FIGURE I.
(4 Octave, 1878.)
Manual of First Instrument. Non-Cyclic. Abandoned.
In order to proceed with this series, it is absolutely necessary to tighten up one or two screws which the Editor - not being a piano-tuner, I suppose! - has, after all, left dangerously loose. Of course there must have been something in my letter to the Editor which gave him the impression that I had found "at last" - Italics mine - "that perfect tune is not what the musical soul desires;" but the idea must here be disclaimed. While I do not wish to be known as a "writer on the purity of musical intonation," if that ever means, as it is sure to mean with some readers, a hair-splitter and stickler for impossibilities of perfect tune, because such an impression is detrimental to my work of teaching the real numerical laws of Tune - still, for the same reason, I cannot deny that perfect tune, as perfect as possible, is what every musical soul desires (and the more musical the soul the greater the desire), whether this perfection refers to the more consonant chords or to those less consonant called musical dissonances. Yet we cannot, whether in much vocal or much instrumental music, realize perfection of tune; and this for varous reasons, some well known and others not well known.
It has been said that "no man has ever been so delightfully inconsistent as Ruskin (who indeed that sees two sides to a question can be otherwise?)" omitting the adverb, however, in my own case, I too must often appear inconsistent in attempting to present the merits and demerits of both "perfect intonation" - so called - and our uncial chromatic scale, which is quite imperfect intonation so far as harmonies are concerned - this imperfection residing almost entirely, however in the Quincal and Septal elements of tune, and not in the Fifths and Fourths, which represent the Trial element; and yet, stranges as it may seem to those who only begin to study intonation, music played in the tones of the uncial scale has a certain kind of melodic virtue - in certain intervals of progression, which, however, are necessary to complete a tonal system suitable for a large portion of rapid music - which special melodic virtue would be impossible in any other tonal system, whether tempered, practically perfect, or absolutely perfect; the term perfect here referring to individual chords and not to intervals connecting them, which latter cannot be always perfect nor always very nearly so in any tonal system.
Writers on "perfect intonation" seen to have generally failed in being able to accord justice to the uncial scale, which has become so universal in all chromatic instruments in the last two or three generations. The late Henry Ward Poole, whose first published work seems to have been his "Essay on Perfect Intonation," in the American Journal of Science, 1850, could say no good thing of the equal any more than for any other musical temperament, but regarded it as an evil only, even for rapid music. Other writers also, including the late Dr. Helmholtz, seem never - owing largely perhaps to the want of complete instruments for making the comparison - to have recognized this peculiar merit of uncial music, but have variously taught or intimated that such a tempered scale might possibly be dispensed with, and that perfect intonation, or something practically the same, might sometime be substituted. This only shows to me - and I sincerely take no pleasure in knowing it - that the natural laws of our musical intonation have been encompassed by either acousticians or musical mathematicians: and this because, while their scientific attention has been divided between various matters, I have had nothing under the sun to do for nearly twenty years but - to suffer the loss of all things for this unrecognized and unnamed branch of science, which has thus become a part and parcel of myself ; and I do not desire even a kingdom of heaven which shuts out, or stigmatizes, or fails to encourage true science, and especially a branch so wholesome and desirable as this one!
On the other hand, those writers who defend our uncial scale against its opposers oppose the idea of perfect intoation in toto as something visionary, impracticable, and even unnecessary, undesirable, and so on; and numerous cultivated musicians of the present time, I believe, incline to think that uncial major Thirds, for example, which are seven nils larger than natural (4:5), are, after all, just what music, all music, needs, including, I must supposer, the chords in reed and pipe instruments! But musical ears easily find those sharpened Thirds offensive in harmony. I found them so in the perfectly correct uncial scale of a new reed instrument, in the very early life, though I knew nothing of the very existence of musical temperament then. I found these Thirds too high, and not as we all sung them; while in the accordeon and little mouth organ, when new (poor-toned little things, however), they were harmonious and satisfactory. I knew of no reason then why Thirds in the twelve-tones scale shoould not be tuned inthe same harmonious manner as in the seven-toned scale; but did not inquire much into it, and such inquiry at that time could not have been rich in results.
