of the word.

See PIANOFORTE; SPINET; VIRGINAL.

CLAVICHORD, or CLARICHORD (Fr. _manicorde_; Ger. _Clavichord_; Ital.
_manicordo_; Span. _manicordio_[1]), a medieval stringed keyboard
instrument, a forerunner of the pianoforte (q.v.), its strings being set
in vibration by a blow from a brass tangent instead of a hammer as in
the modern instrument. The clavichord, derived from the dulcimer by the
addition of a keyboard, consisted of a rectangular case, with or without
legs, often very elaborately ornamented with paintings and gilding. The
earliest instruments were small and portable, being placed upon a table
or stand. The strings, of finely drawn brass, steel or iron wire, were
stretched almost parallel with the keyboard over the narrow belly or
soundboard resting on the soundboard bridges, often three in number, and
wound as in the piano round wrest or tuning pins set in a block at the
right-hand side of the soundboard and attached at the other end to hitch
pins. The bridges served to direct the course of the strings and to
conduct the sound waves to the soundboard. The scaling, or division of
the strings determining their vibrating length, was effected by the
position of the tangents. These tangents, small wedge-shaped blades of
brass, beaten out at the top, were inserted in the end of the arm of the
keys. As the latter were depressed by the fingers the tangents rose to
strike the strings and stop them at the proper length from the
belly-bridge. Thus the string was set in vibration between the point of
impact and the belly-bridge just as long as the key was pressed down.
The key being released, the vibrations were instantly stopped by a list
of cloth acting as damper and interwoven among the strings behind the
line of the tangents.

There were two kinds of clavichords--the fretted or _gebunden_ and the
fret-free or _bund-frei_. The term "fretted" was applied to those
clavichords which, instead of being provided with a string or set of
strings in unison for each note, had one set of strings acting for three
or four notes, the arms of the keys being twisted in order to bring the
contact of the tangent into the acoustically correct position under the
string. The "fret-free" were chromatically-scaled instruments. The first
_bund-frei_ clavichord is attributed to Daniel Faber of Crailsheim in
Saxony about 1720. This important change in construction increased the
size of the instrument, each pair of unison string