A spinet is a smaller type of harpsichord or other keyboard instrument, such as a piano or organ .
65-412: When the term spinet is used to designate a harpsichord, typically what is meant is the bentside spinet , described in this section. For other uses, see below. The bentside spinet shares most of its characteristics with the full-size instrument, including action , soundboard , and case construction. What primarily distinguishes the spinet is the angle of its strings: whereas in a full-size harpsichord,
130-490: A disposition of 1 × 8 ft, 1 × 4 ft, and used the same ingenious mechanism for changing stops that Cristofori had earlier used for his oval spinet . The spinettone was a local success among the musicians of the Medici court, and Cristofori eventually built a total of four of them. Spinets are occasionally made today, sometimes from kits, and serve the same purpose they always have, of saving money and space. The pentagonal spinet
195-448: A piano , the action is a mechanical device, made mostly of hardwoods, that serves several purposes. By means of various levers, it translates a small motion of the key into a large motion of the hammers that strike the strings. The mechanics of the action also makes the hammer recoil from the string instantly, so as not to damp vibration, and also prevents the hammer from bouncing, striking the string multiple times. Piano actions, even in
260-475: A convex arch, an inherently very strong configuration. Maintaining the integrity of the case was evidently important to Cristofori. Later on, in his (standardly-shaped) pianos and harpsichords, he employed two separate bent sides, one to support the soundboard and the other to bear the tension of the strings. This protected the soundboard from possible warping should the outer bentside be pulled out of position. A second advantage of Cristofori's oval spinet design
325-510: A great period of time in the vast collections of Stefano Bardini , an antique dealer around the turn of the 20th century. The long period when the instrument sat unnoticed was due in part to delays in the transfer of the Bardini collection from his heirs to public ownership. The instrument was noticed when the collection was finally acquired by the Italian state and submitted to a systematic inventory. It
390-440: A louder sound is obtained. Second, the two choirs of strings have different timbres , so contrasting tone qualities can be obtained by selecting just one choir. The contrasting timbres result from two factors. Owing to the slant of the bridges, in each pair the string closer to the outer edge of the case is shorter. Moreover, it is plucked relatively closer to the bridge, which emphasizes higher harmonics . Cristofori enhanced
455-524: A new kind of virginals in 1688, he called it the "spinetta ovale", " oval spinet ". In earlier times when English spelling was less standardized, "spinet" was sometimes spelled "spinnet" or "spinnit". "Spinet" is standard today. Spinet derives from the Italian spinetta , which in 17th-century Italian was a word used generally for all quilled instruments, especially what in Elizabethan / Jacobean English were called virginals . The specific Italian word for
520-459: A rectangular box, have a great deal of unused space. In comparison with these designs, Cristofori's quasi-oval layout stands out for its compactness and efficiency. Cristofori's oval spinets have two choirs of strings, each at 8-foot (normal) pitch. In the pairs of strings seen in the diagram above, each pair consists of one string from each choir. The purpose of having two choirs was evidently twofold. First, when both strings are played at once,
585-408: A slight forward bow—called the relief —to reduce buzzing by accommodating the shape of a vibrating string. Adjustment to the action should be done using all the aforementioned truss adjustments, in addition to modifying or adjusting any elements on the bridge of the guitar. Oval spinet The oval spinet is a type of harpsichord invented in the late 17th century by Bartolomeo Cristofori ,
650-400: A smaller case. The disadvantage of the paired design is that it generally limits the spinet to a single choir of strings, at eight-foot pitch , although a double-strung spinet by John Player is known. In a full-size harpsichord, the registers that guide the jacks can be shifted slightly to one side, permitting the player to control whether or not that particular set of strings is sounded. This
715-530: A virginals is spinetta a tabola . Likewise, the French derivation from spinetta , épinette , is specifically what the virginals is called in French, although the word is also used for any other small quilled instrument, whether a small harpsichord or a clavichord . In German, Spinett and Querflügel are used. A dumb spinet is a manichord or " clavichord or clarichord ", according to the 1913 edition of Webster's Dictionary . The spinet piano, manufactured from
