170 LECTURES TO SCIENCE TEACHERS. 



pure chords, vitiated and made dissonant by more ordinary 

 instruments. I admit that my own sense of hearing was 

 incorrect at first. I did not like these purely consonant 

 untempered instruments. When I first heard Perronet 

 Thompson's organ, I thought the intervals were what tuners 

 would call " too keen." I was accustomed to the universal 

 dulling, dumbing of the scale which one hears from an equally 

 tempered instrument, all the notes being thrown a little out 

 of tune ; but if you go and sit beside this harmonium, after a 

 little while, when the first effect of novelty is worn off, you will 

 come to like it very much indeed. Our senses are more or 

 less injured by long practice with the other system, and 

 therefore Mr. Bosanquet, I believe, wishes it to be employed 

 by composers to get combinations, to see what they can use in 

 proper intonation, and afterwards arrange for instrumental 

 performance of them by other means. It is intended more 

 to manufacture music upon than for performance. 1 



Mr. Colin Brown is here himself, and he will correct me if 

 he wishes, but I hope he will not disagree with what I say, 

 that he aims at a slightly different object ; namely, at getting 

 just intonation in the simplest fashion, and with the least 

 complicated keyboard by which it can be obtained. 2 His 

 keyboard is by no means so elaborate as Mr. Bosanquet's, and 

 is therefore more suitable for accompanying purposes. This 

 it seems to me is a very excellent direction to take. We 

 must make a compromise. Absolute truth is not to be had 

 here ; we shall never be able to obtain elaborate execution on 

 instruments like Mr. Bosanquet's or Perronet Thompson's, 

 but here is a harmonium which I believe can be learned in 

 a short time, and which is in some respects even easier to 

 learn than the ordinary keyboard ; yet you can produce upon 

 it just intonation to a very considerable if not to the last 

 possible degree. Mr. Brown has in this particular har- 

 monium twenty-nine sounds to the octave ; some which are 

 now making (for this is only an experimental instrument, 

 intended to try the arrangement), but which have been delayed 

 by the illness of the workman, will have thirty-two sounds 

 to the octave, and the whole scale can be completed if 



1 For a more detailed account of this instrument, with a diagram of 

 the keyboard, see Appendix I., kindly contributed by ilr. Bosanquet 

 himself. 



2 See Appendix II. 