Although the ear appreciates true harmony, and while we can easily reach it quite satifactory both with voices and, in a limited way, with the simple instruments which possess little or no modulation, it has been one of the most difficult problem and one which has long exercised numerous minds, to devise mechanical means for gaining, both satisfactory harmony and satisfactory modulation in an instrument of fixed tones. And it was not indeed as easy a century ago, for instance, to do this as it might be now; yet the prevalence of the uncial scale in our century and the kind of musical education it has engendered seem to detract attention from the idea.
It has never been very paying work for anyone, either in thanks or money. But I wanted to hear and allow others to hear how certain music would sound in true harmony and modulation; besides, this would show the value of this kind of knowledge. I did not wish to write much about it till I could make a good instrument - a keyboard for which I had already invented and well developed - and I wished, I longed, I struggled, I prayed, I - don't know what I did, in years that are fled, that the musical public might simply believe in my ability as a tuner sufficiently to let me earn the means sufficiently to build one good instrument. But they mostly thought me a visionary, and I made a bare subsistance from the patronage of a small "cycle" who understood my ability a little better. The humiliations - let them not be mentioned, only to say that they wore on me much more than all the continual and wholesome work of both mind and body; and I wonder now how I ever made these elaborate instruments, mechanic though I was never! The last, largest, and far the best one of the four attempts is with me now, though much of the time in these nine years it has been for various reasons stored away or otherwise out of my sight. In moods of despair of being in a condition to go on with my real and proper work of teaching the nature of Tune, I have more than once offered to sell this last and best, and even once gave it to a University; but through some mistake, my foolish offer was not understood, and I got my instrument and my common sense back again - both of which, I hope, will now stay with me till I get through with them. It being in an unusually large-sized cabinet organ case, as was necessary for its upright air-chest, it has thus been somewhat of an elephant to a man subject to removals. A permanent home, however, with doors and stairways not too narrow, would have overcome the difficulty.
The history of the genesis of these keyboards, their manufacture, and that of the equally curious "actions" necessary for them - though I used the usual cabinet organ reeds - together with the history of my continual diligence in unraveling as well as systematizing the whole mathematics of intonation, and by many simplifications and facilities hitherto unknown, would fill a volume too large ever to be read of even understood if read. I have no boasting to do. I am saying only what is true, and the statement may be of use to others; and th emost that I can hope to do in my remaining fourteen years - or less - and I have much feared that this would be left undone - is to leave my work in such a tangible form as to be taken up and utilized by some one else better qualified in some ways to make it known. Yet in this chapter I must give some account of these keyboards.
In searching for something more wholesome than "Tuner's Guide " books, in 1875 or -6, for my enlightenment as a tuner, the first really interesting find was the early essay of Poole above mentioned, that of 1850. It gave me some truth about the magnitudes of Thirds and also - and this was Mr; Poole's special protegé - the Harmonic Seventh (4:7), the ratio number seven and not the diatonic name Seventh suggesting to me the name Septal. It was a remarkable work, especially for a young man of twenty-five, no less so than his and Mr. Alley's Euharmonic Organ therein also described. But the essay gave me also some blinding antagonisms against the uncial scale, which wore away, however, as subsequent studies in the subject went on. But I took more interest in the principals ot Tune there elucidated than in the curious organ; for I wanted knowledge for its own sake, and was not in a situation to interest myself in church organs. This remarkable instrument had the ordinary keyboard, but it had eleven "modulation pedals" whose office was truly wonderful in producing modulations all in pefect harmony, Septal harmony and all. I am familiar with what this instrument could do and with what it could not do, in modulation; but its harmonies were delightful. I speak as if I couuld actually hear it, and it was, in 1850, within half a mile where I now write, though I never did hear it, and it was probably destroyed before I even read of it.
