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	Click here for a Sound Sample of my Opus 409* The violinist in this sound sample of the Vieuxtemps Violin Concerto is Laura Johnson, winner of the Denver Young Artists Orchestra competition in 2009, playing with the DYA Orchestra for this performance on my violin, Opus 409, made in late 2008 and finished in early 2009.

How to Judge a Harpsichord or Fortepiano by Keith Hill © 1984/2009 Manchester published originally in Summer 1985 CONTINUO magazine Over the past years I have learned something about how to judge a musical instrument. In this time I have found there is almost nothing in the literature (a few paragraphs here and there) that treats this subject. So I hope that with the aid of this short essay, in far less time, you can come to judge musical instruments skillfully. But be aware that there are no real shortcuts. Like learning to judge wine, judging sound requires a high degree of attentive sensing. Without this essential teaching of experience, what I have to say will only amount to a bunch of words. So as plainly as possible, I will try to point out to you what things to look for, and what things to watch out for during your listening experiences. It is hard if not impossible to discuss the judgment of musical instruments objectively without offending someone. People usually feel about musical instruments the way they do about their children -- protective and defensive. To me a musical instrument is just a tool. Tools are either well designed to do the job they were intended for or they are not. It's that simple. A poorly designed tool can actually hamper the progress of a workman. The best workmen in any field, be it medicine, music, or machine making, are extremely exacting in their demands on their tools. They will get rid of an incompetently designed tool and acquire another that is better designed. Harpsichords, along with all other musical instruments built during the Baroque period, were designed according to the sound their makers wished them to have. In other words, the makers knew what they wanted their instruments to be able to do and how they wanted them to sound, and the shape of the object assumed the necessary appearance. Because the essential function of a musical instrument is to make sound according to the requirements of the player, the sound should be the main point of focus for judging them. As odd as this may sound to say it, most musicians judge musical instruments by how they appear, a clear indictment of our cultural negligence for all matters auditory. The following hints should prove helpful. HINT NO. 1) Listen to as many good antique harpsichords or fortepianos as you can. However, just because a harpsichord or fortepiano is old does not guarantee that it will be good. Still, the antiques are the best available standard. HINT NO.2) Judge a musical instrument primarily on the basis of its sound and the way it plays. I reiterate, this statement might seem obvious, but you would be surprised just how many people misjudge on this basis. There is an interesting paragraph in Leopold Mozart's book on violin playing in which he frets and fumes about the human "wig stands", otherwise known as "blockheads", who are accustomed to judging instruments according to their appearance. He has even worse things to say about the instrument makers who pander to this trade. HINT NO.3) Trust your own senses. If you follow the judgment that others have rendered before you, you may be in danger of being one of the blind led by the blind. If you begin with prejudices, you are likely to live up to them and no farther. Prejudices get in the way of clarity of sensation'. HINT NO. 4) A high quality musical sound will always exhibit the following traits: First: A musical sound is resonant. Let me explain what resonance is by saying first what it is not. Resonance is not a sound that booms. The booming effect is what most people use to determine whether a sound is resonant or not. They listen for qualities usually verbalized as "fundamental, dark and loud". The difficulty is that a resonant sound does exhibit these qualities, but along with others which this vocabulary is absolutely inadequate to describe. Booming has the effect that a "wolf-note" on a cello has. What booms sticks out like a sore thumb. This can be as true for one note as for an entire register. A booming sound will deceive you into thinking that what you are hearing is resonance. At first pleasant, this effect soon becomes objectionable to the sensitive ear. In fact, booming is unpleasant because it is unclear,especially in the bass. In a harpsichord this is especially disastrous, for in playing counterpoint, clarity is essential. In a fortepiano, booming makes voicing an accompaniment very difficult as each booming note always sticks out whether or not you want it so to do. Let us examine these words more closely. To equate a sound that is "fundamental" to resonance is false. A resonant sound is perceived as being very fundamental, but, because you can have fundamental sound without its being resonant (take, for example, the sound of a sine wave), fundamentality should never be mistaken for resonance. This was the principal error made by many late nineteenth-century musical instrument makers. The musical result is a dull, uninteresting sounds in their pianos and organs, sounds characterized by a lack of clarity and distinctness in a sense of pitch. Such instruments demand to be played in an exaggeratedly articulate manner that, frankly, sounds artificial and stupid to most