USING THE HARPSICHORD IN GPO

By Terry Dwyer

PART 1: UNDERSTANDING THE HARPSICHORD

What use is the harpsichord?

  1. As a solo instrument: there is a vast literature available, from the English virginalists such as Byrd, Gibbons and Farnaby through the French clavecinists like F. Couperin and Rameau (and many other European composers) to the 18th century with many German composers culminating in our wonderful J.S. Bach (whose keyboard music alone constitutes a lifetime study). Bach never wrote for the piano.
  2. As a continuo instrument. Throughout the Baroque period, most concerted music of any kind required harmonic support from a keyboard (organ or harpsichord).
  3. As a concerto soloist. Not too many works here: Bach mainly.

Why does GPO include a harpsichord?

You might want to compose for the harpsichord, either as a solo instrument or as part of a chamber ensemble; or you might want to reconstruct early music for your own enjoyment. Even a piece such as Vivaldi’s Four Seasons should have a harpsichord tinkling away in the background. Remember that the comparatively weak sound of the harpsichord is easily drowned by a large ensemble – it has a wooden frame which means its strings cannot be under great tension.

The harpsichord is not a sort of piano

Of course the harpsichord preceded the piano; it held sway, in one form or another, for a good three centuries before the invention of the piano, which has been around for rather less time: certainly the modern piano with its iron frame and powerful sound is a relative newcomer. Moreover, the harpsichord has enjoyed a huge revival in the latter half of the 20th century.

Although the harpsichord has keys resembling the piano, the strings are plucked rather than struck – almost like a mechanical guitar. But whereas a guitarist can pluck using different strengths, the harpsichord cannot. Just like the organ, it doesn’t matter how hard you strike the keys, the volume level is constant. So, no expression? True, where volume is concerned, but there are other ways – see below.

Again, there is no sustaining pedal on the harpsichord: the fingers must do all the sustaining.

How it works

Pressing a key causes a jack to rise at the other end. The jack is a thin vertical strip of wood holding a tiny flexible projection at the top (quill or plectrum) which plucks the string by starting below it and then pushing it upward, stretching it until a point is reached when the string slides off the quill and vibrates. All this takes a mere fraction of a second. When the key is released, the jack falls back down, the quill quietly slides round the string to get below it for the next strike, and a small piece of felt attached to the jack (damper) drops on to the string to stop the sound. Whether the key is pressed slowly or quickly, the string falls off the quill at the same point in its range; hence the lack of variety of volume.

For a diagram, see : http://www.harpsichord.org.uk/

Where’s the expression, then?

The harpsichord is not suited to the kind of expressive sostenuto music of Chopin, nor the commanding thunder of a Beethoven sonata. The music written for it exploits its extreme clarity and sweetness. It is ideal for contrapuntal music such as Bach’s 48, and equally for the elegant salon music of Couperin and the lively display pieces of Scarlatti. There are two main methods of "expression" on the harpsichord: 1) articulation, i.e. the careful mixture of legato and staccato; 2) ornamentation, usually written by the composer, which can give emphasis to a particular note or passage. More later.

Different sounds

Just as an organ has a variety of stops at different pitches, so does the harpsichord, but to a far smaller extent. Bear in mind that early keyboard players did not expect great variety: the piece was the thing, and if the instrument had a pleasant sound, then one could enjoy it, regardless of its unchanging nature. So here’s the first principle to take on board: the vast majority of harpsichord music can be played and enjoyed without changing the sound from beginning to end. The simplest instruments had only one set of strings (8’ pitch) and that was that. Many other instruments had two sets of 8’ strings (each with its own set of jacks), either played simultaneously, or one of them silenced by a handstop. Note that: a handstop! That meant it was difficult or impossible to change the sounds whilst playing, so nobody bothered. Another possibility was one set at 8’ pitch, and one at 4’ pitch (octave higher). The latter would not be played alone, you either added it to the basic 8’, strengthening the second harmonic and making the sound a bit louder, or you didn’t.

