Each key has a string. Pressing the key pushes a jack, from whose side projects a small quill or spine which twangs the string. When the key is released, the quill slips back into the first position and a damper falls upon the string. The strings vary in length according to the pitch for the harpsichord has no tangent to divide off the string as had the clavichord and monochord. Thus the harpsichord on account of its long and short strings is not square like the clavichord but is shaped more like the harp and the grand piano. Some one said that the harpsichord tone was “a scratch with a note at the end of it.” And yet, when we hear Wanda Landowska play the harpsichord today, it sounds very beautiful indeed. Smaller varieties are called virginals and spinets. Perhaps the spinet is named for its inventor Spinetti, or perhaps the word comes from “spinet” meaning spine, a thorn or point. The virginal comes from the word _virgo_—meaning maiden and was the popular instrument for the “ladies” of the day. There were larger harpsichords, too, with two and three keyboards and very many varieties, both small and large. The clavichord and the harpsichord were known from the 15th century and were associated with the organ until the 17th century, when the Ruckers family developed harpsichord making into a fine art. The first mention of the harpsichord, is in the “Rules of the Minnesingers” (1404). THE FIRST PIANOFORTES Early in the 18th century, music ceased to be just pretty sounds, and musicians wanted instruments on which they could express deeper feelings and began to look around for some way to make the harpsichord meet this need. It came about in this way. Pantaleone Hebenstreit, a fiddler at the Saxon court played a dulcimer which he enlarged by adding to it a second system of strings. He tuned it in equal temperament, as Bach had the clavichord, and used hammers on it which produced very beautiful and loud tones. Louis XIV saw this, and liking it, called it the Pantaleone. But, shortly after this, Gottlieb Schroeter heard it and said, “only through hammers can the harpsichord become expressive.” So in 1721 Schroeter submitted to the King of Saxony his idea of a harpsichord which could play soft and loud or in Italian _piano_ and _forte_ (the _fortepiano_ or _loud-soft_ instrument). But as he had none made he did not get credit for the invention until after much argument, based on accounts in his diary. As always, when a thing is needed someone will invent it.