Today's Google Doodle - happy 360th, Cristofori!

If you get a chance, check out today's Google Doodle! Today is the 360th anniversary of Bartolomeo Cristofori's birth. He invented the piano over 300 years ago. It was originally called the pianoforte because it could play soft (piano) and loud (forte). Cristofori's hammer system (in which hammers strike the strings) made that possible, since the strength of the strike can be altered depending on how hard the player presses the key. This is different than the harpsichord, in which the strings are actually plucked with no volume control. Today's Doodle is pretty neat - the animation shows the basic piano hammer mechanism in action!