Muselar Virginal Demonstration

Virginals
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Muselar (also muselaar or muselars) virginals were made only in northern Europe. Here, the keyboard is placed right of centre and the strings are plucked about one third the way along their sounding length. This gives a warm rich and fundamental sound (somewhat reminiscent of a square wave), but at a price: the action for the left hand is inevitably placed in the middle of the instrument's sounding board, with the result that any mechanical noise from this action is amplified. In addition to mechanical noise, from the string vibrating against the descending plectrum, the central plucking point in the bass makes repetition difficult, because the motion of the still-sounding string interferes with the ability of the plectrum to connect again. An 18th century commentator (Van Blankenberg, 1739) said that muselars "grunt in the bass like young pigs". Thus the muselar was better suited to chord-and-melody music without complex left hand parts. The muselar could also be provided with a stop called the Harpichordium (also arpichordium), which consists of lead hooks being being lightly applied against the ends of the bass strings in such a manner that the string vibrating against the hook produces a buzzing, snarling sound.

Muselars were popular in the 16th and 17th centuries and their ubiquity has been compared to that of the upright piano in the early 20th century, but like other types of virginals they fell out of use in the 18th century.

Category:

Music

Tags:

• Harpsichord
• instrument
• muselar
• virginal

[redflamingolingo]

What is this piece?

[vaporthug]

Hi. This piece is my work. I suppose it is probably influenced by real pieces I've heard over the years, but basically it's just stuff I have in my head that can pretty much continue on for a half hour. BTW I am really Zugstar. Vaporthug, the poster of this video, is my roommate who videotaped me using a very good HD camera and software. He had to edit the piece down to a listenable time for posting onto this site because I actually played for about 20 minutes. I hope you liked the melody.

[Roniel81]

...And I can tell you do it beautifully, the music you created here is just like it came right from Baroque era, especially the first part of your playing - it's an incredibly beautiful melody... Someone might say it resembles Beethoven's Marmot a little bit, but I'd say it doesn't; it seems really original and beautiful. William Byrd would be happy to write something like this :))

[msfosella]

Very interesting on this instrument.  Very close to a harpsichord. Thank you.

[Puppyjump]

@TheStatue1

I'm sorry but I don't know anything about temperaments or scales. I just sit down and play notes that sound nice to my ears

[PerfectExceeeder]

I honestly don't understand why most music artists out there aren't computer artists... This melody brings tears to my eyes. Music is just like another language, you can speak this language whenever you want, but whenever you choose to tell a tale you can record it to be told again and again... This story speaks to me in a beautiful way.

[TheStatue1]

fine sound, fine playing, what temperament are you using?

[chrismili13]

Did you know that European music of 12 semitones is the most inaccurate music that ever existed?

[SkpD1991]

how much does that cost???

[modestpianist]

amazing sound man! i'm really impressed. It makes you remmember that castles, knights and everthing else on the medieval age.

[TheLivingHeiromartyr]

I'd say it was a little earlier than Baroque in style, but fantastic anyway!! It's amazing how much varied and beautiful music you can get from such a limited keyboard. Bravo

[raisethesong]

Wow, absolutely beautiful! I'm reading a great deal about King Henry Viii's court, and I wanted to know what the instrument so often mentioned sounds like. I could literally picture sitting in the court, hearing Catherine of Aragon or Catherine Howard playing. I agree, upload more, and you will have an enraptured audience!

[HookedOnBach]

Can you please upload whole piece now? It is so beautiful!!!

Also I suggest you release a CD, I think it will be very popular and you have now first order :)