listeners. Often, one hears that a "dark" sound is a resonant one. Here, the word dark may refer more to the overwhelming lack of upper partials than to the fact that the sound is resonant. Such sounds can often be described as "covered". A loud sounding harpsichord is often mistakenly judged as resonant. However, clavichords, which are soft in volume, can be more resonant than most harpsichords made today. Resonance lies in the sound's quality, not its mere amplitude. The confusion arises because, however soft it may be, a resonant sound always feels full. Taking what I have already said into consideration, let's look at what resonance really is. Real resonance results from what I call an intensely enhanced sense of pitch. How such a sound is constructed is the subject of a book in itself. However, I would say that the right adjectives to describe resonance are full, deep, solid, transparent, limpid, broad, round and rich. A resonant sound gives the feeling it is alive. A resonant sound makes the listener's ears feel that they are being well supported and filled. The louder a resonant sound is the more overflowing the ear feels. When the sensitive listener perceives sounds that are resonant, he or she perceives an intense effect of presence. A resonant sound has the pleasant effect of quickening the attention. On the more subjective level, a resonant sound has a pleasing sweetness to it. It is more like a nutty sweetness than a sugary sweetness. Michael Praetorius uses the word "lieblich". Early writers on music use the term "sweet" often. What I think they mean is this property of resonance. When a harpsichord or fortepiano is really resonant, the effects can be heard from the bottom of the scale to the top of the scale. Each note can be heard to have the same value of support and strength as all the others. There is a definite sense of pitch: one that is almost tangible. Somehow, the pitch feels more real, vivid, compelling, exact and stable. Second: A really musical sound is brilliant. Brilliance should be distinguished from brightness. People will tend to say that a bright sound is a brilliant one. Nothing could be further from the truth. Bright sounds are gaudy, sassy, tinkly, prickly, mushy (yes, mushy), shrill, distorted, tinny, brittle, sizzling, harsh, acid and so on. Imagine a comparison of the sound of eggs frying or the sound of shattering glass. A bright sound has the effect of seeming to be flailing all the time, even during slow music. Mushiness can occur in a bright-sounding harpsichord when the fundamental is almost totally absent. When this happens the sound sizzles so much that everything played on such an instrument sounds run-together. To me, bright just sounds "HOT" but feels cold. A very rich resonant sound is what we call a brilliant sound. Brilliant sounds have nothing lacking in their structural makeup. The lowest overtones are the most enhanced; they in turn enhance or strengthen the sensation of the fundamental or pitch. A brilliant sound has a sandy edge similar to that of a cymbal being played with a steel brush. A brilliant sound gives the listener the feeling that it is glowing. This is because the sound is perceived as being so deep. In short, the difference between a bright sound and one that is brilliant is like the difference between highly polished new chrome and old, well-polished gold. One is glaring and the other is alluring. Third: A musical sound is intense. Regarding intensity, no deceptions are possible. There are only degrees of intensity. I usually grade harpsichords and other instruments on an intensity scale from one to ten. One indicates a degree of intensity so low that you might say there is none. Ten indicates a degree of intensity so high it hurts the ear. The effect of a sound rated one is that it leaves the listener feeling flat and tired. A musically useful range of intensity is from about three to nine, in general. For harpsichords and fortepianos, a useful range is from seven to eight. Most harpsichords and fortepianos built today range from one to three. There are objective acoustical indicators of intensity. Just because a sound is strong does not necessarily mean it is intense. Strength of sound is a structural feature; that is, its presence is related to an enhanced overtone series. 1) The main indicators of intensity are clarity and transparency. 2) An intense sound carries very well. It also seems to float. 3) Another objective measure of intensity is the obviousness of the presence of tonal' bloom. I will discuss this in the following section. More important are the subjective indicators. When a harpsichord is of suitable intensity, you get the feeling from the sound that the instrument is striving to the uttermost to give you everything it has got. At the same time it appears to be producing its sound with seeming effortlessness, like a good singing canary or a great gymnast. When a harpsichord or fortepiano is not of sufficient intensity you get the feeling that the sound is nambypamby, swishy, uninteresting or utterly flat. This is true even when the raw or refined' timbre of the instrument might lead you to conclude otherwise. Fourth: Probably the most important behavior a fortepiano or harpsichord should evince is tonal bloom. Bloom is a purely objective feature in the harpsichord's sound. It is either present or it is not. Bloom is the effect or behavior of the sound appearing to swell or grow as it decays after the ictus. The following is a graph of what this behavior might look like. You can notice upon release of the string from the