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harpsichord

Invented in the late Middle Ages in Europe, the harpsichord produces sound by plucking a string when a key is pressed rather than hammering a string. Looking like a smaller, more colourful version of the grand piano, the harpsichord was widely used during the Renaissance and Baroque and made a comeback in the twentieth century.

Foto
prime example
Stranglers - Golden Brown (La Folie, November 1981)

the story
Keyboardist Dave Greenfield had already presented a musical passage he had written to his band, the Stranglers, when they were recording their 1981 concept LP The Meninblack. During sessions for their next album, guitarist and singer Hugh Cornwell heard Greenfeld experimenting with the same piece of music and penned ten minutes worth of lyrics at the spot. The characteristic opening phrase of Golden Brown, as the new song was called, consists of three bars of 3/4 and one of 4/4, which is why BBC newreader Bill Turnbull’s attempt to waltz to it in the 2005 television series of Strictly Come Dancing was “a disaster”, in his own words.
The unusual metre, the jazzy medieval sounding backing and the lyrics referencing heroine (although the band claimed it was an aural Rorschach test, with people reading in them whatever they wanted), convinced the Stranglers this was just another album track - until radio stations across England started playing the song. Drummer Jet Black then pushed for it to be released as a single, which subsequently reached the number two spot, providing the Stranglers with their biggest hit.

other examples
Though the Doors liked to jam in their early days, keyboard player Ray Manzarek realized they also needed some songs if they wanted to release albums. He asked his band members to write some at home. The next day, guitarist Robbie Krieger turned up with two new ones: Light My Fire, the Doors’ breakthrough single, and Love Me Two Times, recorded during sessions for the first album but released on the next, Strange Days. For this track, Manzarek added another instrument to his arsenal: “I started out with a Vox Continental organ, like all the English groups used. It was flat on top so I could put the Fender Rhodes piano bass right on top of it. The second album was done the same way, except we added a Hohner Clavinet and a harpsichord played through a Baldwin amp, which was wonderful.”
Fly, a gentle song from British folk musician Nick Drake’s second album Bryter Layter, features Drake playing guitar and singing, Fairport Convention member Dave Pegg on bass and former Velvet Underground member John Cale on viola and harpsichord. Cale later said that when he recorded his parts, Drake wasn’t in the studio: “I was the hired hand to come in and overdub and put some colour on the tracks. I finished the tracks, went on my merry way and met Nick much later. I’m proud of those records, they’re quite pretty. Very dreamy, I guess.”

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