If i play piano and have lessons, do i need lessons on a single manual harpsichord if i want to learn it???

If you want to play it properly, you do. I did harpsichord as my 2nd study at college & the technique is quite different.

Hope you don't mind if I hijack the thread slightly..

Just curious 'Bevpiano' if you ever try to emulate a harpsichord with the piano (e.g. when playing Bach).

In what way is the technique different? I know that the keys are (always?) thinner because the one and only time I ever played a harpsichord I could stretch a 10th - something I could never do on a piano!

Purely out of interest I ask...

thanks!

surely it is easier than piano, because you dont have any dynamic control, not that much difference if you ask me.

Can someone explain to me the attraction of the harpsichord when we have the modern grand piano? I have listened to a lot of Bach and Scarlatti on both instruments and prefer the piano versions by far. I suffered through a recording of Wanda Landowska playing the Goldberg variations. It is supposed to be one of the great performances of all time. It was awful. Give me Angela Hewitt on a Fazioli any day.

Am i just biassed? Am I missing something?

I guess its just being able to play music on the instruments it was written for, i like to play the A list exam peices on a keybaord set to harpsichord, adds a certain feeling to the peice

Thats what attracts me 2 it. Its a rare instrument with a unique sound

The appeal of the harpsichord for me is difficult to define. It is certainly a refreshing change from the sound of the piano. Yes, of course you can get bored after too much of the one sound (especially played at pretty much the same dynamic throughout ), but the same is true of most instruments. From my perspective, it is a fascinating instrument, like a long lost voice from the past, resurrecting sounds for new ears... Is that OTT?

One day, I will realise my ambition to learn to play the harpsichord - but I am prepared for disappointment

The touch is very different. I enjoyed studying it at college, but didn't have a strong desire to continue afterwards. I rarely play baroque music on the piano - that's probably the main reason I didn't keep up the harpsichord, it's not the right repertoire for me. I'm more drawn to romantic & modern repertoire.

The harpsichord is an utterly different animal, and I have heard many pianists massacring them - and the occasional seriously talented pianist caressing out of them their music (YAP in particular). Just because something has a keyboard doesn't make it "the same as but not as good as" a piano, nor is the harpsichord easier to play - or at least, it's not easier to play well.

Each key has balanced on it a slip of wood, called a jack, in which is mounted the quill, which plucks the string. It is true that you cannot get any dynamic range by striking the key more forcefully, so the harpsichordist has to resort to subterfuge to give the impression of dynamics; the effect is all in how the key is released, rather than in how it is depressed. Pianists make a big mistake when thinking of the "limitations" of harpsichords by comparing them with pianos; there is music which quite simply does not work on the piano which is brought to shimmering light by a competent harpsichordist playing on a well-regulated and non-equally tempered harpsichord; I'd not want to hear Rachmaninov's music played on a harpsichord, but Rameau's should be, on a big French double with a booming bass. Preferably by Trevor Pinnock, on a Goermanns Taskin from the Russell Collection, tuned by my husband...

And Wanda Landowska really doesn't count. She played in pedantic style on appalling instruments designed by builders who decided the harpsichord needed "improving", discounting centuries of evolution...better to hear what can be done now, and to try to listen without expecting to hear a piano.

In recent years there has been a great revival in the performance of early music and many performers strive for a degree of authenticity in their playing because we know more about how it was done.
Playing editions have changed in the last 50 years as more research has been carried out and we understand far more now about correct styles of playing and singing, playing at a suitable pitch, etc
What we should aim for maybe is an informed performance based on the playing techniques of the time and the capabilities of the instruments then to understand them fully.
Pianists are not banned from playing the music of the 17th cent because they do not have harpsichords of the correct design and era, nor are they banned from playing the music of Mozart because the modern piano is not like the lighter pianos of his time but they will gain so much if they are able to do so. Yes, it matters what our instruments sound like, of course . A piano will never replace an instrument of the harpsichord family and most pianists don't have access to harpsichords but we should try to play with sensitivity and in a style that would be recognised be the original composers and players I think.
Would you enjoy for example a party of modern day minstrels playing music of the Tudor age with a heavy vibrato on plastic recorders made to a baroque pattern, accompanied by a modern guitar pretending to be a lute, with the players dressed up like Robin Hood’s merry men straight out of a 1940’s film.
Music moves on and it would be difficult if not impossible to recreate even the symphony orchestra of for example Sir Edward Elgar’s time. If we travelled back to his time we would see wooden flutes with fewer keys, violins, violas and cellos strung at a lower tension, etc. The design of the instruments would be different and so the sound would be too.
When it is possible to do so we should listen to and try to understand why music sounded as it did rather than how we think that it should be played on an instrument for which it was never intended. Don't think of harpsichords as the second rate keyboard instruments that were used before someone had the sense to redesign them into pianos because they are totally different beasts.

I recently attended a harpsichord weekend at Benslow, having always been curious about the instrument and never got a chance to properly try it. I found it totally different from the piano (and not at all similar nor easier as I used to believe). Of course I was totally new to the harpsichord, so this may not be true but I do think it was much trickier to play, say, a Bach fugue on the instrument and ensure it's not monotonous and that all voices are heard since without dynamics or pedals etc of the modern piano, the only "tool" you really have is articulation (and playing "detached" easily sound snappish on the harpsichord! )

Although I came back having decided I much prefer the piano, I found the harpsichord good fun and it certainly gave me lots to think about, not the least making me wonder whether I was sometimes over-reliant on the mechanics of the modern grand.

I switched to the harpsichord for a couple of years. Compared to the piano I found it a relatively unforgiving instrument, requiring a great deal of control and precision to play well. For me it's a more satisfying instrument to play than to listen to, and I particularly liked the feeling of resistance from the plucking action.

It got me interested in continuo playing and works for two harpsichords (being transportable much easier to get two harpsichords together than two pianos).

The main downside is that it's a high maintenance instrument. Be prepared to spend time on tuning (3 sets of strings = 3 separate tunings @ 20 mins each every fortnight in my case!), replacing broken strings and plectra, and money on tuning gizmos and periodic servicing.