I absolutely love bagpipes!!
Found this on the subject:

Q. What's the definition of a minor second?
A. Two bagpipes playing in unison.


Q. What's the difference between a bagpipe and an onion?
A. No one cries when you chop up an bagpipe.


Q. What's the difference between a bagpipe and a trampoline?
A. You take off your shoes when you jump on a trampoline.


Q. Why did the chicken cross the road?
A. To get away from the bagpipe recital.


Q. Why do bagpipers leave their cases on their dashboards?
A. So they can park in handicapped zones.


Q. How can you tell a bagpiper with perfect pitch?
A. He can throw a set into the middle of a pond and not hit any of the ducks.


Q. How is playing a bagpipe like throwing a javelin blindfolded?
A. You don't have to be very good to get people's attention.


Q. What's the difference between the Great Highland and Northumbrian bagpipes?
A. The GHB burns longer [but the Northumbrian burns hotter]


Q. What do you call bagpiper with half a brain?
A. Gifted.


Q. What's the difference between a lawnmower and a bagpipe?
A. You can tune the lawnmower, and the owner's neighbors are upset if you borrow the lawnmower and don't return it.


Q. How many bagpipers does it take to change a light bulb?
A. Five, one to handle the bulb and the other four to contemplate how Bill Livingston would have done it.


Q. How many bagpipers does it take to screw in a lightbulb?
A. 5-one to do it, and four to criticise his fingering style.


Q. If you were lost in the woods, who would you trust for directions, an in-tune bagpipe player, an out of tune bagpipe player, or Santa Claus?
A. The out of tune bagpipe player. The other two indicate you have been hallucinating.


Q. How do you make a chain saw sound like a bagpipe?
A. Add vibrato.


Q. How many bagpipers does it take to change a light bulb?
A. Five. One to handle the bulb, the other four to tell him how much better they could have done it.


Q. What's the definition of a gentleman?
A. Someone who knows how to play the bagpipe and doesn't.


Q. What's the difference between a dead snake in the road and a dead bagpiper in the road?
A. Skid marks in front of the snake.


Q. What's the difference between a dead bagpiper in the road and a dead country singer in the road?
A. The country singer may have been on the way to a recording session.


Q. What's the range of a bagpipe?
A. Twenty yards if you have a good arm.


Q. What do you call someone who hangs around with musicians?
A. A bagpiper.


Q. What did the bagpiper get on his I.Q. test?
A. Drool.


Q. What's the definition of a quarter tone?
A. A bagpiper tuning his drones.


Q. Why are bagpipers fingers like lightning?
A. They rarely strike the same spot twice.


Q. How can you tell if a bagpipe is out of tune?
A. Someone is blowing into it.


Q. Why is a bagpipe like a Scud missile?
A. Both are offensive and inaccurate.


Q. What do bagpipers use for birth control?
A. Their personalities.


Q. How do you know if a bagpipe band is at your front door?
A. No one knows when to come in.


Q. Why did the bagpiper get mad at the drummer?
A. He moved a drone and wouldn't tell him which one.


If you took all the bagpipers in the world and laid them end to end-- it would be a good idea.


Q. What do you call ten bagpipes at the bottom of the ocean?
A. A start.


Q. If you drop a bagpipe and a watermelon off a tall building, which will hit the ground first?
A. Who cares?


Q. Why do bagpipers walk when they play?
A. To get away from the sound.


Tom: "Hey, Buddy. How late does the bagpipe band play?"
Buddy: "Oh, about a half beat behind the drummer."

although i sided with the haters on the poll, i do like this recent release quite a bit, so i guess there is hope for me.

All IMO: when played as part of a chamber orchestra or small string ensemble for period music, the harpsichord adds some percussion and "burn" to the mix that's a nice counter to the strings.

By itself, the harpsichord feels to me like a bit of a one-trick pony, lacking any way to significantly modulate the volume or the timbre, and often seeming to overly-emphasize sheer playing speed and timing precision. Different strokes for different folks - I'm not a huge fan of ragtime piano either.

I love instrument jokes - here's a related one that circulates around harpists:

When you get to heaven, you're issued a harp and a tuning key.
When you get to hell, you're issued a harp.

Thanks, Rob! I find it awesome that you've couched your metaphor of the harpsichord with appropriately-Irish whisky references. Yeah, you're right, though. It has its place and its taste, which may not be for everyone and for all occasions.

