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Harpsichord in the Flemish style. The translations of the Latin mottos are "Without skill art is nothing" and "While I lived I was silent—in death I sweetly sing." The harpsichord was an important keyboard instrument in Europe from the 15th through the 18th centuries, and as revived in the 20th, is widely played today.
The use of multiple manuals in a harpsichord was not originally provided for the flexibility in choosing which strings would sound, but rather for transposition of the instrument to play in different keys (see History of the harpsichord). Some early harpsichords and organs had a short octave in the lowest register. It replaced rarely used bass ...
Harpsichord building was often considered a lesser side job for organ builders, while some few were specialized in either harpsichord or clavichord building. [ 1 ] Note that in the German speaking world the harpsichord was only one of several instruments referred to as clavier, and keyboard instruments seem to have been used more ...
Raymond Russell, a British harpsichordist and organologist, bought his first historic keyboard instrument in 1939. [2] Over the next twenty years he assembled a considerable collection of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century clavichords and harpsichords.
A typical harpsichord keyboard. Even though the keyboard layout is simple and all notes are easily accessible, playing requires skill. A proficient player has undertaken much training to play accurately and in tempo. Beginners seldom produce a passable rendition of even a simple piece due to lack of technique. The sequences of movements of the ...
The keyboard is placed left of centre, and the strings are plucked at one end, although farther from the bridge than in the harpsichord. This is the more common arrangement for modern instruments, and an instrument described simply as a "virginal" is likely to be a spinet virginals.
What primarily distinguishes the spinet is the angle of its strings: whereas in a full-size harpsichord, the strings are at a 90-degree angle to the keyboard (that is, they are parallel to the player's gaze); and in virginals they are parallel to the keyboard, in a spinet the strings are at an angle of about 30 degrees to the keyboard, going ...
Additional keyboard instruments, the clavichord (tangent-struck strings) and harpsichord (quill-plucked strings), were developed in the 14th century CE. [ 2 ] [ 3 ] As technology improved, more sophisticated keyboards were developed, including the 12-tone keyboard still in use today.