Acoustic harpsichord V digital ones

[ATG]

Can't see it on their website? Is it new or has it been around for yonks and you've only just seen one?!!! Like me seeing my first 09 car today.

Perhaps they will next do a Kemble Bach, with marbled casework and really thin strings so you have to tune it each time you play.

Maybe not.....

Question: Yamaha seem to have got into many musical instruments, but did they ever try doing harpsichords or organs? It's a limited market but I think there would be a demand for basic facilities at a reasonable price.

ATG

[Openwood]

Question: Yamaha seem to have got into many musical instruments, but did they ever try doing harpsichords or organs? It's a limited market but I think there would be a demand for basic facilities at a reasonable price.

Probably comes down to economy of scale. Even if a harpsichord sells 'well', I guess it would still be just a fraction of piano sales. Think how many pianos somewhere like the RCM has and then think how many harpsichords or organs it has.

Mind you, Roland have gone to the trouble of producing a digital harpsichord/chamber organ, and people I know who have tried them say they're great. I'm not a lover of digital pianos - an acoustic is almost always preferable, but when it comes to organs and harpsichords,if you're only gonna use them for continuo work, I'd be very tempted to go digital. Acoustic organs and harpsichords are hideously expensive and a royal pain in the arsular region to maintain, let alone tune every five minutes.

[PianoGuy]

Yamaha's first instrument in 1885 was a portable reed organ of the type popular with missionaries, and of course they built millions of 'home organs' badged as "Electones" from the '60s up to really quite recently, but I'm guessing these are not what you had in mind!?

[Stuart]

As a former owner of an 'acoustic' harpsichord, (a copy by David Rubio of the 1769 Taskin), now returned safely into the piano fold - can't afford one of each, either financially or spatially - I have to respond to the 'digital hpd' rather that the 'real' thing. What applies to the acoustic vs digital piano argument applies to hpds. Yes, it took me 10 years to learn how to tune it properly (for public performance) and replacing plectra and strings was a $X!*+*. Only ever had one string break in performance though. The bass strings were brass, the top brass string was always the one which broke and somehow I developed a sense even before moving the tuning hammer that this time it would go. The other strings were iron. The 2 eights kept in tune between an hour and three weeks, absolute max. The 4 could be out before you finished the row. Each hpd is even more individual than a piano. I have played a number of hpds of various makes and ages: they are all different. I had the good fortune to play the original 1769 Taskin when it had just been prepped for a performance: the similarity in sound and touch with mine brought tears to my eyes.
Think early pianos. The huge differences between a Stein, Walter, Broadwood,Fritz, Erard, Pleyel etc etc. I have played a digital instrument with a hpd 'stop', in fact I even played one for several concerts with an early music group in the Channel Islands as I couldn't transport my instrument there economically. OK for a rough approximation of the sound. Think smallest/cheapest upright vs Fazioli/Steinway/Bosendorfer.
Not a rant: more a concern to stand up for my beloved instrument of choice for so many years and for which I have so much enthusiasm. Just don't get me started on the merits of different instruments/players/composers! And certainly not on playing Rameau and Couperin etc on the piano!!!!

[Gill the Piano]

I've got a William de Blaise hpd - the MFI school of harpsichord manufacture! Works all right, though. However, got lots of sticking notes, so need a happy hour or ten with the emery cloth now... Stays in tune for about ten minutes or until someone sneezes, but you can't beat it for Bach.

[PianoGuy]

I have too.

Made in the Welmar factory by the eponymous W.DeBlaise.... Never seen without a Capstan Full-Strength hanging out his gob. His Harpsichords are near-worthless but great fun. No matter what you play on them it all comes out sounding like the theme to Randall and Hopkirk (deceased). They are too inauthentic to appeal to the early music brigade due to their heavy-gauge stringing and leather plectra.

[ATG]

Do your Wm de Blaise's have the orange coloured sharps and a triangular shape which goes the wrong way? Nearly bought one years ago. Only wanted £600 for it aswell.

ATG

[PianoGuy]

Orange is stretching a point a bit.... The sharps are wood coloured and the naturals are ebonised, and yes, it's triangular (almost) and the keyboard is at a slant if you put the long side against a wall.

[Openwood]

Of course an acoustic harpsichord is better than a digital one; I wasn't suggesting that they weren't.

The point I'm making is that for basic continuo work a digital 'harpsichord' can provide an acceptable alternative to paying for transport, regulation, and tuning of the real thing. If you have sufficient funds available to cover the costs of an acoustic harpsichord for all your gigs, then go for it; lucky you!

[Openwood]

Perhaps they will next do a Kemble Bach, with marbled casework and really thin strings so you have to tune it each time you play.

Or perhaps the Kemble Norman Foster; with the action on the outside. Or even the Kemble Bono; produces an incessant attention-seeking whine that gets on everyone's tits (I know, I know, that would be the Kemble Openwood).

Recent posts have reminded me that many years ago I gave storage space to a Wm de Blaise harpsichord. Thanks a bunch, guys - I'd almost managed to forget.

[Gill the Piano]

Do your Wm de Blaise's have the orange coloured sharps and a triangular shape which goes the wrong way? Nearly bought one years ago. Only wanted £600 for it aswell.

ATG

No, it has white sharps. And I got it for £5oo (delivered up a 300 yard footpath!) about five years ago...

[vernon]

why does everyone get so waspish and mincy.
De Blaise harpsichords are perfectly respectable and adequate machines.
We've all had to service "genuine" old rattle boxes of harpsichords,which,when recorded sound as tho' the scenery has collapsed. You don't get "tone" from hpds, only semi controlled jangle.

[Stuart]

why does everyone get so waspish and mincy.

Strange. I had not read any of the previous posts as waspish and mincy. Mine certainly was labelled as "not a rant" and I read the other posts as either straightforward or humorous.

You don't get "tone" from hpds, only semi controlled jangle.

You are welcome to your opinion. I love the sound of a well-tuned hpd (yes, I know that's a brief moment in time); also a well-tuned piano, whether early (original or copy) or a new state of the art concert grand; ditto clavichords, organs - portative or church. In fact I like the sound of most instruments when they are well constructed, maintained and played.
The biggest irony is the only instrument I don't care for is the harp. I hope no harpists are reading this.

[Openwood]

I had not read any of the previous posts as waspish and mincy.

'Mincy' is a new one on me - mincy as in Graham Norton? Surely not; I didn't use a single knob gag in my earlier posts.

Good idea to move this to a new thread, although one of my posts seems to have gone awol in the process.

[Barrie Heaton]

Hmm and ATG the top post should have stayed with the other interesting

Barrie,