The instrument
Jean-Baptiste De Laborde, a jesuit priest, created the Clavessin Electric in 1759 and described the instrument in his 1761 publication, Le clavessin électrique. It is one of the earliest documented instruments that used electricity to create musical sound. An original is in the Bibliothèque nationale de France. The instrument of the smem is a replica by Guy-Philippe Ayer, Professor of Electronic Instruments at the Freiburg Conservatory, 2009.
Details
The Clavessiin is a carillon type keyboard instrument using a static electrical charge to vibrate metal bells. It is supplied by a Leyden Jar, an early form of capacitor invented by the Dutch scientist Pieter van Musschenbroek of Leiden around 1745. The mechanism based on a contemporary warning-bell device to audibly warn an experimenter of the presence of an electrical charge was described to Benjamin Franklin in Boston in 1746. A number of bells, two for each pitch, hang from iron bars along with their clappers, one for each pair. A generator charges the main conductor and the iron bars. The musician presses a key and one of the bells of the corresponding pair is earthed and cut off from the charge source. The clapper then swings back and forth between the earthed bell and the charged bell, producing the desired tone.