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Nailsworth Gloucestershire England

Nailsworth


Featured Listings

  • Michael Boyd - Pianolas

    Orchards Farm
    Iden
    Rye, East Sussex TN31 7XB
    England

    Established since 1984, we are situated at the

  • Hayes Music Limited

    4A Empress Park
    Empress Road, Southampton
    Southampton, Hampshire SO14 0JX
    England

    Established in 2004, we supply and repair the

  • The Piano Shop Kent

    The Estate Yard
    Eridge
    Royal Tunbridge Wells, Kent TN3 9JR
    England

    The Piano Shop Kent is near Tunbridge Wells on the

  • Hurstwood Farm Piano Studios

    The Hurst Crouch
    Borough Green
    Sevenoaks, Kent TN15 8TA
    England

    We offer some of the lowest prices in Europe for

  • Buskers Music

    Unit 60 The Triangle
    Wolverton Park
    Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire MK125FJ
    England

    We are a family run music shop in Wolverton,




Did You Know Piano Facts

1400
By approximately 1400 the clavichord had about ten strings and inearlier examples two notes or more were produced from that string or pair of strings by making two or more tangents contact thesame string or pair of strings at different points. This typeis termed fretted, or in German Gebunden. A later type, in whicheach note has its own string, or strings, is called a "Bundfrei"clavichord. The clavichord is the simplest and usually the smallestof string keyboard instruments. It is rather like an oblong boxwith the keyboard running nearly the length of one long side andwith the horizontally placed strings almost parallel to that side.The small wrest pins and bridge are at the right-hand side andthe strings are permanently damped at their left-hand ends by astrip of felt or cloth. The strings are struck from below by smallpieces of metal shaped like a screwdriver blade, which are fixed tothe backs of the key frame as tangents.

Since about 1450 keyboards have virtually remained the same,except for a little variation in the colour of the keys, as the older ones had the reverse of the present-day key colouring. The organ was the first keyboard instrument and the weight of the keys has varied greatly since the earliest examples, whose keys were so heavy that the players were called "Organ Beaters." Around the thirteenth or fourteenth century, keyboards were laid out according to the natural modes which were the basis of the musical system. The interval of the augmented fourth, B toF, was considered discordant, so B was lowered by adding anextra short key, which procedure then led to five accidentals, B flat being followed by F sharp, E flat, C sharp, and G sharp.

Today's arrangement was found as long ago as 1361, as demonstrated by paintings of the time. The first member of the harpsichord family was the virginal or virginals. The strings on this instrument are plucked by plectra and the shape is similar to that of the clavichord. The spinet followed the clavichord and then came the more elaborate harpsichord.

Tuning often followed the meantone system where major thirdswere tuned precisely and other intervals tempered. This created somevery wild intervals and the howling sound resulted in them beingcalled "wolves" or the "wolf interval." If a series of fifths is tunedfrom the bottom A upwards, when the top A is reached it will be a quarter of a semitone sharp if all are tuned in pure intervals, and this is called the Pythagorean comma. The spinet could have received its name from a possible Italianinventor, Giovanni Spinette, or from the connection with spinethorns, which were used for plucking the strings.