Search results
Results From The WOW.Com Content Network
The New Grove musical dictionary summarizes the earliest historical traces of the harpsichord: "The earliest known reference to a harpsichord dates from 1397, when a jurist in Padua wrote that a certain Hermann Poll claimed to have invented an instrument called the 'clavicembalum'; [1] and the earliest known representation of a harpsichord is a sculpture (see below) in an altarpiece of 1425 ...
A harpsichord [a] is a musical instrument played by means of a keyboard. Depressing a key raises its back end within the instrument, which in turn raises a mechanism with a small plectrum made from quill or plastic that plucks one or more strings.
Musical Instruments and Their Decoration. Cincinnati, Ohio: Seven Hills Books,. ISBN 0-911403-17-5. Russell, Raymond (1973). The Harpsichord and Clavichord: An Introductory Study, 2nd ed. London: Faber and Faber. ISBN 0-571-04795-5. Yorke, James (1986). Keyboard Instruments at the Victoria and Albert Museum. London Victoria and Albert Museum.
History of the harpsichord, Edward L. Kottick, 2003, 1.ed., Indiana University Press Ruckers A harpsichord building tradition, Grant O´Brien, 1990, 1. ed., Cambridge University Press A Performer's Guide to Renaissance Music, Jeffery T. Kite-Powell , 2007, Indiana University Press
These forms gradually developed into the trio sonata of the Baroque – two treble instruments and a bass instrument, often with a keyboard or other chording instrument (harpsichord, organ, harp or lute, for example) filling in the harmony. [7] Both the bass instrument and the chordal instrument would play the basso continuo part.
The short octave was a method of assigning notes to keys in early keyboard instruments (harpsichord, clavichord, organ), for the purpose of giving the instrument an extended range in the bass range. The rationale behind this system was that the low notes F ♯ and G ♯ are seldom needed in early music.
The archicembalo / ɑːr k i ˈ tʃ ɛ m b əl oʊ / (or arcicembalo, / ɑːr tʃ i ˈ tʃ ɛ m b əl oʊ /) was a musical instrument described by Nicola Vicentino in 1555. This was a harpsichord built with many extra keys and strings, enabling experimentation in microtonality and just intonation.
Spinet by Zenti from 1637, now in the Musical Instrument Museum in Brussels. The angling of the strings also had consequences for tone quality: generally, it was not possible to make the plucking points as close to the nut as in a regular harpsichord. Thus spinets normally had a slightly different tone quality, with fewer higher harmonics ...