‘Hold-downs’: these are found only on Latin-American clavichords of type 3, that is, instruments with several straight bridges arranged at right angles to the front and back walls of the instrument. The hold-downs are wooden bars, attached to the soundboard to the right of the bridges, and drilled with small holes through which the wires pass on their way from the bridges to the tuning pins. Their purpose is to hold the wires in firm contact with the bridges. These hold-downs are not found on historical clavichords made in Europe: there are indeed two surviving sixteenth-century clavichords from Naples (Italy) which have ‘pressure bars’ which serve the same purpose (Nos. 2 and 3 in the Grassi Museum, Leipzig), but those bars are attached to the case sides, whereas on the Latin-American instruments the hold-downs are attached to the soundboard itself.

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