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#1732883793620780-426: A virginals, the longest strings in an oval spinet are placed in the middle. The strings are arranged so the pair of strings that sounded the lowest note (C) are precisely in the middle, the next lowest pair (C#) is just behind the lowest pair, the third lowest pair (D) just in front of the lowest pair, and so on. Because of the alternating pattern, the highest two notes are the frontmost and hindmost string pairs, thus
845-404: A weaker sound. For these reasons, the spinet was normally only a domestic instrument, purchased to save money and conserve domestic space. Harpsichord historian Frank Hubbard wrote in 1967, "the earliest [bentside] spinet known to me was made by Hieronymus de Zentis in 1631. It is quite possible that Zentis was the inventor of the type so widely copied in other countries." He further notes that
910-482: Is impossible in a spinet, due to the alternating orientation of the jacks. For an exception to this point, see "spinettone", below. The angling of the strings also had consequences for tone quality: generally, it was not possible to make the plucking points as close to the nut as in a regular harpsichord. Thus spinets normally had a slightly different tone quality, with fewer higher harmonics . Spinets also had smaller soundboards than regular harpsichords, and normally had
975-540: Is in the Museum für Musikinstrumente of the University of Leipzig . In the oval spinet, the strings were placed parallel to the keyboard, the same arrangement as in a virginals . This can be seen in the following schematic false-color diagram of the 1690 oval spinet, showing the outline, keyboard, bridges, and string arrangement. The diagram and those that follow are colorizations of an original by Tony Chinnery . Unlike in
1040-426: Is known as fret buzz .) Conversely, if the action is too high, the strings may be too taut to fully depress. On some instruments, such as certain guitars , the action can be adjusted by tightening screws at the bridge , which changes the height of the strings. Tune-o-matic bridges use small thumbwheels for this purpose—sometimes accompanied or replaced by flat-head screw fittings. On other instruments, changing
1105-457: Is not known whether this instrument was inspired by Cristofori's or was an independent invention. Musical instrument scholar Stewart Pollens called the oval spinet "a tour de force of mechanical design, fully the product of Cristofori's inventive character." Yet aside from the possible example by Goccini, the oval spinet did not catch on in Cristofori's day. As noted above, the impetus for
1170-443: Is that it allows for a more compact instrument. When the strings of a keyboard instrument are laid out in the simplest way (ascending in pitch from left to right, as in full-size harpsichords), the resulting triangular shape is space-consuming and inefficient. The spinet harpsichord, which saves space by arranging the strings in slanted pairs, is still much longer than it is wide. Virginals, which enclose their triangle of strings in
1235-466: Is that the strings are arranged in pairs. The gap between the two strings of a pair is about four millimetres, and the wider gap between pairs is about ten. The jacks (which pluck the strings) are arranged in pairs as well, placed in the wider gap. They face in opposite directions, plucking the adjacent string on either side of the wider gap. The fact that half of the gaps are four millimetres instead of ten makes it possible to crowd more strings together into
1300-415: Is the distance between the fingerboard and the string . In keyboard instruments, the action is the mechanism that translates the motion of the keys into the creation of sound (by plucking or striking the strings). In a harpsichord , the main part of the action is a jack—a vertical strip of wood seated on the far end of the key. At the top of the jack is mounted a hinged tongue bearing a plectrum . When
1365-431: Is unknown how the spinet made its way into Bardini's hands. The 1690 instrument (shown above) has an outwardly decrepit appearance, but is of great historical value, for it appears that in all of the three centuries of its existence it has never been restored. The historical importance of the 1690 instrument was immediately recognized, and a team of experts assembled to study it with technology specially designed to keep
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#17328837936201430-418: The Museum für Musikinstrumente of the University of Leipzig , has been restored. The instrument is physically attractive, but because the restoration process obliterated information about the earlier state of the instrument, this spinet has diminished historical value for understanding Cristofori's work. The other surviving oval spinet was discovered only in the year 2000, having sat unnoticed in storage for
