Decorations and Designs by Keith Hill

Decorations and Designs by Keith Hill

I have probably done more than 150 versions of this soundboard decoration over the last 33 years. Each version has gotten me closer to achieving the degree of competency I can observe in the masterful decoration made on the 1769 Taskin in Edinburgh. This one was done in 1987 when I was about half way there. Its okay but doesn't have nearly the dimensionality of the original. I have since discovered how to apply the portamento techniques (which you can read about at musicalratio.com) to all my paintings, which makes them far more fun to look at.

The design feature which I contributed in this photo is the stand. I got the idea from one that is in Brussels but was different in where the "T" is placed. This design allows the location of the leg on the treble side of the instrument to be placed at the golden section of the surface of the cheek from front to the bentside corner.

This decoration is based on the Vater harpsichord in the Germanishes National Museum in Nürmberg, Germany.

This was my first Chinoiserie done in 1977 on my Opus 47. It was during working on this decoration that I discovered the manner in which most of the ancients worked. That is, they reduced almost every detail to a cliche'. By learning the cliches, one could then recombine them in a myriad of possible compositions, each one being unique and perfectly competent. It was after this discovery that I got ahold of a translation of the 16th century Chinese treatise on painting called the "Mustard Seed Garden", published by Yale University Press. In it was revealed a totally cliche approach to the teaching of the art of painting, with five or six pages each devoted to things like leaves, rocks, branches, trees, etc. This confirmation of my earlier discovery has allowed me to be as creative as I desire to be yet remain within, rather strictly, a tradition of instrument making and decoration and create totally new combinations of basic and traditional cliches in my instrument making designs and decorations. In my opinion, the desire to be original is one of the major sources of mediocrity and incompetence in the arts today. I believe it is a result of having no language that viewers can immediately understand and read in modern paintings and decorations. Viewers are forced to learn a new language with every new painter who tries to be original. The result is viewer indifference. A disaster in any art. By sticking with visual cliches which viewers can relate to, the originality stems from the quality work and the unique personality of the painter, not his or her notions.

This is a clavicytherium or upright harpsichord. It was inspired by Albertus Delin in Brussels from the 18th century. The decoration however is inspired by Chinese decorations and paintings. Though you can't see it from this painting, the lid opens in the middle to suggest a sine wave when fully open. Each interior panel is decorated with subjects from Chinese paintings. On the bass side lid panel there is painted a tiger which almost fills the entire panel. One the treble side lid panel is one of Roosters.