Chloe’s Spinet

This spinet belonged to my friend Christopher who passed away in 2020. He bequeathed it to my daughter Chloe. Whilst her flat was being renovated the instrument was in storage for 18 months (not ideal and not recommended!). When it was eventually moved to her flat it was discovered that for some unknown reason most of the plectra had been removed and some of the strings were broken and some were missing. A harpsichord tech known to us was employed to address the issues and get it playing again.

The plectra were replaced and new strings for those that were missing were purchased. All was going well until the technician mysteriously went missing midway through the job leaving it incomplete. Most of the strings were now playable, just. Some of the plectra needed tweaking and the new strings needed fitting. What strings there were were partially tuned. It was effectively unplayable.
I decided to sample what I could across the range of notes available. I used a Tascam DR-05X digital recorder. Notes were recorded
four times each for a round robin. Each was cleaned up using Audacity and tuned to concert pitch A=440Hz.

The instrument can now be heard in all its intimate glory. There is a YouTube video available at https://youtu.be/vjTFVQ6Zg-s

If you do use it in one of your compositions then do please let me know. I’d love to hear it.