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The Clavichord – from Rock to Funk and Bach Again
This is a tale of a mostly unsung keyboard instrument. It was developed in the late Middle Ages and was in use up through the Baroque period. Johann Sebastian Bach, in particular, used the instrument for composing his music. Music that ultimately wound up being performed on pipe organs started out being played on the diminutive clavichord during the composition phase. This was long before the modern piano, technically called the pianoforte, was developed. The clavichord functions similarly to a piano in that the keys operate hammers that strike the strings inside to create sound.
In the 1960s the German instrument company Hohner developed an electronic clavichord which they dubbed the Clavinet. In function, it resembled its ancient predecessor but added pickups, similar to electric guitar pickups. This allowed the sound to be amplified, as well as run through various effects like an electric guitar (phase shifter, wah-wah pedal, et cetera).
Originally envisioned primarily for home use (apparently a lot of German folk music was written on the clavichord), it wound up becoming a staple of popular music from the 1960s through the 1980s.
You can hear The Band’s keyboard player, Garth Hudson, play a Clavinet through a wah-wah pedal on the classic Up on Cripple Creek. You hear it after each time Levon Helm sings, “A drunkard’s dream if I ever did see one”:
Of course, one cannot forget Stevie Wonder’s use on the song Superstition:
The Led Zeppelin classic Trampled Under Foot uses the Clavinet extensively, including the song’s intro hook:
Back to funk, Billy Preston had a big instrumental hit with Outa Space:
Even by the 1980s you could still hear it used, including on the Greg Khin Band song Jeopardy:
Not too shabby for an instrument dating back to the late Middle Ages.
Published in Music
Fantastic post, Minnott.
We need more of this ’round Here.
For my next series of posts…a 50 chapter history of the carburetor:
Chapter 27 – Dellorto…Italian for “performance”!
(That clavichord video is very badly mic’d. Each note has a crazy amount of mechanical noise.)
Don’t get me started… I’m a huge fan, it’s a wonderful musical instrument, and I have a Clavinet right here.
Note that a Clavinet mechanism is actually an upside-down-and-almost-backwards clavichord mechanism.
(???)
On a clavichord, pressing a key brings a “tangent”, functioning as a fret, up to the string.
On a Clavinet, pressing a key pushes a pad down on the string, against a fixed fret. I think it’s a superior approach.
I believe the first commercial recording of a Clavinet is Frank Zappa’s second album “Absolutely Free”, 1966.
There was a guy, and a company, called Zuckermann in Greenwich Village back in my day…the 60s through the 80s…now relocated to Connecticut IIRC. They sold harpsichords and clavichords in kit and assembled form. The clavichord has next to no “natural” acoustic amplification, so it’s a very quiet instrument without electronic assistance.
Fascinating, Michael. Thanks for educating us!
Bill Payne on clavinet:
Great fun post. Love that sound!
R.I.P. Garth. The best.
The theme for “Streets of San Francisco” has an amazing clavinet lead. The clavinet is a great lead instrument because it has a very sharp and cutting tone. It’s particularly effective in the lower registers.
Please include a chapter or two on the Constant Velocity style which is still in use to this day in some motorcycles and aircraft engines.
Great fun! Thanks!
And of course we all know who (fictionally) played harpsichord.
Back in the days before computers lurked in everything, if you were building a keyboard product that is smaller and lighter than a piano, you had to get creative. So electric keyboards used all sorts of technologies.
A few were completely electronic, but that gets expensive as it involves electronic circuitry for each key. Adds up quickly. And they never had much personality.
But the electro-mechanical pianos were really creative.
Those are all mechanical with electric pickups. And they all had a ton of personality.
That first video makes the clavichord sound like one of those toy pianos we had as kids.
I think Freddie Mercury played the Wurlitzer electric piano on the song You’re My Best Friend.
So I’m a huge fan of electric pianos. (Clearly.)
I have a Clavinet, a Wurlitzer, a Yamaha Electric Grand, and a Univox Compac Piano. So I’m intimately familiar with those.
—
In terms of keyboard product design, there’s a big tradeoff between cost, quality, character, and weight. And those attributes generally track together, and track with popularity.
The Hohner pianos were super simple, inexpensive, lightweight, didn’t sound much like a piano, but they had character, and were used all over pop music in the 60’s. The Hohner Clavinet was heavier and more expensive.
The Rhodes pianos were expensive, and high quality, heavy (about 130 lbs), and wildly popular for all kinds of music. Didn’t sound much like an actual piano, but were very expressive.
The Wurlitzer was about half the cost, size, and weight of the Rhodes. Not as good, but SuperTramp sure found the sweet spot.
The Yamaha Electric Grand came out much later, 1976, very expensive, very high quality, heavy (450 lbs), and sounds almost exactly like a real piano because it pretty much is a real piano. And the feel is amazing. You can hear it all over the music of the day; Peter Gabriel, Genesis, U2’s “New Year’s Day”, etc.
I always liked this type for rock, and the solo part in this.
William F Buckley, our late conservative doyen, was also a harpsichord player. And the Zuckerman company is still selling harpsichord kits in southern Connecticut, they took away my wife’s harpsichord when we recently donated it to a local church.
Took it away how? Is there some contract that harpsichords may not be sold or traded privately?
Rock musicians repurposed them in the search for an electric version of a piano.
Modern keyboards are all digital now, which is unfortunate, because they’re not nearly as expressive, embraceable, inspirational, or fun.
Digital keyboards don’t have a “feel”. Electromechanical keyboards like the Clavinet or the electric pianos have real physical stuff going on, both in starting the note, and the vibration itself.
I can imagine an enterprising company going into production with a modern Clavinet. It might look like this:
Anything physical costs a lot to manufacture these days. You might have to make it in China. But the music market is cultural, and is eager to pay big bucks for a product made in the US. So perhaps it boils down to some clever robotic manufacturing technology.
Anyway, *I* would sure love one of these.
She wouldn’t stop playing The Munsters Theme every Holloween, so the neighbors called the cops. It was quite the local scandal.
What rock and funk need is more steam calliope!
Pretty nice. I see she has PPE, and wrist braces. Presumably the keys are resistant due to steam pressure..
“There’s no action left in this keyboard!”
We heard it here first!
As long as it doesn’t fall to the ground.
Ha! Or crash…
Hmm, I’ve heard fell, but there’s also crashed in some versions.