HARMONICHORD , an ingeniouskind of upright piano, in which the strings were set in vibration not by the
See also:blow of the
See also:hammer but by indirectly transmitted
See also:friction . The harmonichord, one of the many attempts to fuse piano and
See also:violin, was invented by Johann Gottfried and Johann
See also:Friedrich Kaufmann (
See also:father and son) in Saxony at the beginning of the 19th century, when the craze for new and ingenious musical
See also:instruments was at its height . The case was of the variety known as
See also:giraffe . The space under the keyboard was enclosed, a
See also:knee-hold being
See also:left in which were two pedals used to set in rotation a large wooden cylinder fixed just behind the keyboard over the levers, and covered with a
See also:roll-top similar to those of
See also:office desks . The cylinder (in some specimens covered with
See also:leather) tapered towards the
See also:treble-end . When a
See also:key was depressed, a little
See also:tongue of
See also:wood, one end of which stopped the
See also:string, was pressed against the revolving cylinder, and the vibrations produced by friction were transmitted to the string and reinforced as in piano and violin by the soundboard . The
See also:adjustment of the parts and the velocity of the cylinder required delicacy and
See also:great nicety, for if the little wooden tongues rested too lightly upon the cylinder or the strings, harmonics were produced, and the note jumped to the octave or twelfth . Some-times when chords were played the
See also:touch became so heavy that two performers were required, as in the early
See also:organistrum, the prototype of the harmonichord . Carl Maria von Weber must have had some opinion of the possibilities of the harmonichord, which in
See also:tone resembled the
See also:harmonica, since he composed for it a concerto with orchestral accompaniment . (K .
HARMONIUM (Fr. harmonium, orgue expressif; Ger. Phy...
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