adamworth
New member
Hello All,
I have been playing piano for a while, but have always loved the harpsichord. I love how it sounds and I love Baroque music. With that said, recently I had an opportunity to purchase a harpsichord. Being new to the harpsichord world, I have many questions. I purchased "The Harpsichord Owner's Guide: A Manual for Buyers and Owners" hoping to learn more. I did learn a lot from the book, but many of the author's explanations are difficult to understand and he assumes the reader has previous experience with harpsichords.
Anyway, the harpsichord I purchased has broken strings that need to be replaced. The original owner said that the strings were fairly old and would be a good idea to have the instrument re-strung. I know this is no easy task, but I am looking forward to the challenge. One of the things that cause great confusion is disposition. The author from the owner's guy keeps on mentioning 8' and 4', but never goes into detail explaining exactly what that means. I've looked at wikipedia and while it does clear things up a bit, I am still unsure how it applies to my harpsichord, or any harpsichord for that matter. The person I bought the harpsichord from said the harpsichord is 8'x8'x4' but still not sure what that means or how it affects tuning. I am very excited about stringing the harpsichord so I can start playing on it. I am attaching a few pictures with the hope that someone can help me.
Is it possible to tell the style (French, Italian, Fleiminsh?) of the harpsichord from the picture? The harpsichord also has four pedals which are used to couple the keyboards and also to change registers (i.e. which strings are plucked by the bottom manual).
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/812/harpsichord4.jpg
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/135/harpsichord3.jpg
The picture shows the harpsichord with the jack rail, music rack & front covers removed. The harpsichord has the name "Kimball" on the front and when I removed the top manual I found the number "1227" printed on the harpsichord.
I would really appreciate any help or if anyone can point me in the right direction. I am very eager to get my instrument working.
Thanks!
I have been playing piano for a while, but have always loved the harpsichord. I love how it sounds and I love Baroque music. With that said, recently I had an opportunity to purchase a harpsichord. Being new to the harpsichord world, I have many questions. I purchased "The Harpsichord Owner's Guide: A Manual for Buyers and Owners" hoping to learn more. I did learn a lot from the book, but many of the author's explanations are difficult to understand and he assumes the reader has previous experience with harpsichords.
Anyway, the harpsichord I purchased has broken strings that need to be replaced. The original owner said that the strings were fairly old and would be a good idea to have the instrument re-strung. I know this is no easy task, but I am looking forward to the challenge. One of the things that cause great confusion is disposition. The author from the owner's guy keeps on mentioning 8' and 4', but never goes into detail explaining exactly what that means. I've looked at wikipedia and while it does clear things up a bit, I am still unsure how it applies to my harpsichord, or any harpsichord for that matter. The person I bought the harpsichord from said the harpsichord is 8'x8'x4' but still not sure what that means or how it affects tuning. I am very excited about stringing the harpsichord so I can start playing on it. I am attaching a few pictures with the hope that someone can help me.
Is it possible to tell the style (French, Italian, Fleiminsh?) of the harpsichord from the picture? The harpsichord also has four pedals which are used to couple the keyboards and also to change registers (i.e. which strings are plucked by the bottom manual).
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/812/harpsichord4.jpg
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/135/harpsichord3.jpg
The picture shows the harpsichord with the jack rail, music rack & front covers removed. The harpsichord has the name "Kimball" on the front and when I removed the top manual I found the number "1227" printed on the harpsichord.
I would really appreciate any help or if anyone can point me in the right direction. I am very eager to get my instrument working.
Thanks!