plectrum, or the moment that the hammer strikes the string, the primary bloom, which is an explosion of sound, that is composed of all the partials plus the fundamental. The highest upper partials should die away very quickly. If they last too long, the sound becomes bright and mushy, obscuring the bloom. This is a major fault of modern harpsichord and piano making. The lower partials really only become obvious to the ear once the upper partials have cleared away. However, the lower partials have by that time already lost most of their initial energy. Following that initial energy loss, the lower partials hold strong with the fundamental right up to the final disappearance of the sound. Meanwhile the fundamental suffers only a mild loss after the ictus. In the finest harpsichords the secondary bloom, beginning after the first second and a half, is what endows the sound with its musicality: its dynamic property. Inferior harpsichords have little trace of this secondary bloom. The degree of the strength of this part of the bloom structure is an important determining factor for judging the ultimate worth of a musical instrument. The bloom is very important to the musical usefulness of an instrument. It gives the player something to work with in the sound. Bloom sounds similar to the swelling effect that violinists produce with their bows. Another term for the blooming behavior is messa di voce. Messa di voce has always been considered the most beautiful effect a singer can produce. When a singer begins a note softly and gradually increases the intensity of the sound (not to be confused with volume), it creates an upward gesture with a single note which the ear perceives as very exciting. Today, very few singers are able to produce a satisfying messa di voce. Even fewer harpsichord makers appear willing to control their work enough to produce a strong and consistent bloom. As self-evidently useful, musical, and good as bloom is, there are some people who don't like it because they get their tunings screwed up, mistaking the swelling effect for a beat. As I indicated previously, you can measure intensity quite objectively by listening for the bloom. On a superior harpsichord or fortepiano, the bloom is so obvious that in some people it makes the pupils of the eyes dilate. It's weird but true. I've seen it happen. Such instruments will rate about eight on the intensity scale. Fifth: Certain qualifying elements related to the scale of judgment are evenness of resonance, differences of color from range to range, tonal balance -- bass to treble -- and overall presence of tonal bloom. The superior harpsichord or fortepiano displays resonance equally on each and every note. No note sticks out with too much sound and none recedes audibly because of too little sound. (This aspect is distinguishable from voicing inequalities.) Also superior harpsichords and fortepianos have pronounced timbre changes as you play a scale either up or down, while only the very best instruments display those color or timbre differences from note to note as well. This aspect is very important for the performance of polyphony. It allows each voice range and note to have its own distinct color. Usually these colors are the most different on German harpsichords and fortepianos, but all schools of antique instrument-making have them. Tonal balance is an acoustical feature that cannot be affected in any way by skillful voicing. A superior harpsichord has a treble in perfect and easy balance with the bass range. The bass does not overpower the treble in any way wha tsoever. This does not mean that the bass is simpering: It means that the treble is so strong, resonant, full and loud that it proves an easy match for the strong rich bass. Last is the property of an evenly distributed blooming behavior, without which a harpsichord appears active in one range and dead in another. The bloom is quick in the treble, fast in the alto, moderate in the tenor, and relaxed in the base. Finally, it is important and necessary that a harpsichord have a pronounced timbre or tone color. If the character of the specific color on any instrument is too strong, it will limit the usefulness of the instrument for different types of music. When the tone color is too pronounced, the effect is similar to that of looking at everything with brightly colored sunglasses. In the Baroque period, the Flemish character was the most universal. Tone color imparts a certain amount of inherent interest to a sound. HINT NO.5) The superior fortepiano or harpsichord is equipped with an action that is light to the touch but substantial to play. Besides a good voicing, which it is not useful to discuss in this essay, such an action, espicially in a harpsichord, should feel crisp (like breaking dry crackers) and fleet, should repeat well, and perfectly reflect every intention of the player, either conscious or unconscious. About this last, the best instruments sound glorious, but they can also make the players sound at their worst. It is commonly known among stringed instrument players that the finest instruments are the most difficult to control, like the finest racehorses. This is an interesting phenomenon. At the same time that a player is attracted by the sound of a great instrument, there is, for a time, a love/hate relationship with the instrument. This is because the harpsichord is so sensitive to every motion of the player's fingers that what the player will hear is his or her lack of control. It takes time and attention to learn how to control one's fingers so they will function