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Pascal Taskin
Pascal-Joseph Taskin (27 July 1723 – 9 February 1793) was a Holy Roman Empire-born French harpsichord and piano maker. Biography Pascal Taskin, born in Theux near Liège, worked in Paris for most of his life. Upon his arrival in Paris, he apprenticed in the workshop of François-Étienne Blanchet II. Little else is known of his activity until Blanchet's death on April 27, 1766. In early November of that year, he became a master harpsichord maker in the guild of instrument makers and took over the Blanchet workshop, and by the end of that month, he had married Blanchet's widow. The continuity between the Blanchet and Taskin traditions is indicated by the note Taskin attached to his instruments until 1770: : Taskin inherited Blanchet's title of royal harpsichord maker (''facteur des clavessins du Roi'') and additionally became keeper of the King’s instruments alongside Christophe Chiquelier in 1770, though he only fully occupied that role when Chiquelier retired in 1774. In ...
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Ruckers
The Ruckers family (variants: Ruckaert, Ruckaerts, Rucqueer, Rueckers, Ruekaerts, Ruijkers, Rukkers, Rycardt) were harpsichord and Virginals, virginal makers from the Southern Netherlands based in Antwerp in the 16th and 17th century. Their influence stretched well into the 18th century, and to the harpsichord revival of the 20th. The Ruckers family contributed immeasurably to the harpsichord's technical development, pioneering the addition of a second keyboard (music), manual; the quality of their instruments is such that the name of Ruckers is as important to early keyboard instruments as that of Stradivarius is to the violin family. In the 18th century, Ruckers instruments were often modified by French makers in a process known as ''ravalement'', to allow for an extended range and other additions. The Ruckers family The family probably originated in Germany. The earliest known member, Hans Ruckers, was from Weißenburg in Bayern, Weissenburg, according to documents from 1530 in ...
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Square Piano
The square piano is a type of piano that has horizontal strings arranged diagonally across the rectangular case above the hammers and with the keyboard set in the long side, with the sounding board above a cavity in the short side. It is variously attributed to Silbermann and Frederici and was improved by Petzold and Babcock. The English and Viennese square pianos were built in many different designs, including within the action as well as general appearance, from roughly 1760. Because of the competitive industry and relative youth of the instrument design itself, experimentation ensued in the early years, creating a range of moderators (sound-altering effects) and other technical devices (knee levers; hand stops) not seen today. In London, the explosion of the trade is generally attributed to the maker Zumpe. The overwhelming popularity of his instruments was due to inexpensive construction and price. Over time, square pianos were built in larger sizes with more keys and a w ...
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Musée De La Musique
The Musée de la Musique de la Philharmonie de Paris is a French museum in Paris, inaugurated in 1997. It has a collection of several thousand instruments and objets d'art, inherited from the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique de Paris, which traces the history of Western music, both learned and popular, from the 16th century onwards, and offers an overview of the world's principal musical styles. Located in the Villette district, in the 19th arrondissement of Paris, the museum and media library occupy the garden wing of the "Philharmonie 2" building, formerly the Cité de la Musique⁣, built by Christian de Portzamparc, as part of the Philharmonie de Paris. In addition to the thousand or so works in the permanent exhibition, presented in their geographical and historical context, the museum organizes temporary exhibitions, guided tours and free concerts, as well as early-learning workshops, promenade concerts and musical storytelling. Finally, the Musée de la Musi ...
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Musical Keyboard
A musical keyboard is the set of adjacent depressible levers or keys on a musical instrument. Keyboards typically contain keys for playing the twelve notes of the Western musical scale, with a combination of larger, longer keys and smaller, shorter keys that repeats at the interval of an octave. Pressing a key on the keyboard makes the instrument produce sounds—either by mechanically striking a string or tine ( acoustic and electric piano, clavichord), plucking a string (harpsichord), causing air to flow through a pipe organ, striking a bell (carillon), or activating an electronic circuit (synthesizer, digital piano, electronic keyboard). Since the most commonly encountered keyboard instrument is the piano, the keyboard layout is often referred to as the piano keyboard or simply piano keys. Description The twelve notes of the Western musical scale are laid out with the lowest note on the left. The longer keys (for the seven "natural" notes of the C major scale: C, D, E, F ...
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Catgut
Catgut (also known as gut) is a type of cord that is prepared from the natural fiber found in the walls of animal intestines. Catgut makers usually use sheep or goat intestines, but occasionally use the intestines of cattle, hogs, horses, mules, or donkeys. Despite the name, catgut is not made from cat intestines. Etymology The word ''catgut'' may have been an abbreviation of the word ''cattlegut''. Alternatively, it may derive by folk etymology from ''kitgut'' or ''kitstring'' — the dialectal word ''kit'', meaning fiddle, having at some point been confused with the word ''kit'' for a young cat, the word "kit" being possibly derived from Welsh. In the 16th century a ''kit'' was a "small fiddle used by dancing teachers," a name probably derived from a shortening of Old English ''cythere'', from Latin , from Greek (see guitar). Common uses Musical instruments Historically, catgut was the most common material for the strings of harps, lutes, violins, violas, cellos, ...