1495-480: The spinet . It may be that Ferdinando thought the spinettone a better solution to the problem of making a small but audible continuo instrument than the oval spinet. Evidence Giuliana Montanari gathered from the Medici records supports this conclusion. While Cristofori's spinettoni were constantly loaned out from the Medici collection for use, this is not so for the oval spinets, which according to Montanari "remained in
1560-432: The string , which determines how easy it is to sound notes when pressure is applied with the fingertips. Generally a low action is considered to be more playable, due to the lower amount of pressure needed to press the string to the fingerboard. However, if the action is set too low, the vibrating string might strike the fret or frets other than the one been fretted, creating unwanted buzzing. (On fretted instruments , this
1625-434: The 1930s until recent times, was the culmination of a trend among manufacturers to make pianos smaller and cheaper. It served the purpose of making pianos available for a low price, for owners who had little space for a piano. Many spinet pianos still exist today, left over from their period of manufacture. The defining characteristic of the spinet was its drop action (sometimes called indirect blow action ). In this device,
1690-418: The 19th century. After the 1930s, many people still continued to purchase spinets; a 1947 study showed that about 50 percent of all pianos sold during that production year were pianos strung vertically of 37 inches (0.94 m) in height or less. The spinet enjoyed decades of popularity after the 1930s, but production was halted in the early 1990s. The spinet organ , a product of the mid-20th century, served
1755-554: The Italian instrument maker who later achieved fame for inventing the piano . The oval spinet was unusual for its shape, the arrangement of its strings, and for its mechanism for changing registration. The two oval spinets built by Cristofori survive today. One, built in 1690, is kept in the Museo degli strumenti musicali, part of the Galleria del Accademia in Florence . The other, from 1693,
1820-536: The Medici villa at Pratolino . According to William Holmes (references below), the prince often participated as the continuo player, seated at a harpsichord among the orchestral musicians. The theatre the Prince had available at Pratolino was small, so the prince had a strong incentive for a compact instrument that could fit in the orchestra, but had multiple string choirs to provide volume. The oval spinets may have been Cristofori's effort to fulfill this requirement (and not
1885-467: The Museo degli Strumenti Musicali in the Galleria del Accademia . To give a sense of what the instrument was like when it was new, they commissioned harpsichord builders Tony Chinnery and Kerstin Schwarz to build a modern copy (pictured above), which the museum displays alongside the original. As Grant O'Brien (see links below) has observed, the oval spinet is, technically, not a spinet . "Spinet" designates
1950-540: The Winter "Musette". The Musette, along with its spinet cousins, were initially a success, being the only kind of piano that many people could afford in the depths of the Great Depression . (According to Loesser, the price could be less than $ 300, "about twenty-five percent lower than ... a small upright of 1924.") Loesser notes that the spinet was not entirely new, as very small pianos had been manufactured at various times in
2015-408: The action is more difficult, involving the removal of entire pieces from the instrument. On a typical steel string acoustic guitar, for example, the action is adjusted by carefully sanding the guitar's saddle so that the strings sit closer to the fretboard. The action on a guitar is also slightly affected by the adjustment of the truss rod . Tightening the truss rod bends the neck backwards, lowering
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2080-426: The action—and loosening the rod lets the neck bow forward, raising the action. Action on a guitar is usually measured at the 12th fret. Typically preferred action on an electric guitar is around 1/16" (1.6mm) on the high E string and 3/32" (2.4mm) on the low E string when in standard tuning using standard gauge strings. Sometimes a straight neck works best for guitar action, but many luthiers and musicians favor
