Talk: Keyboard instrument

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I thought a virginal was actually a separate instrument from the harpsichord, maybe closer to the clavichord?

Also, I can see how a piano might be called a percussion instrument, because of the hammers, but it seems like it should get classified as a string instrument too. -- Merphant 03:44, 6 Nov 2003 (UTC)

A virginal is just a harpsichord with one keyboard and the strings running paralell to the keyboard (as on a clavichord) as far as I know - I don't think there's anything more to it than that. Whether that means we should list it separately to the harpsichord, I don't know, but it's certainly not very wrong to list them together.

As for classification - the way we had it divided into "strings", "winds" and "percussion" didn't really make any sense, because in the first two you're classifying according to what is vibrating, while in the last you're classifying according to how it is being caused to vibrate. I've fiddled around with it a bit, therefore. --Camembert

Listing the virginal separate from the harpsichord would, I'd say, not be very different from separating grand piano from upright piano. I'd say leave it this way. --EldKatt