Post # 11 Interviewing Julie Rivers

Yesterday I interviewed Mrs. Julie Rivers, an excellent keyboard professor that was kind enough to answer some of my Baroque inspired questions. She has comments on Glenn Gould, J. S. Bach and tips for pianists on interpreting Baroque music.  Have fun listening to the audio!

# 10 Mechanics of the Harpsichord Pt. 2

Now that you have a basic understanding of how a harpsichord string is plucked let's go over the aftermath of the process when the plectrum must be lowered without making another plucking noise.  And again a picture.  (Credit to Wikipedia)
The little yellow circle is the string. We're looking at this from the front or the back of the harpsichord. After the musician lets go of the key, the jack fall back to its original place due to its own weight. The plectrum is held by the "pink" tongue in the picture. It swivels on a little axis and has a spring next to it so it can move.  The plectrum is ever so carefully angled so that when it comes back down it hits the string forcing the tongue to swing back against the spring, relieving the weight that would otherwise pluck the string!  So, now you kind of understand how the harpsichord works. if you want a more detailed description check out this book on google: A Guide to the Harpsichord.  

Next week I will post an interview with a keyboard music professor.  So stayed tuned!

#9, Mechanics of the Harpsichord

To better understand the harpsichord I thought it might be helpful to actually explain to you how it works... at least the basics.  So hopefully you won't get bored, and let's get started!  (I'll split this into two posts since this topic is a bit tricky,)

Here's a nifty little chart for you visual learners. (Credit to Wikipedia)

To gain your sense of direction, the left side shows the actual key a musician would play.  When you press on the key, the key pivots down pushing the jacks upward.  Inside of the jacks is something called a plectrum.  Plectrums were originally made out of bird quill but are now usually made of plastic.  The plectrum juts out horizontally so that it can pluck the string, creating sound.  The key is stopped from moving farther upwards than necessary by a cushioned (to muffle the impact) jack rail.  That is the basic understanding of how the key is plucked.  The way the plectrum is lowered without plucking the string again will be explained in the next post.  

#8, Spinets and Virginals

As we have learned, the harpsichord is a keyboard instrument that produces sounds by plucking.  Two popular keyboard instruments under the harpsichord family were the spinet and the virginal.
Spinets were basically the more affordable option for musicians during the Baroque era in comparison to the harpsichord.  They were cheaper and took up less space but came with the sacrifice of tone quality.  Like every other instrument of the Baroque era, the number of pitches and tuning varied from instrument to instrument.  This made possible different price ranges.  The biggest difference in terms of build is that the strings come from the keyboard towards the right at a thirty degree angle.  The harpsichord's strings go straight from the keyboard and away from the player.  This unique design was what saved space since the instrument was "lopsided."  This was also the aspect that sacrificed tone quality.
Virginals were a low key, smaller, and more portable version of the harpsichord.  Like the harpsichord the wire strings are plucked by "plectra."  Essentially, this instrument has the same mechanics of the harpsichord.  The key difference is that it often does not have legs and is a rectangular box and the strings run parallel to the keyboard.  It was often placed on a table in order to be played.  Like the spinet it came in different sizes ranging from two and half feet to six feet long.  This of course led to different pitch variance from instrument to instrument.
If you are interested in hearing the difference between these tow, below is first a video of an Allemande (a slow dance) played on the spinet, and then a Scarlatti Sonata demonstrated on a virginal.

Post #6, Woodwinds Continued

We will now wrap up the study of woodwind instruments.  The Bassoon and three types of oboes are left to discuss.  The three types of oboes are the Oboe d'amore, the taille, and the Oboe da caccia.
The bassoon was mainly used to reinforce the bass line during this time period.  Jean-Baptiste Lully was one of the first who added the bassoon as well as the oboes to a primarily string orchestra.  One fascinating thing about this instrument is that it was invented and never evolved from anything else.
The Oboe d'amore first appeared in the early 17th century and enjoyed success at Bach's hands, fell out of disuse but again regained some importance through Richard Strauss and Claude Debussy.  Most oboists rent and do not own their own oboe d' amore due to the high price and lack of extensive repertoire.
The taille was used by Bach to double viola parts.  It was often used for jubilant parts due to its loud and piercing sound.  Due to its rarity and near disuse the cor anglais is often used as a substitution.
The oboe da caccia is an interesting case.  For many years musicologists thought that all of them had been lost or destroyed until Cary Carp, a museum curator in Stockholm Sweden, identified two of the instruments in the museum as oboe da caccias.  They are unplayable but in good condition and so have been replicated.  Bach and Fasch are the only known composers for this almost forgotten instrument.
The bassoon and oboes marked the beginning of the double reeds introduction into the orchestra.  Although most of them have fallen out of prominence at the time they were important for doubling inner melodies and the bass line.

Post #7, Harpsichords 1.

Tonight we will look at the harpsichord and the attributes of this amazing instrument. In the next post I will discuss the different types of harpsichords available to the people of the Baroque period. Basically, this will be an overview of the harpsichord. This instrument was popular during the 16th and 17th centuries and gradually fell out of popularity during the 18th century (everyone was too excited about the piano to care about the harpsichord.) During the 20th century an interest in the instrument grew and replicas were made to try to duplicate the music of the Baroque era accurately. It has even appeared in popular culture such as in "Slim Shady" by Eminem.

The harpsichord was used for solo pieces and often accompanied other instruments. Unlike the piano, the harpsichord has no dynamics. To compensate for this, many models had settings where more than one set of strings at a time would be plucked as you played increasing the volume. To imitate this, pianists will change dynamics suddenly instead of gradually changing dynamics with crescendos or decrescendos. Often the hands will play at completely different dynamics to bring out theme in pieces that have multiple voicings.  Many also had two separate keyboards in order to have a larger pitch range.
 So now you have a general idea of what harpsichords were all about. They were versatile; holding prominence in concertos for harpsichord but also could be used to accompany a violinist's sonata.

Post #5, Woodwind Instruments

 There are quiet a few woodwind instruments to discuss so I will be breaking this article into two posts.  Along with all of the popular brass and string instruments that we have discussed, woodwind instruments were also used.  Among the woodwind family six of them were influential or extremely popular at the time.  Recorders, flutes, bassoons, and three types of oboes were popular.  

Recorders belong to the iinternal duct flutes family.  This means that recorders have a whistle mouthpiece.  It has a thumb hole for the left hand and seven finger holes.  This was a popular instrument during the Medieval and Baroque period but has since waned out of popularity.  Recorders are generally split into bass, tenor, alto, and soprano voicings.  Curiously each instrument plays one octave higher than the voice it is named after.  For example a soprano usually sings from C4-C6 while the recorder plays C5-C7 although recorders were often not standardized and varied greatly in pitch potential.  The recorder was regarded as having a sweet sound (try to convince an elementary music teacher this) so Bach, Purcell, and Telemon among others used it to conjure images of miracles, shepherds, fields, birds, and anything to do with serene nature.  

The flute is an instrument with lasting popularity and found its way into the symphony from chamber music during the Baroque era.  During the Baroque period it was broken into three sections, instead of one or two during earlier times.  Often it was not a musician's primary instrument but by 1707 Jaques Martin Hotteterre wrote the first method book for flute.  

Below is a slideshow of these instruments plus a preview of the ones coming up next week!

And so you can hear a recorder sounding lovely as opposed to music class in elementary school...