2145-424: The bit of quill held by the jack - the plectrum - to pluck the string. In the diagram above, keys labeled with aqua dots lift the jacks that pass through the slots shown in aqua, and keys labeled in maroon control jacks passing through slots labeled with the same color. This arrangement is feasible because the keys are of alternating lengths. These are shown in the following diagram of the keyboard, which rests in
2210-410: The circular form of the arches with a radius of 14 soldi. This construction was the traditional method for obtaining the form of Gothic arches; see Ogive . The strings and plucking points of the 1690 oval spinet, as measured by Tony Chinnery, are in striking agreement with the same measurements from two regular harpsichords built by Cristofori decades later, in 1722 and 1726. The following chart shows
2275-417: The difference in plucking points by placing the plectra on opposite sides of the jack in the two choirs, as seen in the detail figure below. In playing the oval spinet, the player selects a registration; that is, the particular choirs (longer strings, shorter strings, or both together) that will be sounded when a key is depressed. Cristofori accomplished this end with an ingenious mechanical arrangement. For
2340-417: The farthest apart. By placing the strings in this way, the oval spinet has a (very roughly) oval shape; hence its name. As in all harpsichords, the strings in the oval spinet are plucked by plectra suspended in jacks, thin vertical strips of wood. Each jack rises from the far end of its key, passes through a guiding register in the soundboard, and terminates adjacent to its assigned string, close enough for
2405-443: The instrument are made of circular arcs. The musical instrument builder and scholar Grant O'Brien investigated their design. Cristofori first drew a line exactly 13 Florentine soldi long (a soldo was, at the time, 27.56 mm) to serve as the base of the arch. Then, he extended this line by one soldo in either direction, and made marks one soldo beyond the base line. He then centered a compass or string on these marks and laid out
2470-483: The instrument intact. The equipment and techniques employed included a frame-mounted laser pointer device (to establish dimensions without any need to touch the instrument), X-rays (to detect case-internal parts), optical microscopy (identification of wood species), electron microscopy (for wire and pin composition), and infrared spectrophotometry (to identify glue). To preserve the instrument's historical value, Italian authorities placed it on display unchanged in
2535-555: The instruments—but, if so, these are now lost. The two oval spinets both appear in a 1700 inventory of Prince Ferdinando's musical instrument collection. This inventory is better known today as the first written evidence for the existence of Cristofori's newly invented piano. The next Medici instrument inventory, evidently made by Cristofori himself, dates from 1716, three years after Prince Ferdinando's death. The oval spinets do not appear in this inventory, and evidently had been disposed of (through gift or sale). In 1726, long after
2600-460: The key is pressed and the jack rises, the plectrum plucks the string. When the key is released and the jack falls back down, the tongue permits the plectrum to retract slightly, so that it can return to its rest position without getting stuck or plucking the string again on the way down. The jack also bears a damper, whose purpose is to stop the vibration of the string when the key is released. For full description and diagrams, see Harpsichord . In
2665-429: The keyboard is fully inserted. The result is that when the keyboard is fully extracted, all of the inner jacks on the instrument are engaged, playing all of the longer strings, and when the keyboard is fully inserted, all of the outer jacks are engaged, playing all of the shorter strings. The intermediate position plays all the strings. The lowest F# and G# on the keyboard of the 1690 oval spinet are split. The purpose
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2730-432: The keyboard: The somewhat cumbersome scheme is less awkward than it might initially seem, since it would have been troublesome only in rapid chromatic passages, which seldom occur in this pitch range. The other surviving oval spinet by Cristofori, from 1693, has no split keys, but implements the same range (four octaves, C to c''') using a normal keyboard. The two elegant sections that resemble Gothic arches at either end of
2795-433: The keys did not engage the action directly; rather they pulled upward on rods called "stickers", which in turn pulled upward on levers located below the level of the keyboard, which in turn engaged the action . The stickers were sufficiently long that the hammer heads (the highest part of the action) ended up at roughly the same vertical level as the keyboard. Thanks to the drop action, spinet pianos could be made very small;
