the.com/harpsichord
The piano's plucky ancestor that can't play soft, so it just plays gorgeously regardless.
means A keyboard instrument that produces sound by plucking strings with small quills or plectra, rather than striking them with hammers like a piano.
from From the Latin 'harpa' (harp) joined to 'chorda' (string, from Greek 'chordē'), filtered through Italian 'arpicordo' and French 'harpechorde' before settling into English — literally a 'harp-string,' which makes sense for an instrument that plucks its strings like a harp laid flat under your fingers.
- plucks, not hits
- Quills pull strings, so volume never changes
- baroque royalty
- Bach and Scarlatti wrote thousands of pieces for it
- quill problem
- Original picks were carved from bird feathers
- piano killer
- Replaced by the louder fortepiano around 1700s
- surprise comeback
- The Beatles used one on 'In My Life'
ruckers harpsichord — the ruckers family of antwerp produced over 200 harpsichords from 1580-1670, the most celebrated makers in history
bach's bach harpsichord — j.s. bach owned a two-manual harpsichord built by the ruckers workshop, used for his compositions at leipzig
handel's shudi harpsichord — handel performed on harpsichords built by burkhardt shudi in london, the finest english maker of the 1700s