The dulce melos (or doucemelle) is an early

keyboard instrument A keyboard instrument is a musical instrument played using a keyboard, a row of levers which are pressed by the fingers. The most common of these are the piano, organ, and various electronic keyboards, including synthesizers and digital piano ...

and possible ancestor of the

piano The piano is a stringed keyboard instrument in which the strings are struck by wooden hammers that are coated with a softer material (modern hammers are covered with dense wool felt; some early pianos used leather). It is played using a keyboa ...

. The instrument is described as a type of zither, similar to a

hammered dulcimer The hammered dulcimer (also called the hammer dulcimer) is a percussion-stringed instrument which consists of strings typically stretched over a trapezoidal resonant sound board. The hammered dulcimer is set before the musician, who in more trad ...

, but with the strings struck by hammers on keys. The instrument had twelve pairs of strings, each divided into three sections in a 4:2:1 ratio, resulting in a full chromatic octave of 36 notes, as each note is divided into two higher octaves by the bridges. Among the instrument's first attestations was a 1440 work by

Henri-Arnault de Zwolle Henri Arnaut de Zwolle (c. 1400, in Zwolle – September 6, 1466 in ParisJohn Koster, 'Arnaut de Zwolle, Henri', ''Grove Music Online'' ed. L. Macy (Accessed Sept 26 2007)) (often ''Henri Arnault'', also Henricus Arnold/Arnoldus/Arnoul of/van Zwol ...

. The instrument was researched in the 1844 publication ''Dissertation sur les instruments de musique au moyen-age'' by Bottée de Toulmon, which detailed a piano-like instrument detailed in a 15th-century Latin manuscript.

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