Google fetes piano inventor with musical doodle

Google on Monday paid tribute to the inventor of the piano with a musical doodle that demonstrates how the instrument works. 

 

The doodle was meant to mark the 360th birth anniversary of Bartolomeo Cristofori, the inventor of the complex musical instrument.

 

Visitors to Google's home page were greeted with a doodle of a man playing the piano—with a Play button that starts demonstrating how the piano works while playing a tune.

 

Users could also control the volume of the tune with a slider control on the doodle.

 

"In fact, that’s how Cristofori’s new instrument got its name—in Italian, piano means soft, while forte means loud. Being able to change the volume was a major breakthrough. And that’s exactly what Doodler Leon Hong wanted to highlight in this interactive Doodle," Google said.

 

Doodler Leon Hong said the topic was first suggested by the Google team in Italy, adding the melody is from Johann Sebastian Bach's "Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring."

 

"It was important to me to have a piece that was from the same time period as Cristofori's life. In addition, I was also looking for a memorable tune composed of notes with all the same duration so it would fit nicely with the animations. The timing and loudness had to be precise and consistent so I plotted the notes using software and rendered the sound files with a virtual piano instrument," he added.

 

As with past Doodles, clicking on the search-glass icon will take the visitor to a Search Results page for Bartolomeo Cristofori. —Joel Locsin/KG, GMA News