P-ART JOURNAL
 |
 Manufacturer
Walter MAENE (B)  |
In 2005, Walter MAENE (Belgium) finished my white spinet, purchased in 2006.
Words fail me to describe the fascinating timbre of my spinet. This artisanal keyboard is small but it produces greath sound. Rich overtones inspire me to improvise substancially more than any piano or digital keyboard can evoke. This spinet sounds transparantly and softly, just like the other historical instruments (harpsichord, virginal, clavechord, lute), and also just like ethnical string instruments ( at most I like the 'oud' from Iran).
Click and listen to an mp3-excerpt > my spinet (© P-ART).
Especially in the sixteenth and seventeenth-centuries (Renaissance & Baroque), the spinet was the piano at that moment, a harpsichord with only one manual.Unlike the square clavechord, the strings of the spinet are built in the triangle resonance box of strings. Historically ( look at the virginals on Vermeer's paintings=> http://essentialvermeer.20m.com/music/vermeer_and_virginals.htm), the harpsichord (aka clavecimbel) has earlier variants (virginal and spinet), but all types of 'clavecimbels' are missing the power and dynamics (piano-forte) of the pianoforte and later of the classic piano in the eighteenth-century. However, the expressive limits of my spinet overcompensated by the wide range of transparant overtones are the best condition for musical creativity.
About seventy years ago, John Cage introduced the prepared piano. Now, I play the virtual prepared spinet, capturing and transmitting the acoustic sound through the sound effects processor (KAOSSPAD, Korg). The result is an organic fusion of acoustic and electronic timbres. The mix-patch is a gamelan-like sound with a digital vs acoustic dialogue in the attack and sustain of the sound bathing in a natural resonating environment. Click here and listen to > the mp3-excerpt of a P-ART prepared spinet composition 2006.(© P-ART)
© P-ART 2007-2013Go to NEXT item > Mapuche Indians "Anyone can ever 'own' the language we speak". back to the P-ART JOURNAL index back to the P-ART PARADISE-index
