This Clavichord is a Well-Tempered Project

The Clavichord needs no introduction to fans of Early Music, and a lengthy one to literally everyone else. Even classical music buffs who have heard of Bach’s works for the …. This Clavichord is a Well-Tempered Project.

[Ian Summers] has an excellent guide on how he built his, though be warned that that link goes to a PDF and the SSL certificate was having problems as of this writing. [Ian]’s Clavichord isn’t a pure reproduction of a historical example, which makes it unusual in the world of Early Music where most obsess over authenticity. That means [Ian] was able to document his design decisions and why he built the instrument the way he did.

There are two octaves and ten strings, which means each string is expresses two or three notes since this instrument is fully chromatic– that means there are ‘dark’ keys for the sharps/flats. There’s enough meat in the guide, and the instrument is simple enough that we suspect it would be easy enough to adapt the design to make it with extruded plastic or laser-cut parts, like this Zither.