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Psaltery
:''See Rotte (psaltery) for medieval harp psaltery & Ancient Greek harps for earlier psalterion'' A psaltery () (or sawtry, an archaic form) is a fretboard-less box zither (a simple chordophone) and is considered the archetype of the zither and dulcimer. Plucked keyboard instruments such as the harpsichord were also inspired by it. Its resonance box is usually trapezoidal, rectangular or in the form of a "pig's head" and often richly decorated. Etymology The psaltery of Ancient Greece ('' epigonion'') was a harp-like stringed instrument. The word ''psaltery'' derives from the Ancient Greek ψαλτήριον (''psaltḗrion''), "stringed instrument, psaltery, harp" and that from the verb ψάλλω (''psállō''), "to touch sharply, to pluck, pull, twitch" and in the case of the strings of musical instruments, "to play a stringed instrument with the fingers, and not with the plectrum." The psaltery was originally made from wood, and relied on natural acoustics for sound prod ...
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Wood Veneer
Veneer refers to thin slices of wood and sometimes bark that typically are glued onto core panels (typically, wood, particle board or medium-density fiberboard) to produce flat panels such as doors, tops and panels for cabinets, parquet floors and parts of furniture. They are also used in marquetry. Unlike laminates, no two veneer sheets look the same. Plywood consists of three or more layers of veneer. Normally, each is glued with its grain at right angles to adjacent layers for strength. Veneer beading is a thin layer of decorative edging placed around objects, such as jewelry boxes. Veneer is also used to replace decorative papers in wood veneer high pressure laminate. Background Veneering dates back to at least the ancient Egyptians who used expensive and rare wood veneers over cheaper timbers to produce their furniture and sarcophagi. During the Roman Empire, Romans also used veneered work in mass quantities. Production Veneer is obtained either by "peeling ...
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Friction
Friction is the force resisting the relative motion of solid surfaces, fluid layers, and material elements sliding against each other. Types of friction include dry, fluid, lubricated, skin, and internal -- an incomplete list. The study of the processes involved is called tribology, and has a history of more than 2000 years. Friction can have dramatic consequences, as illustrated by the use of friction created by rubbing pieces of wood together to start a fire. Another important consequence of many types of friction can be wear, which may lead to performance degradation or damage to components. It is known that frictional energy losses account for about 20% of the total energy expenditure of the world. As briefly discussed later, there are many different contributors to the retarding force in friction, ranging from asperity deformation to the generation of charges and changes in local structure. When two bodies in contact move relative to each other, due to these variou ...
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Bartolomeo Cristofori
Bartolomeo Cristofori di Francesco (; May 4, 1655 – January 27, 1731) was an Italian maker of musical instruments famous for inventing the piano. Life The available source materials on Cristofori's life include his birth and death records, two wills, the bills he submitted to his employers, and a single interview carried out by Scipione Maffei. From the latter, both Maffei's notes and the published journal article are preserved. Cristofori was born in Padua in the Republic of Venice. Nothing is known of his early life. A tale is told that he served as an apprentice to the great violin maker Nicolò Amati, based on the appearance in a 1680 census record of a "Christofaro Bartolomei" living in Amati's house in Cremona. However, as Stewart Pollens points out, this person cannot be Bartolomeo Cristofori, since the census records an age of 13, whereas Cristofori according to his baptismal record would have been 25 at the time. Pollens also gives strong reasons to doubt the ...
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Gottfried Silbermann
Gottfried Silbermann (January 14, 1683 – August 4, 1753) was a German builder of keyboard instruments. He built harpsichords, clavichords, organ (music), organs, and fortepianos; his modern reputation rests mainly on the latter two. Life Very little is known about Silbermann's youth. He was born in Kleinbobritzsch (now a part of Frauenstein, Saxony) as the youngest son of the carpenter Michael Silbermann. They moved to the nearby town of Frauenstein, Erzgebirge, Frauenstein in 1685, and it is possible that Gottfried also learnt carpentry there. He moved to Straßburg in 1702, where he learnt organ construction from his brother Andreas Silbermann and came in touch with the French-Alsatian school of organ construction. He returned to Saxony as a master craftsman in 1710, and opened his own organ workshop in Freiberg, Saxony, Freiberg one year later. His second project in Germany was the "Grand Organ" in the Freiberg Cathedral of St. Mary, finished in 1714. In 1723 he was bestowed ...
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Fortepiano
A fortepiano is an early piano. In principle, the word "fortepiano" can designate any piano dating from the invention of the instrument by Bartolomeo Cristofori in 1700 up to the early 19th century. Most typically, however, it is used to refer to the mid-18th to early-19th century instruments, for which composers of the Classical period (music), Classical era, such as Haydn, Mozart, and the younger Beethoven and Schubert, wrote their piano music. Starting in Beethoven's time, the fortepiano began a period of steady evolution, culminating in the late 19th century with the modern grand piano, grand. The earlier fortepiano became obsolete and was absent from the musical scene for many decades. In the later 20th century, the fortepiano was revived, following the rise of interest in historically informed performance. Fortepianos are built for that purpose, in specialist workshops. Construction The fortepiano has leather-covered hammers and thin, harpsichord-like strings. It has ...
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