Here I will begin to document the design and eventually, the building, of a clavicytherium (upright harpsichord). I am currently, mainly, involved with building my (horizontal) pandalon, which is a different blog (pandalon.blogspot.com). But I'm designing the clavicytherium in parallel, and doing small amounts of prototyping to support the design process. Hopefully, by the time the pandalon is finished, I'll be able to start work on the clavicytherium.
The entire design is of course subject to change, but at present, my thinking is to provide the maximum amount of harpsichord capability, in a small space. Thus, the disposition must be at least 2x8,1x4. But in fact, as of recently, I am considering a more-complicated design than that. Two manuals, with 2x8,2x4. Each manual capable of 1x8,1x4 (different strings and plucked in different positions), with a coupler. Obviously, I am interested in providing *more* capability than has existed in the past, not in any way trying to exactly duplicate any instrument of the past.
In that same philosophy, I plan to include a sustain (damper-lift) pedal. In fact, if there are two manuals, there will be a sustain pedal for each, arranged so they can be operated separately or together by one foot (the right). There will also be a "machine" pedal, to allow control of the various handstops of the instrument by the other foot. This machine pedal will be of basically the same design as what I am currently building into my pandalon (or an evolution thereof, more likely).
Other than the stops to turn on and off the choirs of strings, and the coupler, there will also be a number of "mutation" stops, i.e., things to change the sound. My philosophy is, these are cheap and easy to add-in, so every possible option should be included. At present, there are three which apply to harpsichord: buff, sitar, and bassoon. Buff, also called the "harp" stop by some, is pads of leather or felt pressing against the strings near the ends. It produces a muffled and shorter-duration sound, like pizzicato or hand-muting on other string instruments. What I call, descriptively, sitar, is better-known to harpsichord people as the "arpichordum" stop, but this is not only opaque but simply incorrect by today's tonal standards (it means "harp" sound, but I've never seen a harp with this effect; apparently they commonly used to have it, which is strange to imagine). Shaped metal wires are brought into contact with the strings, again close to their ends (in order for both the buff and sitar to have optimal string placement, one comes from beneath and one from above), giving the hypnotic "flangey" metallic buzzing of the sitar (and certain Japanese instruments). Bassoon brings a curved surface of paper (or the right kind of "noisy" plastic, such as acetate) into contact with the strings, a little further out. It creates a kazoo-like buzzing tone, similarly bright but different in sound from the sitar effect.
The bassoon stop tends to be constructed so that it hits both strings in a pair, such as both 8' strings in this instrument. The sitar hits only one of a pair, so the other can be used to maintain some "normal" sound along with the sitar, or it can be turned off to emphasize the sitar more starkly. The buff is normally constructed to hit only one string of a pair. In my pandalon, the buff is like the bassoon and hits both strings, but this is a single-manual; instrument so the possibility to contrast buff and non-buff on two keyboards is not there anyway, and I wanted to ensure the ability to use the buff stop, controlled by the machine pedal, similar to the pedal-controlled dampers on concert hammered dulcimers, which were an important model for my pandalon. In the clavicytherium, the buff will probably be more like a conventional harpsichord buff, with individual pads that hit only one string from each pair. Probably all mutation stops which affect only one string will be tied to the upper manual. However, if I find that there are two different mutation effects which I really want the ability to contrast against each other, one played from each keyboard, then I may make one or more of the stops such that it can be "assigned" to either keyboard (perhaps through some behind-the-scenes adjustment, not necessarily a quick change from a knob). And finally, if I find after completing the pandalon and playing it for a while, that the hammered-dulcimer idiom of rapid buff-stop expression with pedal is quite important to me (even independent of the hammer-action dynamics of the pandalon), then I might conceivably fit two buff stops, to allow for one to be used expressively while the other (on the other keyboard) is constantly-on, via a handstop.
The overall structure of the clavicytherium, as well as many aspects of the action, will be rather unlike any others I've seen. The most significant change, even more than the sustain pedal, is that this instrument will be designed to "reach the ground". Meaning, the longest strings will have the full span available, from the floor to the height of the instrument. This will allow good long bass strings, without making the instrument ridiculously tall. Traditionally, clavicytheria have been build with the keyboards passing underneath the wrestplanks; thus, the entire height of the strings had to start above the level of the keyboard, going up from there. Even with rather severe foreshortening of the bass strings, a full-compass clavicytherium can easily reach 9 feet tall. More of a curiousity to stand in a corner of Versailles Palace, than anything that would be convenient for a regular musician with limited space. With the strings not limited by the location of the keyboard, a significantly better instrument than those 9-foot-tall ones can fit in under 8 feet, which is about what I'm taking to be the maximum practical height for today's average ceilings.
(I am not the first to design a clavicytherium that "reaches the ground"; I have seen one example, from the 1960s, of a single-strung lautenwerk (i.e., having gut, or more likely, nylon strings) clavicytherium. The strings reached "to the ground", but only by virtue of having the plucking point almost in the middle; i.e., the plucking point was still constrained to be near the keyboard, a constraint which I will do away with. Plucking near the middle is fine and perhaps appropriate for a lautenwerk instrument, but it's not at all the type of tone that I am seeking from my metal strings.)
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