Spinet
A small plucked keyboard instrument with strings running diagonally to the keyboard.
What it means
The spinet is a small plucked keyboard instrument, that is, a keyboard instrument whose strings are plucked with a quill, as on the harpsichord, rather than struck with a hammer, as on the piano. Unlike a straight or wing-shaped harpsichord, its strings run diagonally to the keyboard, usually in an acute-angled, wing- or pentagon-shaped case.
This design makes the spinet considerably more compact than a harpsichord, though at the cost of a smaller range and lower volume.
Musical use
The spinet was popular especially from the sixteenth to the eighteenth century as a domestic instrument, for private music-making, learning to play keyboard, or accompanying songs, while larger harpsichords served more representative and concert purposes.
Like the harpsichord, the spinet has only one fixed striking strength per key and cannot vary volume through touch; dynamic nuance arises at most through articulation and ornamentation.
The spinet should be distinguished from the harpsichord in the narrower sense, which is larger, often has several registers and manuals, and sounds louder, and from the virginal, another small plucked keyboard instrument, usually with a rectangular case and strings running crosswise to the keyboard.
Performance practice
Since the spinet has no touch-based dynamics, shape phrasing and expression through articulation, ornamentation, and minimal timing rather than varying the force of touch. Note the instrument's smaller but intimate sound world compared with the harpsichord.