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Like a pipe organ, a harpsichord may have more than one keyboard manual, [b] and even a pedal board. Harpsichords may also have stop levers which add or remove additional octaves. Some harpsichords may have a buff stop, which brings a strip of buff leather or other material in contact with the strings, muting their sound to simulate the sound ...
An organ pipe, or a harpsichord string, designated as eight-foot pitch (8′) is sounded at standard, ordinary pitch. [1] For example, the A above middle C in eight-foot pitch would be sounded at 440 Hz (or at some similar value, depending on how concert pitch was set at the time and place the organ or harpsichord was made).
The disposition of a harpsichord is the set of choirs of strings it contains. This article describes various dispositions and gives the standard notation for describing them. If a harpsichord contains just one set of strings at normal concert pitch, its disposition is called 1 x 8'. Here, the 8' means eight foot pitch, which designates normal ...
The distinctive sound of the amplified electric guitar was the centerpiece of new genres of music such as blues rock and jazz-rock fusion. The sonic power of the loudly amplified, highly distorted electric guitar was the key element of the early heavy metal music , with the distorted guitar being used in lead guitar roles, and with power chords ...
Throughout the Baroque era, the harpsichord was one of the main instruments used in chamber music. The harpsichord used quills to pluck strings, and it had a delicate sound. Due to the design of the harpsichord, the attack or weight with which the performer played the keyboard did not change the volume or tone.
Much of the musical repertoire written for harpsichord and organ from the period circa 1400–1800 can be played on the clavichord; however, it does not have enough (unamplified) volume to participate in chamber music, with the possible exception of providing accompaniment to a soft baroque flute, recorder, or single singer.
Like the harpsichord, the virginals has its origins in the psaltery, to which a keyboard was applied, probably in the 15th century. The first mention of the word is in Paulus Paulirinus of Prague's (1413–1471) Tractatus de musica , of around 1460, where he writes: "The virginal is an instrument in the shape of a clavichord, having metal ...
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 ...