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55% 
and a little below the level of the present, 
short keys, 1s to prevent collision or auk- 
wardness to the fingers when so many 
more short keys are added., IT do not 
think any material . inconvenience or 
difficulty could arise from this construc- 
tion, as to the disposition of the wires. 
And if not, [think it would, as far as it 
goes, be preferable topedals for the 
reasons assigned by Mr. L’'arey aud Mr. 
Merrick, 
Performed as I have been accustomed 
to hear it, any performer, or hearer, 
would ‘be content indeed with this most 
delightful instrument as itis. But that 
is no reason against any possible advan- 
tage to so exquisite and noble an instru- 
ment. And no one would te bound-to 
‘use the additional keys employed for this 
purpose. That the same notes on the 
scale should be brought so much nearer 
to be in unison with other instruments, 
and with the voice, where unison is in- 
tended, does not seem to be an inconsi- 
derable object either for correctness or 
gratification. Ninety musical sounds 
instead of sixty-one the common com- 
pass, and so on in proportion where the 
extent Is greater, seem to me worth 
Eamiung, 
If, however, I have erred I am very 
willing to be corrected. 
I agree in the hint that semitone is not 
proper to express a short key, though 
used for the purpose cf scunding the 
Principalsemitones, Bat it is a common 
and convenient synecdoche, and deceives 
NO one; as we say on seeing a mile-stone 
there is another mile: using the certain 
sign for the thing itself signified. Any 
otherwise interval, is not proper; fur the 
Keys, or touches, G, A, B, D, G, are not 
intervals, but signs of termini, or in- 
Strumental limits, which command in- 
tervals in music; and between them 
are intervals definite and indefinite, re- 
ducible and irreducible, sensible and 
‘insensible, to the human ear; but as 
marking the intervals between these de- 
terminate musical sounds, they have ac- 
“quired a name from that which they thus 
express, And thus ‘ Note” as the sign 
Yor symbol of a certain musical sound, is 
used without any danger of misleading, 
for the sound itself: and we say those 
are sweet notes ;+=that note is too sharp, 
‘that too flat. 
I never imagined that without pedals 
T could practically introduce such an 
encreased extent of the scale of the sep- 
‘tant, or septave, as should. make the 
Oigan, Harpsichord, or Piano, complete 
in this respect, and should save all tem- 
‘ 
: 6 
Plan of the improving the Piano-Forte. « 
[July ty 
perament. Bat I thought, and think,, 
it very desirable to introduce so many 
as should include all the most requisite 5 
especially if this can be effected without 
dividing the short keys, which-are suffie 
ciently narrow, and without encreasing 
the distance trom the performer on the. 
extreme keys. ‘The difficulty arising from, 
the number of keys would be much less 
to be regarded in the present so highly 
improved system of fingering, A very 
young lady has done me the honour of 
saying, that she thought this difficulty 
would be soon overcome. 1), 
I have never had an opportunity o 
seeing any of the instruments mentioned, 
so as to examine the mechanism: though 
I have heard one of them, the Temple 
Organ, even when a child, with ex- 
ceeding delight, when I went with my 
father, and it was played by StanLEy. 
Iam always obliged when referred to 
so admirable a writer as Rousseau, 
The passage had not occurred to my res 
collection. With Dorn's and Mr. Max- 
well’s Tracts I am wholly unacquainted, 
Town I should much like the introduce 
tion of colour’d keys; both for distincs 
tion and convenience, if the short keys 
were much increased, and as illustrating 
to the eye the beautiful discovery of New 
tox, of the harmony and coincidence 
between the musical and audible scales 
between prismatic colours and musical’ 
sounds. Dr. Fran«vin had the rims of 
his glasses coloured on this principle, in 
his Harmonica. 
The Rev. Mr. Charles Smith knows 
my great respect and esteein for him, 
He will allow me to mention another as 
at least a convenient cause of the bass 
being the upper part in the ancient scale, 
contvary to what it is considered by us, 
It is known that their principal instru. 
ment, the lyre, had its grave strings to 
the right, and its acute to the left. 
A person of the name of Riiey, whe 
travelled for seventeen years with a 
- double octave of musical bells, on which 
he had taught himself to play, disposed 
the bass to his right and the treble to his 
left ; probably because the bass required, 
when he began the practice, a greater 
force of percussion than he could other- 
wise well manage; of which the right 
hand, as being most exercised, is most 
capable. He died about March, 1806, 
on the road in’ Glouééstershire, about 
56 years old. He was’ the son of the 
parisheclerk of St. Mary, Cambridgei 
{Te was not unworthy of being thus tar 
remembered. He played with two 
sticks covered with cloth, not unlike 
te 
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