Editing Spinet (section)

==Harpsichords==

{{listen|type=music
 | filename    = Scarlatti f-moll3.ogg
 | title       = Domenico Scarlatti: Sonata in F minor K.69
 | description = Performed on a spinet by Ulrich Metzner
}}
When the term ''spinet'' is used to designate a harpsichord, typically what is meant is the ''bentside spinet'', described in this section. For other uses, see below.

The bentside spinet shares most of its characteristics with the full-size instrument, including [[Action (music)|action]], [[Sound board (music)|soundboard]], and case construction. What primarily distinguishes the spinet is the angle of its strings: whereas in a full-size harpsichord, the strings are at a 90-degree angle to the keyboard (that is, they are parallel to the player's gaze); and in [[virginals]] they are parallel to the keyboard, in a spinet the strings are at an angle of about 30 degrees to the keyboard, going toward the right. 

The case of a bentside spinet is approximately triangular. The side on the right is usually bent concavely (hence the name of the instrument), curving away from the player toward the right rear corner. The longest side is adjacent to and parallel with the bass strings, going from the right rear corner to a location on the player's left. The front side of the spinet contains the keyboard. Typically, there are very short sides at the right rear and on the left, connecting the bentside to the long side and the long side to the front.

The other major aspect of spinet design is that the strings are arranged in pairs. The gap between the two strings of a pair is about four millimetres, and the wider gap between pairs is about ten. The jacks (which pluck the strings) are arranged in pairs as well, placed in the wider gap. They face in opposite directions, plucking the adjacent string on either side of the wider gap. The fact that half of the gaps are four millimetres instead of ten makes it possible to crowd more strings together into a smaller case.

[[File:ArrangementOfJacksAndStringsInASpinet.PNG|center|thumb|400px|Diagram showing the arrangement of jacks and strings in a bentside spinet. For explanation, see main text. In the picture above, the jacks are concealed beneath the jack rail at the center of the instrument.]]
The disadvantage of the paired design is that it generally limits the spinet to a single choir of strings, at [[eight-foot pitch]], although a double-strung spinet by John Player is known.{{sfn|Morris|1986}} In a full-size harpsichord, the registers that guide the jacks can be shifted slightly to one side, permitting the player to control whether or not that particular set of strings is sounded. This is impossible in a spinet, due to the alternating orientation of the jacks. For an exception to this point, see "spinettone", below.

[[File:Girolama de Zenti, Rome, 1637 - spinet - IMG 3881.JPG|thumb|upright|Spinet by Zenti from 1637, now in the Musical Instrument Museum in Brussels]]
The angling of the strings also had consequences for tone quality: generally, it was not possible to make the plucking points as close to the nut as in a regular harpsichord. Thus spinets normally had a slightly different tone quality, with fewer higher [[harmonic]]s. Spinets also had smaller soundboards than regular harpsichords, and normally had a weaker sound. For these reasons, the spinet was normally only a domestic instrument, purchased to save money and conserve domestic space.

===History===
[[File:GMax StillLifeGirlAtSpinet.jpg|thumb|left|''Girl at a Spinet'', 1871 painting by [[Gabriel von Max]]]]

Harpsichord historian [[Frank Hubbard]] wrote in 1967, "the earliest [bentside] spinet known to me was made by [[Hieronymus de Zentis]] in 1631. It is quite possible that Zentis was the inventor of the type so widely copied in other countries."{{sfn|Hubbard|1967|p={{page needed|date=March 2020}}}} He further notes that the spinet in France was sometimes called the ''épinette à l'italienne'', supporting an Italian origin.

In England, builders included John Player, Thomas Barton, Charles Haward, Stephen Keene, [[Cawton Aston]], and Thomas Hitchcock.

The spinet was later developed into the ''[[spinettone]]'' ("big spinet") by [[Bartolomeo Cristofori]] (1655–1731), the inventor of the [[piano]]. The spinettone incorporated multiple choirs of strings, with a [[Disposition (harpsichord)|disposition]] of 1 × 8 ft, 1 × 4 ft, and used the same ingenious mechanism for changing stops that Cristofori had earlier used for his [[oval spinet]]. The spinettone was a local success among the musicians of the [[Medici]] court,{{sfn|Montanari|2002}} and Cristofori eventually built a total of four of them.<ref>Source for this paragraph except as noted: {{harvnb|Kottick|2003|pp=213–214}}</ref>

Spinets are occasionally made today, sometimes from kits, and serve the same purpose they always have, of saving money and space.

===Other uses of "spinet" for harpsichords===
[[File:BLW Spinet (1).jpg|upright=1.2|thumb|A sumptuously decorated pentagonal spinet from 1577 by Annibale dei Rossi; 49 keys]]
The pentagonal spinet was not a spinet in the sense given above, but rather a [[virginal]]; its strings were parallel to the keyboard. Typically, the pentagonal spinet was more compact than other types of virginals, as the pentagon shape arose from lopping off the corners of the original rectangular virginal design.

More generally, the word ''spinet'' was not always very sharply defined in former times, particularly in its French and Italian cognate forms ''épinette'' and ''spinetta''. Thus, for example, when [[Bartolomeo Cristofori]] invented a new kind of virginals in 1688, he called it the "spinetta ovale", "[[oval spinet]]".

===Nomenclature===

[[File:Epinette Rouaud.JPG|right|thumb|Modern bentside spinet built by Clavecins Rouaud, Paris]]
In earlier times when English spelling was less standardized, "spinet" was sometimes spelled "spinnet" or "spinnit". "Spinet" is standard today.

''Spinet'' derives from the Italian ''spinetta'', which in 17th-century Italian was a word used generally for all quilled instruments, especially what in [[Elizabethan]]/[[Jacobean English]] were called [[virginals]]. The specific Italian word for a virginals is ''spinetta a tabola''. Likewise, the French derivation from ''spinetta'', ''épinette'', is specifically what the virginals is called in French, although the word is also used for any other small quilled instrument, whether a small harpsichord or a [[clavichord]]. In German, ''Spinett'' and ''Querflügel'' are used.

A ''dumb spinet'' is a manichord or "[[clavichord|clavichord or clarichord]]", according to the 1913 edition of ''[[Webster's Dictionary]]''.