2860-597: The keys have to be removed from the piano before the action can be lifted out. According to piano historian Arthur Loesser (1954), the first spinet piano was offered to the public in May 1935, by an American manufacturer Loesser does not identify. However, according to the Blue Book of Pianos, this manufacturer was Winter and Company (which eventually became part of the Aeolian-American Corporation ) who sold this piano as
2925-409: The keys that play the near row of jacks (closer to the player), the mechanism works like this. The portion of the key that engages the lower end of the jack is U-shaped, with each prong of the U ending in a wide, flat upper surface. (This U-shaped part is shown in blue in the false-color diagrams below.) The entire keyboard mechanism can be slightly shifted toward or away from the player, using knobs at
2990-432: The keys that play the rear row. Cristofori's design permits a structurally very stable instrument. In a normal harpsichord, the far ends of the strings pull on the bentside (the long, curved, slanting side of the case, at the player's right). For reasons having to do with the string lengths, the curve of the bentside must be concave, making it naturally weak. In contrast, in an oval spinet the strings pull at either end on
3055-400: The lengths of the longer set of strings: The string lengths of the 1690 instrument are similar to later harpsichords, except for the lowest bass strings, where the length of the instrument doesn't match. The same is true of the plucking points, calculated as percentages of the string length for the longer choirs of strings: All this suggests that Cristofori, despite a penchant for innovation,
3120-403: The lower part of the case, mostly obscured by the soundboard. The keys are color-coded in the same way as in the first diagram. The same color-coding appears at the far end of each key, schematically indicating the portion of the key that engages the lower end of the jacks. As can be seen, underneath the keys are two balance rails, one for the keys that play the front row of jacks, the other for
3185-462: The only such effort—see below). The two oval spinets are luxury items—the novel product of a very skilled craftsman—which alone would have made them expensive. Moreover, they are enclosed in fine cabinetry made from costly woods. Bills that Cristofori submitted to his employers indicate that the cabinetry is the work of a different craftsman, subcontracting for Cristofori. The cabinet maker probably also produced outer cases to enclose
3250-402: The original version invented by Bartolomeo Cristofori , tend to be quite complex and have been subject of ingenious inventions and refinements throughout their history. Different actions are used in grand and vertical pianos. For full discussion, including diagrams, see Action (piano) and piano . In the guitar and similar instruments, the action is the distance between the fretboard and
3315-418: The oval spinet may have been Prince Ferdinando's wish for a compact multi-choired harpsichord suited to the orchestra pit. It may be that the Prince was not satisfied with Cristofori's first efforts in this area, because later on in the 1690s, Cristofori created a different design, his spinettone ("large spinet"), which deployed multiple string choirs at an angle to the keyboard, following the basic principle of
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#17328837936203380-417: The player toward the right rear corner. The longest side is adjacent to and parallel with the bass strings, going from the right rear corner to a location on the player's left. The front side of the spinet contains the keyboard. Typically, there are very short sides at the right rear and on the left, connecting the bentside to the long side and the long side to the front. The other major aspect of spinet design
3445-411: The same function (domestic context, low cost) that was served by spinet harpsichords and spinet pianos. The spinet organ physically resembled a small upright piano, and presented simplified controls and functions that were both less expensive to produce and less intimidating to learn than other organs. Action (music) The action of a string instrument that is plucked, strummed, or bowed by hand
3510-404: The same places, gradually deteriorating." Given that the oval spinet failed to achieve popularity at the Medici court, it is unlikely it would have been adopted in society at large, given the expense of building it and the conservatism of the instrument-makers' guilds of the time. The two spinets, though similar in design, are very different in their current state. The oval spinet of 1693, now in