Mr. Poole's subsequent invention of a keyboard I knew nothing of till years afterward, and afterr I had invented and made one. Then when my own first manual (Fig. I.) was almost in sounding order in a reed instrument, I discovered later articles of Poole which - to my utter astonishment - contained a plan for a keyboard, though he had in the first paper even seen fit to discourage the idea of "multiplying the finger keys, which," he wrote, "would augment fearfully the difficulty of correct performance." His plan (or keyboard, and I think he never embodied it in an instrument) was less simple than mine for manufacturing, but I found a certain resemblance between the two, in the manner in which the different series of perfect Fifths ran; but his modulation by Fifths was towards the back of the manual, while mine was, both in that first manual and all my others, towards the front. There was a series of Fifths not then contained in mine, and the latter had one not in his, a series which formed minor Thirds on the same keynote as the major scales (Fig. I., black slim keys.) But this same series added another very important element of modulation not contained in Mr. Poole's keyboard nor in his Euharmonic Organ; and that was a modulation by aa true major Third downward; and this would give also the chord of the augmented Sixth, not provided for by Mr. Poole; for this chord being the same in rationale - though this fact is scarcely known as yet to writers - as the Harmonic Seventh tetrad 4:5:6:7, but in another position, it was impossible on his plans, all of which were made on the principle of absolutely perfect harmony; while, by a very slight compromise, much less than in the uncial Thirds, this augmented Sixth chord was embodied even in this my first and non-cyclical manual.
And now I more than ever wished to find if Mr. Poole were living and to make his acquaintance, but was too busy in making my instrument, and did not find his whereabouts till about a year after. Then at last I learned that he was a brother of the late Dr. Wm. F. Poole of Chicago, and through the latter's kindness I learned that he had been for some years living in the city of Mexico. We corresponded for a year of more, but never met. I remember giving him, in my first letter, much credit and thanks for what I had learned from his first paper years before, but - and I though I was complimenting him in this also - expressed the opinion that he must have outgrown one or two ideas which I had found in his essay (and which I had now outgrown) ; but Mr. Poole still stoutly maintained that the equal semitone scale was only evil, for rapid music as well as slow, and that the diminished Seventh, as a chord, had no existence; and in the whole matter of "passing notes" we could not agree, for even as long ago as then I had become convinced that all musical melody, "passing notes" and all, has a simple vibrational rationale as well as the most consonant harmonices. Our correspondence was little else than fruitless discussion of mutual misunderstandings and errors! although we so largely agreed. Mr. Poole could not favor and did not think necessary any kind of tone cycle for improved intonation. He would have Perfect Intonation pure and simple, and would not tolerate even the Harmonic Seventh in the still slightly imperfect condition in which it must be in the 53-system (between two and three nils sharp.) In figuring upon all sorts of tone cycles myself, from various motives not directly practical, I had found that of 171 as the smallest which could divide the Octave interval so as to give the other three representative intervals perceptibly perfect; and I mentioned this to him, but my impression is that he did not appreciate such investigations. In fact perhaps I had better never let any of my friends know how much plumbago I have used up - because I do not know mathematically! - in figuring tone cycles alone, in those bygone years - though I found the simplest way possible to do so; for if I do, they may wish to know who has ever paid me for it. Yet somehow I do not regret it, and feel just as rich as if I had collected postage stammps instead!
FIGURE I.
(4 Octave, 1878.)
Manual of First Instrument. Non-Cyclic. Abandoned.
While corresponding with Mr. Ellis, some years later, after having made my third instrument, which, like the second, embodied the whole system of 53, he found from some expression of mine that Mr. Poole was still living, and obtained from me his Mexico adress, and had time to exchange a letter or two with him before his second and last English edition of Helmholtz's work was issued. This was is 1885. Over five years later, both passed away with only a week between their deaths; Mr. Ellis, seventy-six, and Mr. Poole, about sixty-five. In certain respects I believe that Poole, although not as scholarly, had a far better perception of Intonation than either Ellis or Helmholtz.
Sometime in 1876, and only a few months after becoming much interested in intonation, I was drawing plans, simple ones at first, for an enharmonic key-board. If in Fig. I. the paris of slim keys be regarded as single keys, and simply representing true major Thirds upon the large white keys - the keys representing Fifths, Fourths and Octaves being of the same style throughout - and if we straighten out the crooks in all the long keys, it will give an idea of one of my first simple plans. The black square keys were Harmonic Sevenths. Before actually making a key board, however, I had made the great modulational improvement by dividing a series. and hence the narrow keys, as in Fig. I. The crooks were for gaining more room between the narrow keys for fingering. The narrow black keys were minor Thirds for the broad keys. I made the keyboard itself in 1878. The keys were blocks of wood working vertically on two metal guide pins.
