In six pages this research paper considers the history, development, and production schools of the harpsichord instrument. Five sources are cited in the bibliography.
Name of Research Paper File: D0_khharp.rtf
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by the fifteenth centuries (Grover, 2001). For two hundred and fifty years prior to the advent of the piano, the harpsichord was the preferred keyboard instrument (Grover, 2001). The following
brief history of this instrument describes its development and the principal types of harpsichords that dominated Europe during the instruments heyday. The harpsichords zenith was the eighteenth century
and the Baroque music of Bach and his contemporaries. The baroque harpsichord was capable of terraced dynamics because it had two keyboards. This instrument differed from the piano in two
significant respects. First of all, the instruments sound was produced by plucking its strings using quills instead of being struck with hammers (Machlis, 1970). The quills plucking the
strings were called "jacks" and they were generally made of quill, but sometimes they were made of leather (Anonymous, 2001). The resulting tone was bright and "silvery" in quality, but
the tone could not be sustained, as on a piano. Therefore, music written for the harpsichord during this period contained a great deal of movement - i.e. trills, embellishments
of all types, chords, broken into arpeggio patterns, etc (Machlis, 1970). A harpsichord is a smaller and lighter instrument than a piano. It can have from one to three
keyboards, which are usually referred to as "manuals." The sound of the harpsichord is generally considered to be clearer and livelier than that of the piano. The strings of
the instrument are stretched over two strips of wood called the "bridge" and the "nut." The bridge is attached to a sheet of wood called the soundboard, and the
nut is attached to a block of wood that runs parallel to the keyboard and holds in the tuning pins. When a string is plucked, the sound is first