Are there any harpsichord players amongst the forumites for whom the instrument is their main one rather than pianists who play a bit on the side? Have you taken any of the graded exams offered by the board if so?

petrat, even Trevor Pinnock started out on the piano and organ first....

I think Petrat meant people for whom harpsichord had replaced piano, or who study it seriously alongside piano, as opposed to people who are primarily pianists but who occasionally play the harpsichord for some reason.

Most organists (and I would expect most/all harpsichordists) start on piano, but there's a difference between an actual organist and a pianist-who-plays-the-organ.
A pianist is going to be able to sit down at any other keyboard instrument and play something. But he won't have the instrument-specific technique of someone who studies the instrument.
Organists who don't keep going with piano can, of course, play things on the piano when they need to. But you can usually tell from the way they play that they're organists not pianists.
In general, if you can't find a harpsichord specialist and you need to find a stray keyboard player to accompany someone on harpsichord, you're better off with an organist than a pianist because there's actually more simlarity between organ and harpsichord than there is between piano and harpshichord (in terms of playing them, not in terms of how they're constructed).
An organist friend of mine played harpsichord for me for a bunch of baroque flute and recorder stuff and was really great at it. It was a two manual harpsichord, with a couple of different stops, and he knew what to do with it and how to vary the dynamics by changing stops or switching manuals.

T.

The touch for harpsichord and organ, though, is totally different - though both require a degree of skill in articulation to make up for the fact that you can't change the volume of what you put out by pressing a key any harder.
I was just thinking, though, that people might've seen the thread and assumed it couldn't possibly apply to them because they were, first and foremost, pianists. I'm not wanting to hijack the original thread's intent, or I'd be asking how many there are on the forum who play plucked keyboard instruments regularly, and indeed, who have experience of playing clavichords and fortepianos too...
I've met a fair number of harpsichordists, including a good scattering of the ones who are, in the early music world at least, quite well-known - I don't think any of them have done the ABRSM exams (partly because they didn't exist, for a long time), and I'm under the impression that most of them came to the instrument once already studying at music college, having been pianists and organists up until then; I have met a couple of students who have done their grade 8 on harpsichord though. The same grouse as always applies: too many scales!

I suppose that I should have worded my first post in a different way. What I had intended to do was ask if there are any harpsichord students here of any age who are learning to play now. I know that my former recorder teacher had several young students of primary and secondary school ages, as well as some adults, who were learning with her from the start rather than changing from the piano. I don't know of anybody who has used the ABRSM graded exams in harpsichord playing. I wonder how popular they are.

I suspect that most organists would be more competent at playing figured bass lines than many pianists though.

That's why organists tend to adapt faster - they're already used to the fact that you have to do things by articulation and registration rather than by key velocity.




Figured bass realisation is on the syllabus for the RCO diplomas, along with things like transposition and playing from open score. There's no particular reason why pianists wouldn't learn these sorts of things, but for organists it's more or less expected. (There are some choices about which to do for the RCO exams and not all organists take RCO exams, but there's still an expectation that organists will learn some of the keyboard skills even if they don't actually have to. I don't think it's expected of pianists to the same extent.)
I'm a /long/ way off needing to do that sort of thing for exams or services, but transposition and score reading are already part of the routine and I'm trying (unsuccessfully) to get to grips with continuo realisation.
If I was going to learn a second keyboard instrument and it was logistically possible, I'd choose harpsichord over piano without a second thought. I prefer the sound and the repertoire.

T.

I play the piano, harpsichord, piano e forte, organ and can read figured bass but the pieces are pretty similar for the harpsichord because they can only give you baroque or rennaisance music

Ligeti, Takemitsu?

When Trevor Pinnock was up in Edinburgh a year or two back, he played some stunning modern music as well as more mainstream baroque music.

And the range of styles even within the baroque era is surprisingly varied - whether you look at the national variability - thinking here of French vs Italian vs German vs Scarlatti - or at the difference between stylus phantasticus and the late High Baroque - different trills, different ways of ornamenting the music - it's still not a small subject. Add in Renaissance music too, and there's a lot of material out there . There is almost three hundred years' worth of early keyboard music available - longer than the time the piano has been around. And there is a lot of repertoire for early keyboards of which pianists are entirely unaware, because it doesn't work on the piano (not even when played by Angela Hewitt!), but boy, does it sound amazing on harpsichord.

It seems to me that it would be a good idea to produce a digital harpsichord. It would not be acceptable in authentic performance but how lovely it would be to have a ready tuned instrument in a choice of temperaments, or, better still, a choice of several instruments available at the touch of a button. There are makers with the technology to do it and it could be priced at a very reasonable level, as are the Yamaha digital pianos today.

They exist.

So they do! I had not heard of them until now. They are quite pricey though.

they need to do something with the æsthetics though...
*happy to have the real thing at home*

Just heard wonderful performance of both organ and harpsichord last night - at the Canongate Kirk in Edinburgh. John Butt - Bach Organ Concerto in A minor - as part of the Bach as arranger series of concerts - really enjoyed the contrasts, the texture of the piece. Then he went to the harpsichord to play and conduct the Dunedin consort for the arrangement ot Pergolesi's sabat mater and Cantata 213. A brilliant evening.

Is it advertising if I, as a member of the audeince, recommend this concert in Aberdeen, Dunkeld and Glasgow oiver the next three days, to fellow forumites ?

Sounds marvellous !

No, I don't see that it's advertising and I'm sorry I am too far away to go. I think 'advertising' means things like ' I am a brilliant teacher and have vacancies for students so please get in touch with me' , or advertising a product, that sort of thing.

There was a thread quite a while back where people posted information about events that might interest others - very much along these lines so I'm sure you are in the clear BP.

Having taken part in a workshop taught by John Butt, I can also confirm he's a fantastic musician, and the concert will be well worth hearing.