All this time I had never obtained one inkling of any other enharmonic keyboard, and both Figs. I. and II. are reproduced from the full-sized plans originally made. I only knew that something for the purpose had been made; yet not then knowing that Mr. Poole had ever planned a board, I suppose that mine was the first ever made embodying the Septal element. As it was , it probably came within one of it.
Of course I was greatly delighted with my manual, got cranky over it, and longed to make and instrument for it. For my first and simpler plan I had thought to make a piano, of small compass and with single strings; but soon began to see that a reed or pipe instrument was far more suitable for such a keyboard; and subsequently realize that the uncial scale, after all, is the right intonation for a piano.
I determined to make a reed instrument, for this was much more economical than a pipe instrument, expecially for me - and furthermore I had no acquaintance with pipe organs. I had no money. But was not I soon to be better understood, and thus have more piano tuning than I could do? This I was advancing faster in the knowledge of intonation than of human nature! After much study, I planned the "action" for a reed instrument which would be contained in a case like a cabinet organ. I came across an ingenious young man, Mr. A. O. Alden, who, although he had never then made a reed organ, had studied them much, and has since hade some excellent ones. (Yet who could make an instrument like this which I had planned?) I had the good fortune to engage him for a number of weeks, and then I simply "played second fiddle" to him till that instrument was ready to tune. I believe Mr. Alden was skeptical about my being able to tune the thing, but I happened to be just the one to do it! Without Mr. A., however, I do not think it could ever have been made. But such a reed-board as that was! It seemed necessary to us to make it of hard-wood; three thicknesses glued together crosswise; 240 air-slots to be cut, and Mr. Alden's fingers would get very sore, especially in putting in those 240 valve springs - not once but two or three times over, till every valve pressed safely against the reed board. All was completed; but the very solid walnut case, the hard-wood reed-board, cut through and through with holes, and other unavoidable singularities, made the instrument unmusical as to quality of tone. I had bought my reeds at Worcester, in the rough; voiced them as well as I knew how at that time (but the poor quality of tone was mainly due to the causes above mentioned), and tuned the instrument in practically perfect harmony.
If even that first instrument, whose modulation was limited, as I well knew, had possessed a quality of tone even nearly as good as in the common cabinet organ, I would have made a far better impression with it. It was probably up to that time, the most advanced enharmonic key-board ever made, except Mr. Bosanquet's, which is a complete 53-cyclic manual, which I had now first heard of, as also Mr. Poole's, while making this first instrument. On account of the poor tone quality, while kind friends who loved harmony would praise it, I believe the general impression was that my princibles on improved tune were a failure. And I am sure that my piano-tuning profession was not exalted by it - for the public are simply children in one or two things ; but we must not tell them so!
FIGURE 2.
(5 Octaves. 1881.)
Manual of Second Instrument. Cyclic. Abandoned.
This was finished early in 1879. In 1881, I had developed the key-board plan so as to embody the whole 53-system! (Fig. II.) The final discovery that it could be thus made cyclical was a joyful surprise. I was continually increasing its modulational resources (in paper plans) by adding one series of Fifths after another, modifying the plan so as to squeeze in a new series, till, when at last a seventh series of Fifths was thought of (there were but four in the first manual), each added key having the proper degree number in the 53-system, I noticed that that would make certain intervals meet and just use up the cycle. It was a round-about way to reach this result - there was certainly a shorter way ; yet no one in probability had ever before devised such a plan, which now, in its far better and simpler form, with diamond shaped keys, as in the last instrument, seems to be the most simple and compact possible for a 53-system manual.
FIGURE 3.
Manual of the Latest Instrument.