Grander instruments had two manuals; different dispositions were possible, but let’s look at the one used in GPO, which is a reproduction of an 18th century French instrument with a very typical arrangement: the upper manual has one set of strings at 8’ pitch, and the lower manual has one set at 8’ and one set at 4’. Each set can be switched on or off with handstops. Further, the upper set has a buff stop which pushes soft leather pads against all the strings near the end – these are on even while the strings are sounding so a muted effect is achieved for special purposes. New let’s look at some possible ways of using these sounds:

  1. Upper 8’ alone
  2. Upper 8’ with buff
  3. Lower 8’ alone
  4. Lower 8’ plus 4’
  5. Upper 8’ and lower 8’ together (this is achieved by a coupler, as on the organ)
  6. All three sets of strings (= 5) plus 4’)
  7. & 8) 5 and 6 with buff.

And there are other possibilities, e.g. Upper 8’ coupled to lower 4’… Quite a bit of variety possible now!

BUT – you don’t switch them about during a piece; the handstops are meant to be set before you start. The real advantage of the two manuals is that you can switch from one manual to the other quite easily during the piece. One good idea is to start on one manual and change to the other for the repeats. Another (if the piece suits it) is to play RH on lower manual 8’ & 4’ with LH on upper manual acting as quieter accompaniment. And so on.

Is there any difference between the two 8’ sounds?

Oh yes. Because of the instrument’s construction, the two sets of jacks cannot pluck the strings at precisely similar points in the strings’ lengths. The upper manual’s jacks are about two inches nearer the player and thus the register is known as the front eight-foot, the lower register as the back eight-foot. (The four-foot set lies between them) Any guitarist or harpist knows that plucking strings at different points produces different sounds because different harmonics are emphasised. The nearer the end of the string you pluck, the more high harmonics will sound and thus the sound is brighter. So the front eight-foot is brighter than the back eight-foot. I like to think of the sound of the back eight-foot as "gold" and that of the front eight-foot as "silver".

There isn’t much harpsichord music which imperatively demands two manuals played simultaneously: the best-known example is Bach’s Goldberg Variations which has many sections for two keyboards of equal volume, perhaps with the hands crossing. So bear in mind that the two eight-foot sets on any harpsichord should produce sounds that differ in quality rather than volume.

For further information : http://www.sankey.ws/history.html

And a picture: http://www.bigduck.com/french2.html

 

PART 2: SETTING UP THE GPO HARPSICHORD

As I said earlier, a great deal of music can be played on one sound throughout. Load it up in GPO and use it "as is". This gives you the A5 upper manual 8’ – the bright "silver" sound. (If you switch on the B5 key you will hear the lower manual 8’ & 4’, and the C6 key gives you the upper manual again, with the buff on.) But let’s leave it on the A5 upper manual for now. On this instrument you can perform all of Bach’s French Suites without any change of timbre, much as many players would have done in the past if they had simple instruments. Certainly the virginal music of the early English composers must have no change of timbre whatever, throughout the piece. And if you are using the harpsichord as a continuo instrument, this should be adequate for just about everything.

But let’s say you are keen to reproduce the two-manual instrument I have described above. That will take a little work on your part, because the GPO harpsichord does not include samples of every string-set separately – the only way you can hear the lower 8’ is combined with the 4’. Also, you must forget the idea of using key switching during the piece, because GPO has set the volumes of all three sounds equal: this would not be the case with a real harpsichord. We need to make ourselves a back eight-foot so that we can contrast its "golden" sound with the "silver" front eight-foot This can be done in many sequencer programs such as Sonar 3 which is what I use. Here’s how to construct the entire instrument:

  1. Set up two separate instances of GPO. Load Harpsichord into each of them: once in GPO1, three times in GPO2.
  2. In your sequencer, set up four MIDI tracks and allocate the sounds as follows:

    Track 1 = GPO1 (Midi channel 1)

    Track 2 = GPO2 (Midi channel 1)

    Track 3 = GPO2 (Midi channel 2)

    Track 4 = GPO2 (Midi channel 3)

  3. Place a B5 note at the beginning of Track 3 and a C6 at the beginning of Track 4 (You can place A5’s at the start of the first two tracks if you like.)

