harpsichord music by a dear friend on the east coast

[Jung Roe]

She is very good Thomas! The harpsichord when she starts playing, despite being a string plucked instrument like a guitar originating from the 1500s around the same time as the guitar, sounds like an electric instrument with power when she starts playing. Sound is impressive.

I wonder what it would sound like if they did actually put electric magnetic pickups in it and fed it into an amp like an electric guitar? An electric harpsichord. They can then put slider and damper pedals on it to create howling harpsichord effects to do some Hendrix or Led Zeppelin riffs! 🙂

Interestingly all of Bach’s great keyboard works were actually for harpsichord, clavichord and organ, and not piano, although nowadays classical music enthusiasts associate Bach’s famous keyboard works like his many Piano Concertos, Goldberg Variations, and Well Tempered Clavier Books 1 and 2 to the piano, but it was actually played by Bach on the harpsichord. Bach only started to play the piano towards the end of his life in the 1740s before he died in 1750, and the piano was virtually unknown in Germany at the time.

The most famous appearance of the harpsichord in pop/rock music I think is the Beatles In My Life. But again interestingly George Martin played that piece on the piano and sped it up to sound like a harpsichord. That apparently introduced harpsichord to some rock music that would follow.

[Tom Fones]

Thanks Jung,

my limited understanding is that the old pianoforte was the first instrument where force of striking a key equaled loudness.

You should hear Vera play Scott Joplin on harpsichord.

She also plays a Clavier and virginal.

I don’t know about electronic pickups. That might be for rock-n-roll audiences.

[Jacki Hopper]

I enjoyed that, and the harpsichord is a fascinating instrument , Thankyou for sharing H. Thomas Fones ????

[David Herrick]

I recall being stunned when I first found out that the harpsichord predates the piano, because to me it sounded like some sort of electronic synthesizer.

Shout-out to the guy who first introduced me to the harpsichord when I was a little kid:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZCAUY_ewptw

[Jung Roe]

Good one David. Here is a soft side of Lurch and his harpsichord.

https://youtu.be/J4uIMtuBBiQ?t=1