Jay Garden
Renaissance architecture and Western music share a common foundation: proportion, balance, and mathematical order. During this period, both fields moved away from medieval complexity toward clarity, symmetry, and tonal harmony.1. From Verticality to BalanceWhile Gothic architecture reached upward through jagged spires and dense complexity, the Renaissance shifted attention back toward...
Jay Garden
The final chapter of this series leads us to the clavichord—the most intimate and, in many ways, the most modern of early keyboard instruments.While the harpsichord filled grand halls, the clavichord—too quiet for such spaces—belonged to the private room, the practice space, and the study.How It WorksUnlike the harpsichord, which...
Jay Garden
A First EncounterBefore the piano took center stage, music was carried by many different voices—some delicate, some bright, some quietly expressive. The recorder is one of them.In my first semester studying piano performance at a conservatory, I took a class on Renaissance music. On the first day, a classmate introduced...