Halberstadt organ was the first instrument to use a chromatic key layout across its three manuals and pedalboard, although the keys were wider than on modern instruments. [30] The width of the keys was slightly over two and a half inches, wide enough to be struck down by the fist, as the early keys are reported to have invariably been ...
Get AOL Mail for FREE! Manage your email like never before with travel, photo & document views. Personalize your inbox with themes & tabs. You've Got Mail!
In music, the organ is a keyboard instrument of one or more pipe divisions or other means (generally woodwind or electric) for producing tones. The organs have usually two or three, up to five, manuals for playing with the hands and a pedalboard for playing with the feet. With the use of registers, several groups of pipes can be connected to ...