I can hardly feel to allude to the making of this second instrument (Fig. II.), whose five octave manual was even a little more numerous in keys than Mr. Bosanquet's. I was about a year in the task, and had bad luck with it from beginning to - nearly the end - I did not quite finish it, though I tuned it. But it nearly consigned me to some more harmonious sphere! I took a few days vacation. Then I went to embody some ideas which had been dawning before the unlucky instrument was completed, by which I could now make a much more simple, more practicable and even better-toned instrument, and still embody the whole 53-cyle. To make a long story short, I found how to draw diagonal lines - on the same plan essentially - so as to form the diamond keys as in Fig. III., the keys being thus all precisely alike in size and form, although the seven series of Fifths are all contrasted as much as possible in the color and configuration of the key cap; and on the lower end of this cap, which is a quarter of an inch thick, is a bevel on which the degree number of the cycle is stamped. This bevel leaves the key exactly square on the top, although in the illustration only one series, the black keys, show where the bevel cuts.
This great simplification of the manual, which I embodied in two instruments, Number Three and Number Four, did not render necessary so many duplicate keys as in the former instruments, since, the keys being all equally easy to finger, one could as well be used as a key not as another: and thus I have but three more keys per Octave than there are tones in the cycle, or 56 keys.
Number Three, a very compact little instrument of about 3 1/2 octaves and 195 keys, was made in a few weeks, by using, however, the same rather home-made old case which Mr. Alden had made in his youth for Number One. The peculiar inventions for the inside work of this, as well as of the unsuccessful Number Two, must here be undescribed. But this was the first fairly satisfactory instrument, though to make its practical acquaintance, I needed to learn the art of harmon-playing all over again, on account of the new shape, uniformity, etc, of the keys. Moreover the tops were now all on a level - an idea which I had hesitated to carry out, but all objections against it have vanished. This smallest of my four attempts was subsequently sold to the Professor of Tuning in the New England Conservatory, though not till I had used it over two years, and had made my large Number Four.
This last is the "masterpiece," and probably will always remain so. (Fig. IV.) Neither this surface illustration of the manual nor that of the whole instrument with the fronts removed - can impart a very complete or perfect knowledge of it. The manual is of the same style as the little Number Three, but is exactly four octaves, and is a better piece of work, and the keys work in a more direct and simple manner. But the interior construction is a complete departure from all the former attempts, for in this I had determined to realize an idea long brewing, namely, that of an upright air-chest. The valves and whole action bear a little resemblance to a pipe organ ; but it is impossible to describe it here. I planned it first on paper as well as possible, bought of the Worcester Organ Company a very large and finely built case and a bellows; and that interior work with some hints from Mr. Alden, who was now making reed organs - I made myself, the "stuff" of course being roughed out to my order. How carefully I attended to every particular! - so as not to need overhailing, and scarcely a thing in it has even troubled. The whole work - there are 225 keys - shows what one can do, even out of his proper line, when he must do it; and realizes that if he does not, all creation will be wrecked.
This instrument, although not entirely what I would like, comes much nearer the mark. The harmony is of course just the same as the others: - Trials perfect; Quincals good as perfect, but with a very slow "beat," which is invaluable in tuning the cycle, the variation being onlly about 3/4 of a nil; and Septals between two and three nils sharp, and having a smart beat, yet even thus their peculiar intonation is fairly brought out, which is not the case in the uncial scale, in which they are sixteen nils sharp.
FIGURE 4.
225 Keys and double reeds throughout. The front boards and swell board
are removed, to show the bodies of the keys and the reeds, which are on an up-
right reed-board.
Number Four alone is double-reeded; for I found that with a very little more room on its peculiar upright reed board - made to my order by Hammond, of Worcester - a second set of reeds an octave above the first could be nicely accommodated.
The pleasure of tuning such an instrument - the 450 reeds all before one's eye, like the strings of an upright piano,and all arranged systematically and their places nubered to correspond with the degree numbers in the 53-system, also marked on the bevel of the corresponding finger keys - can only be known to one who is familiar with the laws of beats, and also had so long desired the privilege of tuning the 53-cycle with good facilities. Although not really necessary for practically pure harmony, the intelligent tuner of this instrument can easily get inside of a nil, and far inside of it; and there are various very interesting ways of providing the work of tuning as it progresses, so as to come out straight at the end of the cycle.