3575-402: The sides of the keyboard. Depending on the location of the keyboard, the jacks will be aligned in different ways against the U, resulting in different strings being played. The three possibilities are shown in the diagrams below, which depict sounding jacks in green, silent ones in red. When the keyboard is fully extracted (pulled toward the player), the jack closer to the player is aligned with
3640-428: The slot from actually sinking into it. The mechanism just described is used only for the near row of jacks. In the far row, a simpler, mirror-image scheme is used: a single block of wood engages the jacks. It is just wide enough to raise both if the keyboard is in the intermediate position, but will engage only the front jack (longer string) if the keyboard is fully extracted, and only the rear jack (shorter string) if
3705-540: The slot of the U, so that only the string plucked by the jack farther than the player (the longer string) will sound. When the keyboard is in an intermediate position, neither jack will align with the U-slot, and both sets of strings will sound. Lastly, when the keyboard is fully inserted (pushed away from the player), the far jack aligns with the slot, and only the string plucked by the near jack (the shorter string) will sound. A separate device prevents any jacks aligned above
3770-481: The spinet in France was sometimes called the épinette à l'italienne , supporting an Italian origin. In England, builders included John Player, Thomas Barton, Charles Haward, Stephen Keene, Cawton Aston , and Thomas Hitchcock. The spinet was later developed into the spinettone ("big spinet") by Bartolomeo Cristofori (1655–1731), the inventor of the piano . The spinettone incorporated multiple choirs of strings, with
3835-413: The spinet resulted in a narrow range of harmonics and thus in poor tone quality. The spinet was also the bane of piano technicians. Concerning the difficulty of servicing them, Fine writes Spinets ... are very difficult to service because even the smallest repair requiring removal of the action becomes a major ordeal. Each of the connecting stickers has to be disconnected and tied up to the action and all
3900-422: The strings are at a 90-degree angle to the keyboard (that is, they are parallel to the player's gaze); and in virginals they are parallel to the keyboard, in a spinet the strings are at an angle of about 30 degrees to the keyboard, going toward the right. The case of a bentside spinet is approximately triangular. The side on the right is usually bent concavely (hence the name of the instrument), curving away from
3965-411: The top of a spinet rose only a few inches above the level of the keyboard itself. However, according to piano author Larry Fine , the cost in quality was considerable. The stickers were "often noisy and troublesome". Moreover, to make room for them, the keys had to be made shorter, resulting in "very poor leverage" and thus a poor sense of touch and control for the player. Lastly, the very short strings of
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#17328837936204030-482: The two original spinets were built, but still in Cristofori's lifetime, the Bolognese builder Giuseppe Maria Goccini (1675-post 1733) built an instrument on similar principles, with the longest strings in the middle, alternating key lengths, and the ability to change stops by sliding the keyboard. However, Goccini's instrument was octagonal (a rectangle with truncated corners) rather than rectangular with appended arches. It
4095-475: Was conservative in string scaling. The consistency of the measurements also illustrates the meticulous care Cristofori took to lay out his instruments. Cristofori built the two oval spinets for the Medici family of Florence. Cristofori's patron was Prince Ferdinando , the son of Grand Duke Cosimo III and heir to the Tuscan throne. Prince Ferdinando, a great opera enthusiast, organized many operatic productions at
4160-519: Was not a spinet in the sense given above, but rather a virginal ; its strings were parallel to the keyboard. Typically, the pentagonal spinet was more compact than other types of virginals, as the pentagon shape arose from lopping off the corners of the original rectangular virginal design. More generally, the word spinet was not always very sharply defined in former times, particularly in its French and Italian cognate forms épinette and spinetta . Thus, for example, when Bartolomeo Cristofori invented
4225-418: Was to include the low notes C and D in a compact keyboard. A rather complex arrangement of key levers (see keyboard diagram above) permits both halves of the split keys to control their own jacks. The assignment of keys to pitches is the broken octave , which was a system of pitch assignment used in early keyboard instruments. The following diagram shows the assignment of pitches to the bottom eight notes of
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