Wow! That was really awesome! I enjoyed the sound of it. You're right--that's the deal with it: the sound is only good if you're right up on it. A true "chamber" instrument, for the living room while everyone is gathered around it (with powered wigs, at least in this imagining.) Thank you for sharing that! And you engineered and recorded that well!

I also just realized what the double bank of keys was for, while watching Mike's video: play the bottom row, and it plays both the bottom and the top. Play the top row, and it only plays the top. Bottom: Loud; top: softer. Instant and binary dynamics! I didn't realize that was the purpose of the double row of keys on many harpsichords. I've never actually played one!

And I won't repost all those bagpipes jokes, but oH MY GOD!!! I laughed soooo hard! That was absolutely hilarious. Q. How can you tell if a bagpipe is out of tune? A. Someone is blowing into it. And then any of the jokes about throwing the pipes or burning them, ah that was funny. HILARIOUS! And you also added to what I learned from Rodrigo: it can sound okay in certain contexts (like chamber pieces with other instruments) but mostly lacks. I like ragtime piano as music, but I hate the sound of a ragtime piano with tacks in it, or with that ocean of chorus on a simulated ragtime piano sound. But I do like the music on a regular piano, although more as an infusion into a Billy Joel-style rock piano than as a transition between classical and then jazz and modern pop.

something was going on with these instruments. This was a time when the 'camera obscura'
was a novelty. Creating imagery was in the hands of the skilled artist and the surfaces of the
Harpsichord were ornate for reasons that might be somewhat lost to the modern ear .

I think that these instruments had elaborate painted surfaces because the mental imagery
conjured by the music. The Harpsichord was an exotic bird, a magic carpet, a multimedia
transportation machine that lifted the musician and the audience out of the mundane.

The music imo cannot be separated from the beauty of the instrument. If you are
less than bemused by the Harpsichord consider the paintings, imagine the rooms
where the recitals were held; the clothes the musicians and the audience wore, then the sound
takes on a significantly different flavor.

https://www.google.com/search?sxsrf=ALe ... H5Rcrm-7BM

jRj
*j*
.~

Some very strong points, JRJ -

That's a facet that's easily overlooked: in the harpsichord's heyday, people had no where near the plethora of recreational and escapist choices that we have today, nor did they have a dearth of reasons to need them either. Add to this the lack of audio recordings, and getting one's "music fix" was a whole lot more significant ... and thus so were the instruments and those who could play them. Some of the ornamentation was also a reflection of the instruments as status symbols: not everyone could exactly afford a harpsichord. (In all fairness, in those settings during that time period, everything tended to have more "elaborate painted surfaces", at least in comparison to today. Not to the same extent, however.)


Visualizing the historical atmosphere, setting, and purpose IMO are indeed very important components to understanding musical context. One could make the same suggestions when listening to a Strauss waltz: some societal posturing, some meeting social expectations, and a whole lot of escapism going on. The harpsichord was definitely a significant instrument in its day.

Having said that, technical advances are made, and composition is eager to take advantage of them. There's a reason why most folks don't sit around the house playing their hurdy gurdys, or why one can't pop over to their local Lute Center for a new set of gut frets: music changed in ways that the older instruments couldn't accommodate (although Lord knows that the lute tried: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eVabz8LneI4).

(Me thinking out loud, not directed at JRJ): maybe the question is really less about the "historical validity and setting" of the harpsichord, and more about whether the harpsichord is capable of rendering what is consistent with a given person's musical interests? If someone loves Renaissance and Baroque music, or music that's influenced by music of those eras, then most certainly. If someone doesn't find music of those eras interesting - or maybe doesn't particularly enjoy classical music at all - then that's fine as well. No hit to one's status, like what you like (not what you feel that you should like), it's all good.

One of the great, unsung Keith Jarrett records is Book of Ways. Jarrett improvised the album on two clavichords (one in each hand). The historic clavichord is a much smaller, single manual version of a harpsichord. The timbre and character of the pieces have always struck me as "Stick-like". I love the record a lot and recommend it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V0JlZfyWj1M

I had no idea harpsichords would be such a controversial topic!

The Clavichord works in a very similar way to The Stick. The string is actually fretted to make a sound. When I went to pick up my first Stick the salesman in the store tried to convince me to buy two Clavinets (an amplified clavichord with some enhancements, I guess they were slow movers in 1985, but would be worth a lot of money today) I could have taken a whole different road...

Happy ... claving?

(Not sure that this works as well)