And a great thanks to www.dictionary.com and www.lindebladpiano.com/blog/history-of-the-piano.

    Today the piano is a very popular instrument that many people like to play. The normal size of the upright piano is about 4-5 feet tall and has 88 keys. It has 52 white keys and 36 black keys. 

    Upright pianos are very common for people to own. People can also own a grand piano, which is a horizontally sitting piano. You can open the top piece of the piano and it allows the sound to project the soundboard. 

    Another similar instrument is a harpsichord. A harpsichord is a musical instrument played like a keyboard.  The keyboard activates a row of levers that turns a trigger mechanism.  The trigger plucks one or more strings with a small plectrum. 

Upright Piano

Grand Piano

Harpsichord

How It All Started

    There have been a lot of technical advancements to modern-day instruments. There was a Chinese instrument called the "ke". It had strings that were strung over a movable bridge that is on a wooden box.  This could be plucked to produce various tones. The "ke" was made in 2650 B.C.

    Then, in 582 B.C. Pythagóras began to experiment with musical sounds and mathematics. He invented the Monochord.

    Then, a movable bridge was added to the Monochord to allow more intonation. Then the clavis or keys were added to the monochord and contemporary organs. Then they began to prick strings on a scale division to ensure proper tone.  This created the clavicytherium in the 14th century.

This is a later version of the clavicytherium.

Improvements were made to the clavicytherium when additional strings were added and pins were fastened to the clavis or keys to allow pressure to vibrate the strings. This had created the clavichord in the 16th century.

Over time, the clavichord evolved with a few changes. The clavichord got wooden legs so it would be off the ground, also they had drawings/paintings on the back piece.

This is a rare hand-painted clavichord.

    Some other changes that happened to the clavichord were that the keys were assigned to individual strings for easier playing. Also, there was cloth added to the strings to act as a damper.  A new creation called a spinet was invented by Giovanni Spinnetti.

    The spinet was a longer-stringed clavichord with tangents that pricked the strings using a quill fastened to a jack. But, unlike the clavichord, the spinet does not have any expression or a way to manipulate the pressure of the tone.   

    Then in 1521, the harpsichord was introduced as an offshoot of the spinet. The harpsichord had many different styles, including the most common double keyboard harpsichord, one keyboard, and a rare upright.