It has had a huge impact on Western music and greatly contributed to the shift from polyphonic to chord-based conceptualization of music, for good and bad. My pet peeve with the instrument is that the fucking keyboard is asymmetrical (based on C major), which makes it really hard to map the instrument if you're trying to pick it up later in life. I would give my left ball for a high-quality midi controller with a symmetrical keyboard (alternating white-black keys). The number of shapes that you have to learn would decrease dramatically.