CBH Transposing the harpsichord keyboards II

• Always read the accompanying technical description!

More harpsichord stuff @ http://www.hpschd.nu

Carey Beebe demonstrating how to transpose a double-keyboard harpsichord from A392 to A415 to A440 and back again.

Many of today's harpsichords were designed to be tuned at baroque pitch (A415), but are equipped with keyboards which easily transpose a semitone up to modern pitch (A440), or even down to French baroque pitch (A392). A simple chord progression in G Major establishes the pitch at A392. One of the transposing blocks is removed from the treble side, and the keyboards slid one note to the right to fill the space. (The upper keyboard is confined to the lower, so only the lower need be slid.) The harpsichord now plays a semitone higher at A415. The transposing block should be used to fill the space now at the bass end of the keyboards. If you have tuned in an unequal temperament like here, you will need to retune because your keys will have transposed at the same time, but this pitch ch ange has been accomplished without radical alteration of the string tension.Removing the remaining transposing block at the treble and sliding the keyboards again, brings the pitch a semitone higher to A440. To return to lower pitch, the transposing blocks are removed from the bass and replaced at the treble side.

Ruckers Double Harpsichord by Carey Beebe, Sydney 2003.

Category:

Howto & Style

Tags:

• harpsichord
• clavecin
• cembalo
• clavicembalo
• clave
• cravo
• Клавесин
• 羽管鍵琴
• ハープシコード
• チェンバロ
• 하프시코드
• keyboard
• transposing
• baroque
• pitch
• A415
• A440
• A392
• hpschdnu

[pll89]

A392 sounds like it's in F major,A415 sounds like it's in Gb major or F# major and 440 (standard pitch sounds like it's in G major..sooo..what is the point of Baroque tuning again? Perhaps in the Baroque period it was useful but today it doesn't seem very useful..is it?

[hpschdnu]

@pll89 Indeed, but don't confuse "tuning" with "pitch". The various pitch levels which have become standard today are very useful to accommodate playing with reproduction wind and stringed instruments. A415, a semitone lower than modern A440 is most often used and is known as "Baroque pitch". A392 is a semitone below that, and often used for early French music. A466, a semitone above modern pitch, is a common high Italian pitch.

[hpschdnu]

@pll89 From a keyboardist's point of view, there is the physicality: Playing in the awkward hand position of F# Major—where the wrists must be rotated outwards so the thumbs can be over the sharps—will never be the same as "simple" F Major. Also, there is the affect of each key, which is very real in certain early temperaments. If you speak to a traverso player, every note has a particular natural timbre and volume. (These were ironed out for the modern flute, making it uniform at great loss.)

[rustydog1236]

Cool. Good demo of the trasposing keyboard but an even better demo of Mean Tone!

[hpschdnu]

@rustydog1236 Actually, this instrument was tuned in a well-temperament, allowing every tonality with different key color. If I recorded this demo in Quarter-comma meantone, the hideousness of the middle key would render that pitch level unusable without retuning.

[hpschdnu]

A transposing keyboard on a harpsichord is very convenient, but if the instrument is tuned in an unequal temperament—as is usual for a harpsichord—the good keys get transposed along with the bad. Hence, playing in common keys on an instrument which was transposed AFTER tuning, may render those keys rough sounding. In this case, the simple example is played in the key of G, but those attuned to modern pitch would hear it in F, then F# (very rough) before G the third time.

[rustydog1236]

@hpschdnu I agree! I guess I said 'mean tone' as just sort of a generic, or not equal tempered. You have to admit there is still quite a difference in the tuning between 415 and the 392 & 440! I like to tune a small spinet I have in a quarter comma and then play through the 2 part inventions: it gives an xlnt demo to young students who can't quite figure out what all this temperament stuff is about. Thanks for video: I think teachers can use these videos who dont have a spinet handy!

[Tenifus]

Oh how my life would be complete if I owned a harpsichord :(

[giu13pet]

uao!!figo! stupendo!! davvero interessante...

[grzegorz19plonka]

ha ha. dobre to jest.