September io, 1891^ 



NATURE 



447 



the instruments described by Helmholtz, and his voluminous 

 commentator, the late Dr. Ellis ; and the efforts in the 

 same direction of Mr. Colin Brown, and of Mr. Bosanquet, 

 who has devoted much attention to the matter, are 

 worthy of all praise. But my object now is to describe 

 the latest attempt of the kind, by a native of Japan, 

 Dr. Shohe Tanaka. Persons who have lately had to do 

 with that country have been well aware, not only of the 

 natural ingenuity of the Japanese, but of the high stand- 

 ing which many of their youth have taken in scientific 

 studies. Dr. Tanaka combines these two qualifications. 

 After an industrious preliminary education in his own 

 country, he went to Berlin, where he has been for five 

 years studying physical and mechanical science under 

 the best professors, and with these he has combined also 

 a study of music. He has published, in the Viertel- 

 jahrsschrift fiir Mtisikwisscnschaft for 1890, a long essay 

 on the subject generally, which fully demonstrates his 

 knowledge of it ; and he appears to have made a very 

 favourable impression in Germany. He exhibited his 

 '■• Enharmonium," as it was called, to the Emperor and 

 Empress, and he produces testimonials from many 

 musicians of the highest rank, among whom are Joachim, 

 Von Biilow, Reinecke, Richter, Fuchs, Moszkowski, the 

 whole staff of the Leipzig Conservatoire of Music, and 

 many others. These not only speak highly of the instru- 

 ment, but (in strong contrast to the English authorities) 

 earnestly support and recommend the object it is pro- 

 posed to serve. Indeed, some of the testimonials are 

 essays on the advantage of the cultivation of pure intona- 

 tion. Von Biilow especially says : — 



" I have requested the maker to make me such an 

 enharmonium for my personal use at home. I am 

 earnestly desirous to protect myself during the few re- 

 maining years of the exercise of my art against constantly 

 possible relapses into already conquered errors. In order 

 to make pure music it is necessary to think in pure tones. 

 It is de facto the practically insuppressible conventional 

 pianoforte-lie to which nearly all corruptions of hearing 

 may be traced." 



With these credentials the inventor has brought a 

 sample of his instrument for examination in England, 

 and I may proceed to give some idea of what it is like. 



The great object to be aimed at is facility of perform- 

 ance. It is in this respect that most of the former instru- 

 ments have failed ; the multitude of notes has generally 

 required a new kind of clavier, or the manner of manipu- 

 lating them has been so complicated and difficult as to 

 require a special learning attended with much trouble. The 

 present instrument is a harmonium of five octaves, having a 

 key-board modelled precisely on the usual pattern and size. 

 Dr. Tanaka has greatly simplified the problem by adopt- 

 ing the transposing system, often adopted with pianofortes. 

 Whatever key the music is in, it is played in the simplest 

 of all keys, the key of C, and by means of a bodily shifting 

 of the key-board to the right or left, it is set so as to act in 

 the key required. It is, in fact, the principle used in the 

 horn tribe ; the horn or trumpet player reads and plays his 

 music in the key of C, and the transposition of this to 

 the key required is previously arranged as a part of the 

 mechanism of the instrument ; or, rather, as the author 

 puts it, the music may be read and played on the tonic 

 sol-fa system, and he might have adopted its symbols 

 if he had not feared it would be too startling a change. 



The points in which the new key-board differs from the 

 ordinary one are, that the black keys are divided, some 

 into two and some into three parts, and one additional 

 shorter and narrower black key is introduced between 

 the E and F white keys. This arrangement gives twenty 

 notes, which sufiace for modulating into a reasonable 

 number of keys with sharp signatures. 



To provide for modulations into keys with flat sig- 

 natures, since these and the sharp modulations are not 



NO. II 41, VOL. 44] 



both wanted at the same time, six of the notes can be 

 instantaneously changed for the purpose, at any time, in 

 a manner hereafter explained. 



The whole of the keys are well under the hand, and, 

 if the performer knows which note he ought to use, he 

 can take it in any usual chord without difficulty. 



Fig. I represents one octave of the key-board as 

 arranged for the key of C, with provision for modulating 

 into keys with sharps. 



U G# ^ 



Fig. I. — As arranged for modulation into keys with shan :s. 



In order to explain the exact intonation or musical 

 position of the notes, the author adopts a notation al- 

 ready pretty well known — namely, when the letter indicat- 

 ing a note has no line above or below it, it is intended to 

 correspond with what may be called the " Pythagorean " 

 position of that note, which is given by a succession of 

 fifths upwards from C as a base. If the letter has a 

 stroke below it — thus, E — it is a comma below that posi- 

 tion ; and if the stroke is above— thus, Eb— it is a comma 

 above that position. Two strokes below— thus, Cj^— 



indicate two commas below. 



Now, in the first place it will be seen that the ordinary 

 seven white keys indicate the seven ordinary notes of the 

 major scale of C, according to the intonation usually 

 understood, i.e. the major triads on the tonic, dominant, 

 and subdominant, being perfectly in tune. 



But as, for certain harmonies, variations of some 

 of these notes are required, there are four alternative 

 small white notes, D, E, G, and A, placed at the near ex- 

 tremity of four of the black ones. For example, the note 

 D is the one required to make the true minor third 



or the true fifth 



The position of the keys for the sharp notes, and also 

 their intonations, will be seen in the figure. F| and C| 

 each require alternative values, a comma distant from 

 each other, and these are obtained by dividing the black 

 keys in the manner formerly practised with some organs 

 in this country. 



It will be seen that there are in all twenty effective 

 finger keys, each sounding a separate note. 



When it is requisite to modulate into keys with flats, 

 the above arrangement will not answer ; and the neces- 

 sary change is made by a lever placed conveniently 

 for being worked by the knee of the player, like the swell 

 of a harmonium. 



