MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS, AUTOMATIC. 



C15 



4. A series of small levers or fingers com- operation was by clock-work, together with a 

 bined with slotted paper the levers or fingers jack or winch, acting on levers. The bellows 



passing through the apertures to operate di- 

 rectly the valve of an organ, or to strike the 

 notes of a piano or other instrument where 

 the sound is obtained by a blow. To this class 

 be referred the organista, harmonium, 



ma 



cabinet orguinette, organina, and ariston 

 5. A system in which a metallic finger or 



were worked by either the feet or hands. The 

 inventor's desire was to afford a means for 

 producing music especially on the organ for 

 church service. In 1842 Seytre, of France, 

 who is acknowledged to be the pioneer of pre- 

 paring music on slotted paper, produced an 

 instrument consisting of a square box, on the 



point is used to pass through the slots in the top of which was a disk of paper, carefully 



t -- ruled with radii from center to circumference, 



like the spokes of a wheel. There were also 

 concentric circles intersecting the radii and 

 forming a scale. There could be but one tune 



music-sheet to make an electrical connection 

 for magnetically or pneumatically performing 

 on a musical instrument. 

 6. The addition to the finger-levers operated 



by the slots of the music-sheet or tablet, of to a disk, and it was begun and ended in one 



mechanical connections acting upon the valves turning of the sheet. On the circles in the 



of pneumatic apparatus, the pneumatics oper- disk were cut slots differing in length and rep- 



ating in turn the keys of the instrument. To resenting the notes of music. When the disk 



this class belong the French pianista and the 

 orgauiste-me"canique. 



7. A system employing a narrow music-sheet 

 with either very small perforations or slots, for 

 the passage of air directly operating peculiar 

 sensitive pneumatic motors without 

 the intervention of fingers. It em- 

 braces pneumatic apparatus wherein 

 is employed the principle of atmo- 

 spheric counterpoise, and a system 

 of appliances for obviating mechani- 

 cal effects, securing expression, and 

 producing artistic music. 



Although inventors and mecha- 

 nicians have been at work in this 

 department of music for many years, 

 progress has been slow, and com- 

 paratively little advance made since 

 the beginning of the present century. 

 Even until within the last decade 

 no instrument of this kind had been 

 made of sufficient merit to attract any con- 

 siderable amount of public attention, or stimu- 

 late such a demand for it as had arisen from 

 the improvements in musical instruments gen- 

 erally. In Germany, France, and England, 

 orchestrions and hand-organs had attained a 

 considerable degree of excellence, but the 

 great weight and size of the cylinders either 

 necessitated a limited range of music or ren- 

 dered them- unfit for any place other than 

 public halls or places of like large dimen- 

 sions. Inasmuch as there are no patent-laws in 

 Switzerland, and never have been, but all in- 

 ventions are for the common good, it is ex- 

 tremely difficult to get official or even authentic 

 proofs of the early history of musical mechan- 

 ics. The famous Swiss watches were world- 

 wide in their celebrity, but the various invent- 

 ors never enjoyed any royalty under Swiss 

 law. We can trace them, with the cuckoo- 

 clock and bird-organ, the orchestrion, musical 

 birds and boxes, and works of a similar kind, 

 to the Swiss mountains and the Black Forest, 

 but there we must stop. 



In 1731 Justinian Morse exhibited in Lon- 

 don a pricked or grooved board, representing 

 the different notes of music. His method of 



revolved the slots either acted upon levers 

 for operating the valves of the sounding de- 

 vices, or served for the passage of air to pro- 

 duce the tone directly. In the latter case the 

 uncut portions of the disk acted as a cut-off. 



Music Disk. 



Music Belt. 



8EYTKE SYSTEM, 1842. 



In the specification referring to the Seytre 

 instrument is also shown and described the 

 slotted sheet in the form of an endless belt 

 stretched over two cylinders, one on either 

 side of the music-chest. The belt of slotted 

 paper was drawn forward by means of pegs 



BAIN SYSTEM, 1847. A, music-sheet; B, reed action; C, 

 air-way. 



in the ends of the cylinders, which passed 

 through small holes in the margins of the 

 belt. In 1847 Alexander Bain, of Scotland, 

 obtained a patent for the further application 

 of a sheet of slotted paper or other flexible 



