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spinet |
Also found in: Dictionary/thesaurus, Wikipedia, Hutchinson | 0.01 sec. |
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spinet, musical instrument of the harpsichord harpsichord, stringed musical instrument played from a keyboard. Its strings, two or more to a note, are plucked by quills or jacks. The harpsichord originated in the 14th cent. and by the 16th cent. Venice was the center of its manufacture. ..... Click the link for more information. family. Although the terms virginal and spinet, interchangeable until the end of the 17th cent., were sometimes used indiscriminately to designate any harpsichord, they usually referred to small instruments having one keyboard, one string to each note, and the keys more or less perpendicular to the strings, similar to the clavichord. The first spinet, made in the 15th cent., may have been a clavichord to which a quill mechanism was added. In England in the 18th cent. the virginal was an instrument with a rectangular case, while the spinet had a triangular or wing-shaped case. Until the middle of the 18th cent. neither had legs attached. The Elizabethan virginalists, among them William Byrd, Thomas Morley, and Orlando Gibbons, were the composers of an important body of music, of which the outstanding collection is the Fitzwilliam Virginal Book (early 17th cent., publ. 1894–99). spinet a small type of harpsichord having one manual How to thank TFD for its existence? Tell a friend about us, add a link to this page, add the site to iGoogle, or visit webmaster's page for free fun content. |
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But this appeared extremely difficult: for the spinet was near sixty feet long, each key being almost a foot wide, so that with my arms extended I could not reach to above five keys, and to press them down required a good smart stroke with my fist, which would be too great a labour, and to no purpose. I could not so readily come at playing on the harpsichord or spinet, because I had no instrument of my own to practice on, and could only come at theirs in the intervals when they left it, which was uncertain; but yet I learned tolerably well too, and the young ladies at length got two instruments, that is to say, a harpsichord and a spinet too, and then they taught me themselves. Cole, I really was ashamed to look at our new grand pianoforte in the drawingroom, while I do not know one note from another, and our little girls, who are but just beginning, perhaps may never make any thing of it; and there is poor Jane Fairfax, who is mistress of music, has not any thing of the nature of an instrument, not even the pitifullest old spinet in the world, to amuse herself with. |
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