Primitive Keyboards.-- In studying the character of the ancient keyboard
stringed instruments it is necessary to examine them against the background
of such historical data as is available regarding the origin of the keyboard
itself. Whether or not the hydraulic organ of Ctesibus was operated by
keys is destined to remain somewhat in doubt so far as our present knowl-
edge extends; the only known reproductions, occurring on Roman coins,
show merely the back of the instrument, leaving the matter of its manipula-
tion entirely conjectural. Ctesibus perfected his invention at Alexandria in
the second century B.C., and it is difficult to conceive how such an instrument
could have been played by any means except some type of keyboard, however
primitive. Whatever may be our assumption in regard to the method of
playing this and other ancient instruments, the fact remains that the balanced
(pivoted) keyboard had its earliest use in connection with the organ, and
was first described by Vitruvius soon after the beginning of the Christian
era. His Hydraulicon and the Pneumatics of Hero, both spoken of by
Newton, were provided with balanced keys which were connected with the
slides, and were returned to their equilibrium by means of springs.

Instruments of the hurdy-gurdy class were the first in which the stopping
of the strings by the agency of keys was attempted. Hand-stopping was
employed in the monochord up to the time of Guido d'Arezzo in the early
part of the eleventh century. The small portative organ, called the Regal
by many ancient writers on musical subjects, was provided with narrow
key-like finger stops apparently as early as the twelfth century. An organ
of this type appears in a well-authenticated Spanish manuscript of the thir-
teenth century; a portative with nine pipes and ordinary keys is shown,
and another drawing, copied from a fresco in the Cistercian Monastery of
Neustra Señora de Piedra ( Aragon, 1390) reveals three rows of pipes and
balanced white natural keys. Early paintings provide additional informa-
tion in regard to the ancient use of the keyboard as applied to the portative
organ. A picture by Fra Angelico shows what may be considered a key-
board having provision made for accidentals, which gives a strong suggestion
of the early employment of the cadence.

We may also assume that the full chromatic scale was already in existence,
as in the great Halberstadt organ, built in 1361 A.D. The compass of the

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