Now we have got Track 1= upper 8’, Track 2= upper 8’, Track 3 = lower 8’ & 4’, Track 4 = upper 8’ buff.

Use a filter plug-in on the track controlling GPO1 such as the simple Cakewalk Graphic Equaliser with 5 sliders. Lower the two highest sliders a bit and raise the middle one slightly, so cutting high frequencies and boosting the main one. This should turn silver into gold! Experiment a bit until you like it. This has now converted Track 1 into the lower manual 8’ and we are nearly ready to try out different combinations. But first we must get the volumes balanced.

Balancing the volumes

Back to harpsichord construction. By shaping and scraping the quills, a harpsichord builder will ensure that each quill makes its sound at the correct volume; principally to make all the keys on any one manual sound alike, but also to balance one register against another. This is called voicing. The important thing here is that eight-foot tone should predominate, four-foot being noticeably weaker (as on the organ). What GPO has done is to balance the volume of all three of the supplied examples equally – this must be adjusted for our purpose. So set up your overall track volumes accordingly. Tracks 1 and 2, which should be equal in volume, are the yardstick. Make Track 3 a bit louder and Track 4 a bit softer. Now you are ready to go! You will record your music and dispose it among the tracks (by copying) to reflect what the player would have done. Remember not to make impracticable changes! If you want the fullest sound, layer your music on both Tracks 2 and 3, giving the coupled manuals effect, and so on.

One point may occur to you: it is not usually a good idea to layer two sounds which come from the same source, because of acoustical phase cancellation. I find the two eight-foots blend quite well together, but you can easily improve matters by very slightly staggering them timewise. This is easy in Sonar: there is a facility for re-timing in every track. It is worth getting this right because playing with just the two eight-foots coupled together was a very common practice.

16 foot

You may have read somewhere about the so-called "Bach Disposition" which gives:

Upper manual: 8’ & 4’

Lower manual: 8’ & 16’

Although Bach may have possessed such an instrument it is extremely unlikely that he relied on it much or wrote for it, because it was an expensive rarity and to some extent impracticable once you try using it. A better disposition, which a few modern reconstructions have used is:

Upper manual: 8’ (perhaps with buff)

Lower manual: 16’ & 8’ & 4’

Either way, if you want to make yourself a 16’ set of strings it is easy enough; make a new track which drives the lower manual 8’ (GPO1) and have it automatically transpose an octave down. But be sure to voice it quite softer than the 8’ or it will take over! And bear in mind that it should be used very infrequently, and then only in pieces of a solemn or grandiloquent nature, such as a sarabande or a French Overture. You really can do without it.

PART 3: USING THE INSTRUMENT

How to play the Harpsichord

Not like a piano! Your touch can be even or not – it makes no difference, and the GPO harpsichord has been set up not to respond to velocity. The main thing is to employ staccato judiciously. You cannot create an accent by hitting harder; you make it by shortening the preceding note. You may have to read that last bit again if you haven’t heard it before. Playing staccato weakens a note, not strengthens it. So break up your legato phrases and keep letting the air in where it is wanted. And never bring in the sustaining pedal (GPO has done its best to keep you off it anyway.) If a written note is supposed to be sustained longer than you can actually hear it, either repeat it unobtrusively or forget about it.

Also the ornaments help to emphasise a note. Because of the much lighter touch compared with a piano, harpsichord ornaments should be played faster – you can get many more repetitions into a trill, for example.

Another little trick of expression is to arpeggiate chords – this is very idiomatic to the harpsichord and should be used freely, especially at cadences. Don’t do it if the chord is the result of contrapuntal lines coming together, use your judgement.

This next point may not have much effect on your MIDI keyboard, but it is worth knowing that harpsichord keyboards are smaller than piano keyboards. The naturals are a little narrower (your normal octave span would produce a ninth) and the keys are shorter (playing sharps with the thumb is more difficult). This results in the player’s fingers being held much more bent than for the piano, so that the fingertip strikes vertically with a confident blow on every note. This is correct harpsichord touch: try it and see if it makes your playing more incisive.