according to the will even when playing on the most sensi tive of instruments. Where fortepianos are concerned, the Florentine-Cristofori type pianos have the most responsive action but also the least easily managable action. Mafei in the 18th century comments himself on this property of these pianos and says that it takes a certain amount of practice to learn how to play them well. Viennese actions, what is actually the Stein action, are much easier to play and hence encourage bravura playing that can quickly sound empty-headed if the player is not careful to sing every line in the music. It is not uncommon for some people to overlook the superior harpsichord or fortepiano simply because it makes them sound so terrible. Professional harpsichordists often select the instrument that has the action to best match their technique. This is much like selecting a violin because of its setup. I find it strange that players tend to select tools that put a limit on what they can do. That having been said, it is only the best players who always choose the best instrument having the most responsive action. HINT NO.6) Don't pay so much attention to furniture when judging a harpsichord. The workmanship on these old instruments is neat, clean, and right the first time. On the contrary, most copies of antique work are tidy, tight and overworked. This indicates that too much time is being spent on furniture. Just remember, time spent on furni ture is time stolen from the acoustical aspect of instrumentmaking. If you can set a ruler to a piece of wood on a harpsichord and have it contact all along its length, you can pretty much guess that the instrument has had the life driven out of it by compulsive machining. HINT NO. 7) Look to see that the joinery is sound. Large gaps in the joinery on a new instrument will either open or close as an instrument ages. Either way the instrument will begin to collapse on itself in time; probably not to the point of self-destruction, but certainly to the point of mechanical problems. Modern harpsichord makers avoid this by over-building their instruments to the detriment of the tone quality. HINT NO.8) Musical instruments should be made "organically" (my term). They should seem as if they grew the way you find them. This is how the antique instruments appear that cause us to love interacting with them. Although age and years of tension on the frames of these instruments might have something to do with the deformation of the instruments, it has little to do with the unselfconscious roughness (even when the attempts are for refinement) that they exhibit. Seeing this in modern work usually grates against the present-day (plate-glass ra ther than blown-glass) aesthetic that favors the slick, chic and slippery (an aesthetic suitable and requisite for computers). Exaggerated attempts by a maker to correct the natural tendencies of wood will kill the readiness of the wood to vibrate. On the other hand, don't take too seriously an instrument that is really deformed, no matter how good it may sound. As C.P.E. Bach says, moderation in all things. Nor should you dismiss a really great sounding instrument merely because the lid is warped or the veneer is coming unglued. HINT NO.9) Don't expect a superior fortepiano or harpsichord to function like a piece of furniture. It is, in fact, as delicate a device as a Stradivarius violin. It should be treated as such. It shows poor judgment to expect the most from an object that has been granted the usual status of second-rate furniture. For the superior musical instrument to function at its very best, it needs constant adjustments to the action and should always be kept well in tune. HINT NO. 10) You can expect a harpsichord, any harpsichord, to get brighter as it ages. This is just a fact. It happens because strings "crystallizing", wood embrittling, down bearing and soundboard torsion all dampen the fundamental. Usually, a two-year-old instrument will not change radically in sound thereafter. If it does change further it may be the result of how the instrument is played. Too light playing is as too heavy playing. Playing that uses a large variety of touches is the most desireable. HINT NO. 11) You can easily fall into the trap of judging the sound of new instruments according to what you have in your ears from the last instrument that you played. Approach each new listening experience as openly and as freshly as possible. How you think about a musical instrument will determine your competence to judge it. I have found that the most efficient attitude is to set for your standards the highest level of instrument ever achieved for a given type. Then measure all instruments of that type against that level of quality, no matter who built them. Ascertain that the ancient lore that established this standard has been made use of. Any attempt to make "improvements" should be very closely examined to assess merits and demerits before you let it pass from your notice. By seeing and hearing modern work and comparing it unflinchingly with the best that has gone before, we can raise our level of awareness to that of those builders who created before us. We have the examples; let us by all means use them. I trust that these few hints will prove sufficient to get you started if you weren't sure about where to start, that they will be stimulating for you if you are already thinking about the problem of judging sound, and that they will provide a foil for those who already have theories and observations of your own. And I hope that this is just the beginning of the discussion.