This description, however, is far from being as satisfactory to me as is the instrument, but it is true so far as it goes. Mr. Ellis's account of my Number Three, in his last edition of Helmholtz, London, 1885, is not too good, although the best he could do from my letters. The instrument could scarcely become a popular one; it cannot be made very cheaply; the keyboard is the last thing to be "monkeyed" with, it is so easy for the unlearned - which generally means every one, with a single exception! - to bring out, by touching wrong keys which they are sure to do, far more horrible combinations and far more horrible melody(?) than has ever been conceived of or written about historically(?), even though it be wafted from the ends of the earth, or reproduced - in the imagination - from our ever-abuse and insulted ancestors! Yet I do have visitors who, after a little inspection, easily find the real and true music contained so abundantly in the instrument. It could soon be played, however, by the late Mr. Poole, or Mr. Bosanquet, if either could see it. No one of my manuals has ever, to my knowledge, been seen by another inventor of enharmonic manuals. Yes, there is one exception ; but I think he never manufactured a manual from his plan.
The practicability - under my unmusicianly fingers at least - and the beautiful rendering of such solid chord music as constitutes its sphere, would greatly surprise an audience of the harmony-loving; and it is even particularly enjoyed by all who love music; and the joke is, that people are apt to praise the tone , while the tones are not remarkably fine at all. The pure harmony deceives them in that respect. Pipe tones, and even most reed organ tones, are better; for despite everything, there is necessarily too much woodiness etc., in even this last.
In lately reading the "Story of a Musical Life," by the late Dr. Geo. F. Root, whom I never saw, and did not know of his death till I had nearly finished the book,[* Dr. Rood is hale and hearty. - Ed. MUSIC.] I was particularly wishing that he could hear on this instrument some of his own music and also other music more elaborate than he usually composed. With all my appreciation of the uncial scale for its own proper music, I must say that hymnal quartette music is simply spoiled - I don't know of a milder word - by our uncial scale harmony(?)
As to modulation, neither Mr. Poole's organ, nor his keyboards, nor the organs of Liston and of Perronet Thompson, nor the reed instruments of Colin Brown and of Helmholtz, and all others of my knowledge save Bosanquet's, could play the general run of quartette music which this very compact instrument does - and in practically perfect tune.
Yet - and I must say it here - I can not play on either this or any other instrument at sight. I have to read mostly with my ears, though when in doubt of a note I look and ascertain. My father taught me to sing from notes when a child; but, for various reasons I have never become familiar with our terrible notation (although the almost universal language of music and the best yet known). I regret this, of course, in one sense: yet - and let those believe it who can - there is no probability of my ever having otherwise encompassed this whole subject, and it is the thorough master of notation who is the least likely to ever for any conception of intonation.
The Octave interval being, in this instrument, actually cut scientifically into 53 equal intervals, or compomised commas, as we cut it into 12 unces, or compromised semitones, in our uncial scale, admits of the same unlimited modulation as the latter. Can it be played, then, in 53 keys? No; some simple music it can play in twenty or thirty, while some other cannot be played in quite the usual number of keys; and this only because modulation by Fifths of Thirds is always rapidly running toward either the back or the front of the manual - where it would jump off - and some of the tones wanted to fill a chords will be on the opposite side, and therefore cannot be well touched. Continued use, however, enables me, even in some of these exceptional cases, to jump the board, which is less than a foot wide, for the tone or tones wanted. But a case of this kind scarcely need arise; for there is a plenty of desirable key-notes near the middle. Singers, what few I have ever had, are delighted with the ease with which their voices come into its harmony.
Of course it is very difficult for any one to begin to learn to finger the instrument; and hardly any one else has tried to do so; but, as an offset to its peculiar difficulties, there are two great advantages of fingering not existing in the common keyboard. Every similar scale adn every similar chord and interval is precisely alike, in shape, for all the keys. Moreover - and this great advantage is not in Mr. Bosanquet's, though in Poole's, Brown's, and others, all true Fifths, and consequently Fourths, are conspicuous, their digitals being of the very same appearance to the eye. These two advantages are much greater than would be at first supposed. The eye and hand thus become habituated to one and the same act for similar things, regardless of key. The largest part of the work of mastering the common manual is in playing so many keys, and all fingered differently.
I know the immense difference - the almost gulf - between existing musical habits and conceptions and those which are required to do what is possible with a 53-system instrument; and this will partly explain why I surprise some persones by not making the harmon public. I can now only hope to do something, in my remaining years, to make the science of Tune a little better known.