Composing for the harpsichord

Some modern composers have written for the instrument, and there’s no reason why you shouldn’t, provided you keep the following principles firmly in mind:

  1. Remember to write only such chords as the hands can stretch and sustain.
  2. If you include dynamic marks, ensure that they can be implemented using handstops before starting the piece, or during a rest. If for two-manual instrument, f and p would imply change of manual. Best not to use dynamics at all, rather indicate the string stops required.
  3. True crescendos are impossible, but an illusory one can be achieved with a succession of chords which begin thin and gradually add more notes. Thick chords do sound louder on the harpsichord.
  4. The instrument does not sustain well, so avoid too many long notes, A top melody in long notes over a moving accompaniment is risky; much better is a moving melody over sustained chords (bass notes last longer than treble). Rapid passages and showy runs come off well. So does contrapuntal music.
  5. Chords at the bass end of a piano sound thick and muddy; not so on the harpsichord, where things are a lot clearer. The tone colour of the bass is also different from the treble: one can exploit this. Some of Couperin’s pieces lie entirely in the bass (both hands); others entirely in the treble.

Tuning and Temperament

This section is for the more advanced musician perhaps. First of all, Baroque pitch varied a good deal from place to place and depended on the purpose, etc. but was generally lower than modern pitch. You will not be far from authenticity if you perform Bach’s music a semitone down from modern pitch. Secondly, GPO has tuned your harpsichord to Equal Temperament which is reasonable enough, especially if it is to be part of an ensemble. However, early keyboards did not use Equal Temperament (ET). This is a big subject and I can only scratch the surface here, so to simplify matters I shall postulate just two tuning systems, Meantone and Well-tempered. (More accurately they are called temperaments because the tuner tempers some intervals from pure tuning.)

ET divides the octave into twelve equal parts, with the result that no interval other than the octave is in tune! It is a compromise system designed to make playing in all keys equally feasible. But without artificial aids it is very difficult to tune by ear. So early music doesn’t try. Besides, nobody saw much need to play in every possible key at first.

Meantone

Without going into technicalities, this means that a keyboard tuned to it will have nearly all its intervals either dead in tune or very near it. The downside is that you can only play in keys with up to three sharps or two flats (or two sharps and three flats, depending on whether you want G# or Ab – you can’t have them both.) This temperament is very sweet and most organs tuned to it right into the 19th and even 20th centuries. All Bach’s 2- and 3-part Inventions suit this tuning because he never uses any other keys. And I think I am right in saying that his organ music seldom goes beyond three sharps or flats.

Well Temperament

But if you do decide to explore remoter keys, Meantone will produce the "wolf" or horribly dissonant note sooner or later. So various attempts were made to find a tuning that would work in all keys. ET was known in theory but on the whole shunned, either because of its inherent imperfection or because of the difficulty of tuning it. But there’s also another reason!

Many different people came up with solutions to this tuning (which come under the general heading of "well-tempered") and certainly Bach used one such tuning for his Wohltemperirtes Klavier, which means "Well-tempered Keyboard", NOT "Equally-tempered Keyboard".

Basically, well-temperament methods tune some of the 5ths pure and some not; they differ only in which 5ths are chosen. Bach perhaps used the one known as Werckmeister 3, but nothing is certain. The big advantage, and third reason for this method is that every key sounds different from the others and thus has its own character. Bach exploited these differences in Das Wohltemperirtes Klavier. (In ET they all sound the same.)

If you have the full version of Kontakt, you can access some of these temperaments. Try Meantone and Werckmeister or Vallotti. Bear in mind that the old temperaments only really matter with harpsichord solos: in an ensemble they will be indistinguishable from ET.

Now you are all set to play the harpsichord as it should sound. Good luck!

For more information on Bach’s tuning: http://www-personal.umich.edu/~bpl/larips/index.html

Terry Dwyer

July 2004