Piganino

Piganino

Satirical illustration, 19th century
Keyboard instrument
Developed	15th century

The Piganino, a portmanteau of pig and piano, is a conjectural musical instrument using a keyboard as to produce sound from pigs by poking them. Satirical use includes further portmanteaus as in German: Schweineorgel (pig organ), French: l’orgue à cochons, and "Hog Harmonium", (a play on "Steinway") "Swineway", or (a play on "pianoforte") "Porko Forte" in English.

Louis XI of France was said to have challenged Abbé de Baigne to develop such an instrument, believing that it was impossible to do so. The Abbé, a well known constructor, anecdotally accepted the order against payment. The instrument was a variant of an organ using a keyboard to pick the pigs, which were sorted sizewise.

That brutal monarch, Louis XI of France, is said to have constructed, with the assistance of the Abbé de Baigne, an instrument designated a "pig organ," for the production of natural sounds. The master of the royal music, having made a very large and varied assortment of swine, embracing specifens of all breeds and ages, these were carefully voiced, and placed in order, according to their several tones and semitones, and so arranged that a key-board communicated with them, severally and individually, by means of rods ending in sharp spikes. In this way a player, by touching any note, could instantly sound a corresponding note in nature, and was enabled to produce at will either natural melody or harmony! The result is said to have been striking, but not very grateful to human ears.

This may be compared to the "domestication" of sound in sampling, sequencing, and synthesis.

The American quickstep song La Piganino mocked Italian influences on amateur music and popular culture in the 19th-century USA. Beside lack of taste and vocal variety, the tendency to Italianize the names of all things chic and musical was lampooned. The cartoon anticipates the surrealistic machinery of Rube Goldberg. The 19th century played on various allegations, besides Piganino, further nicknames used for the fictitious instrument were "Hog Harmonium", "Swineway" or "Porko Forte".