Anatomy of a Virginal: the Case

At this point an explanation of the parts of the virginal is in order so that the descriptions of the assembly make sense. The case is essentially a rectangular box, open at the top, with a thin soundboard installed about 2/3 of the way up from the bottom of the case, and an opening in the front where the keyboard goes in. The keyboard is screwed into the case from the bottom, and can be removed fairly easily for service.


In this photo, the case is almost complete, and the strings have been installed. Several pieces are missing from the photo: the keyboard, jacks, jack rail, and lid. But let's focus on the case for the moment.

Here is a close-up of the left side of the virginal. Descriptions of the labeled parts are below. Please ignore the horrific barrel distortion in my camera lens. The sides of the instrument really are straight in real life.




At the left end of the instrument, the end of each string is twisted into a loop, and the loop is secured around a hitch pin. This pin holds the string in place, and is buried deep in a block of wood to withstand the tension put on it when the strings are tightened. The longer bass strings attach to hitch pins along the edge of the virginal, but the shorter treble strings attach to the pins running in a diagonal line. A block of thick wood runs underneath the soundboard underneath this line; the soundboard itself is only 1/8" thick, and could never hold up under the tension of the strings. Here are three hitchpin loops, illustrating the range of wire gauges used. The rightmost wire is 8 thousandths of an inch in diameter.


Moving toward the right from the hitch pins, we come to the left bridge. The purpose of the bridge is twofold: first, it defines the speaking length of the strings; and second, it transfers vibrations from the string to the soundboard, which amplifies these vibrations into the sound you hear.

To the right of the bridge is the top jack guide, also called the register. As you can see, this guide consists of 54 slots (one for each note), each of which houses a jack. There is actually another guide inside the instrument, about two inches below the top guide, which is not visible here. Together, the upper and lower guides keep each jack in the correct plane as it travels up and down to pluck the string. Without these guides the jacks would wiggle back and forth, making it impossible to voice the instrument consistently. In historical Italian virginals and harpsichords, a single, deep guide that served the purpose of both upper and lower guides was painstakingly cut from a single piece of hardwood. If the slots were not cut perfectly, the jacks would rattle in them and make a sound one author likened to "the grunting of pigs." The finest instruments did not of course suffer from this porcine affliction, although Italian harpsichords generally suffered a bad rap for many years.

The right side of the virginal is a sort of inexact mirror image of the left side, the major difference being the presence of tuning pins rather than hitch pins.


On the left side of this photo, we see the termination of the hitch pins, left bridge, and jack guide from the last photo. The virginal is unique in that it has not one but two bridges, one at each end of the speaking length of the strings. Harpsichords normally have one bridge on the soundboard, and a nut that runs straight across the instrument, perpendicular to the strings. This nut is not fixed to the soundboard and does not transmit vibrations from the strings.


On this end, the strings are wrapped tightly around tuning pins, which are embedded in a block of hardwood called a wrest plank (underneath the soundboard). On a piano, this block is called a pin block. You use a tuning lever to twist the tuning pins, tightening or loosening the wire to tune each note.



Once the keyboard and jacks are finished, a plank of wood called the jack rail will be installed directly above the jack guide. This limits how far the jacks can travel and keeps them from flying out of the instrument and into the listeners' soup.

A decorative ornament called a rose, usually made from wood or heavy parchment, is often installed in a hole cut into the soundboard. I did not feel quite confident enough to attack my soundboard with the Black & Decker as of yet, so I decided to skip this for the time being. I may decide to add it later, although it will mean removing several strings to get at the soundboard. In any case, several authors note that the rose makes little if any difference to the sound, so it can wait. Here are some links to representative roses in the meantime:

From an Italian virginal of 1672
More information on this instrument

From a French harpsichord of 1683
More information on this instrument

The small hole in the upper right corner of the Zuckermann virginal is not a rose; a small toolbox with its cover lies in this corner, and the hole lets the player lift the cover off.