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Spinets as harpsichords[edit]

Performed on a spinet by Ulrich Metzner

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The spinet was later developed into the spinettone ("big spinet") by Bartolomeo Cristofori (1655–1731), the inventor of the piano. The spinettone incorporated multiple choirs of strings, with a disposition of 1 x 8', 1 x 4', and used the same ingenious mechanism for changing stops that Cristofori had earlier used for his oval spinet. The spinettone was a local success among the musicians of the Medici court (Montanari 2002), and Cristofori eventually built a total of four of them.[1]

Modern bentside spinet built by Clavecins Rouaud, Paris


Other uses of "spinet" for harpsichords[edit]


A pentagonal spinet from 1577; 49 keys





A dumb spinet is a manichord or "clavichord or clarichord," according to the 1913 edition of Webster's Dictionary.

Spinets as pianos[edit]

The spinet piano, manufactured from the 1930s until recent times, was the culmination of a trend among manufacturers to make pianos smaller and cheaper. It served the purpose of making pianos available for a low price, for owners who had little space for a piano. Many spinet pianos still exist today, left over from their period of manufacture.

The defining characteristic of the spinet was its drop action (sometimes called indirect blow action). In this device, the keys did not engage the action directly; rather they pulled upward on rods called "stickers," which in turn pulled upward on levers located below the level of the keyboard, which in turn engaged the action. The stickers were sufficiently long that the hammer heads (the highest part of the action) ended up at roughly the same vertical level as the keyboard.

Thanks to the drop action, spinet pianos could be made very small; the top of a spinet rose only a few inches above the level of the keyboard itself. However, according to piano author Larry Fine,[2] the cost in quality was considerable. The stickers were "often noisy and troublesome." Moreover, to make room for them, the keys had to be made shorter, resulting in "very poor leverage" and thus a poor sense of touch and control for the player. Lastly, the very short strings of the spinet resulted in a narrow range of harmonics and thus in poor tone quality.

The spinet was also the bane of piano technicians. Concerning the difficulty of servicing them, Fine writes, "Spinets ... are very difficult to service because even the smallest repair requiring removal of the action becomes a major ordeal. Each of the connecting stickers has to be disconnected and tied up to the action and all the keys have to be removed from the piano before the action can be lifted out." However, not all Spinets had this design; some utilized a method of making a railing for the rods to terminate sticker connection to the keys. This is commonly found on older Baldwins and Wurlitzers, and is more accurate and far easier to service.


According to piano historian Arthur Loesser (reference below), the first spinet piano was offered to the public in May 1935, by an American manufacturer Loesser does not identify. The instrument was initially a success, being the only kind of piano that many people could afford in the depths of the Great Depression. (According to Loesser, the price could be less than $300, "about twenty-five percent lower than ... a small upright of 1924.") Loesser notes that the spinet was not entirely new, as very small pianos had been manufactured at various times in the 19th century.

After the 1930s, many people still continued to purchase spinets; a 1947 study showed that about 50 percent of all pianos sold during that production year were pianos strung vertically of 37 inches in height or less.[3] The spinet enjoyed decades of popularity after the 1930s, but production of the spinet was halted in the early 1990s. Despite the shortcomings of the Spinet, they are still an option for a 'starter piano'; they offer the touch and resonance of an actual piano, something that inexpensive electronic keyboards usually fail to provide.

Spinets as organs[edit]


  1. ^ Source for this paragraph except as noted: Kottick (2003, 213-214)
  2. ^ Fine, Larry (2001) The Piano Book (4th ed. Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts: Brookside Press, 2001; ISBN 1-929145-01-2)
  3. ^ http://bluebookofpianos.com/spin1947.htm


Harpsichord spinet[edit]

Piano spinet[edit]

  • Loesser, Arthur [1954] (1991). Men, Women, and Pianos: A Social History. New York: Dover Publications. Originally New York: Simon and Schuster, 1954.

External links[edit]