Around 1709, when Bartolomeo Cristofori built his first piano that is known of, the kinds of engineering involved in building a working piano mechanism would not have been regarded as high technology. Cristofori continued to refine and develop his designs so that by 1726 he had worked out most of the problems, and created a fairly sophisticated, working instrument. The piano-forte (literally, "soft-loud", since it responded to the weight of the player's touch) was regarded as an interesting gadget at the time; people were quite content, however, to continue using harpsichord and organ, which met the needs of Baroque music. As musical tastes changed, in the last half of the 1700s, the piano came into favor as the keyboard instrument best suited to the music of the day.Let us look more carefully at history, to see if these impressions are accurate. First, the matter of technology: during the Middle Ages, clocks were built that chimed on the hour and half hour. By the late 1500s, clocks made for the amusement of noblemen featured such mechanisms as little figures that marched around beating drums on the hour. By the late 1600s, pendulum clocks could keep accurate time to within seconds per day. So in Florence, Italy around 1709, when Bartolomeo Cristofori built his first piano that is known of, the kinds of engineering involved in building a working piano mechanism would not have been regarded as high technology. Cristofori continued to refine and develop his designs so that by 1726 he had worked out most of the problems, and created a fairly sophisticated, working instrument. The piano-forte (literally, "soft-loud", since it responded to the weight of the player's touch) was regarded as an interesting gadget at the time; people were quite content, however, to continue using harpsichord and organ, which met the needs of Baroque music. As musical tastes changed, in the last half of the 1700s, the piano came into favor as the keyboard instrument best suited to the music of the day. How does one explain the continuous changes in the piano throughout the nineteenth century? The main answer lies in the music. A musical instrument exists to make the kind of music people want to hear, and musical styles change constantly. As pianos changed to fulfill the requirements of these changing tastes, certain musical characteristics were no longer given the same priority, and were given up or modified in favor of new ideals. Until well into the nineteenth century, piano performance was by the composers, who played only their own or their contemporaries' music, so there was no need to continue meeting the musical requirements of earlier styles. As much as changes in musical styles, the development of the piano reflected ideals of the Industrial Revolution, which glorified all sorts of new patent devices. Every piano builder vied with his competitors to invent new variants on piano action, special-effect pedals, frame design, and so on. While there was keen interest in what one's competitors were selling, there was not the urge to build a highly standardized product. Each shop had its faithful clientèle, just as different brands of product have their own adherents today. Therefore, two pianos made in the same city the same year might sound significantly different from one another, and feel different to the player's hands. Moreover, there were different national styles of piano building, each working well, but built on different design principles. Pianos built before the twentieth century frequently displayed intentionally wide ranges of tone color: an instrument might sound velvety when played softly, reaching a clarion brilliance at the loud end of its dynamic range; high and low registers on one piano might be like voices or instruments in small ensembles, sounding good together, but maintaining individual character. By the twentieth century, the trend in piano design was increasingly toward an ideal of perfect evenness. High and low pitched notes, soft and loud tones were made to blend, in a smooth continuum, rather than changing in character. This was consistent with Industrial Revolution goals of standardization and uniformity for all sorts of manufactured goods.

Let us look more carefully at history, to see if these impressions are accurate. First, the matter of technology: during the Middle Ages, clocks were built that chimed on the hour and half hour. By the late 1500s, clocks made for the amusement of noblemen featured such mechanisms as little figures that marched around beating drums on the hour. By the late 1600s, pendulum clocks could keep accurate time to within seconds per day. So in Florence, Italy