HISTORY OF MUSICAL SCALES. 485 



anil is too short to reach the lower end. Then, necessarily, the holes 

 to lie tinge red are located at the middle or ujiper end of the tube, but 

 the holes are so small that the pitch of the resultinj>- notes is much 

 lower than the position of the holes would suggest, so the discrepancy* 

 to the ear is not as great as to the e^-e. In other cases the length is 

 misleading, for the holes are bored obliquely or holes are bored in the 

 tube below the holes to be lingered, thereby raising and adjusting the 

 pitch of the lowest note, as Mahillon shows in the Brussels catalogue 

 (Nos. 830, 1039, HIT, 1119, and 1123) and Villoteau shows on his Plate 

 c c, No. 1. This is a possible explanation of the superfluous holes in 

 the flute on the statue from the ruins of Susa (Plate 2, lig. 1), if the 

 figure be accepted as archaeological ly correct. In modern instru- 

 ments, as is well known, the distant holes are controlled Iw covers at 

 the ends of long levers. 



The relation of the instruments of the resonator t3'pe to the hand is 

 too obvious to need discussion; the objects must be of such size and 

 shape as to l)e held ]\v the hand or l\v two hands while the fingers are 

 manipulated, and the holes must be conveniently located and small 

 enough to be closed by the tips of the lingers, or in the Chinese hiue7i 

 also by the thumbs. 



It is rather surprising to see how little the thumb is used in plajnng 

 upon the instruments under consideration. Although from its anatom- 

 ical structure the thumb has a peculiar independence in its movements, 

 3'et most of its services are rendered })y cooperation with the other fin- 

 gers; and the natural training of these, as in grasping, sewing, weav- 

 ing, or the most delicate savage industries, appears likewise to call for 

 their cooperation, not for independent action. It is only in playing 

 instruments like the lyre and harp (whose tuning depends on princi- 

 ples outside the instrument, and so they do not belong to the present 

 discussion) that one sees a grasping action requiring two or more fin- 

 gers at once. But in the guitars, flutes, etc., under consideration, the 

 thumb is constantly occupied in merely supporting the instrument, so 

 an}' variation in the pitch of the sound can come only as the other fin- 

 gers become independent in action. When we remember how diflicult 

 it is for a civilized piano-player or typewriter to-day to acquire a sat- 

 isfactory independence in movement of all the fingers, especially of 

 the third and fourth, and recall that the earh' instruction-books for 

 the harpsichord required the use of but two fingers on each hand, we 

 shall have a higher respect for the technique of primitive musicians, 

 and shall not wonder that primitive wind instruments have so few 

 holes. Presumably the index finger first gained independence, and then 

 it marked a long advance when two fingers could act independently of 

 one another. So the four-hole flute or resonator, requiring the action 

 of two fingers from each hand, and giving a scale of five tones, is a 

 monument commemorating an important stage both in the development 

 of the hand and in the extension of musical resources. 



