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HARMONICHORD

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Originally appearing in Volume V12, Page 958 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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HARMONICHORD , an ingenious See also:

kind 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 See also:Kaufmann (See also:father and son) in See also:Saxony at the beginning of the 19th See also:century, when the craze for new and ingenious musical See also:instruments was at its height. The See also:case was of the variety known as See also:giraffe. The space under the See also: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 See also:cylinder fixed just behind the keyboard over the levers, and covered with a See also:roll-See also:top similar to those of See also:modern See also:office desks. The cylinder (in some specimens covered with See also:chamois 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 See also:tongues rested too lightly upon the cylinder or the strings, harmonics were produced, and the See also:note jumped to the See also:octave or twelfth. Some-times when chords were played the See also:touch became so heavy that two performers were required, as in the See also:early See also:medieval See also:organistrum, the prototype of the harmonichord. Carl Maria von See also:Weber must have had some See also:opinion of the possibilities of the harmonichord, which in See also:tone resembled the See also:glass See also:harmonica, since he composed for it a See also:concerto with orchestral See also:accompaniment. (K.

End of Article: HARMONICHORD

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