448 



NATURE 



[September io, 1891 



When this is pushed over, the six hindmost black 

 keys are altered from sharps to flats, as shown in Fig. 2. 

 C| and Fjf still remain, and an alternative Bl? and an 

 alternative F are added. This change gives six new 

 notes, so that the total number of sounds used in the 

 octave, for the key of C with its modulations, is twenty-six. 



Fig. 2. — As altered for modulation into keys with flats. 



As a further indication of the exact musical positions 

 of these twenty-six notes, their ratios of vibration with 

 the keynote C, may also be given. And the logarithms 

 of these (here limited, for simplicity, to three places) will 

 represent approximately the height of each note above C. 

 In this scale, an octave is represented by 301, a mean 

 semitone by 25, and a comma by 5. 



Table of the Positions of the various Notes used for the Key of C. 

 Ratio. Logarithm. Ratio. Logarithm. 



C = 1 



273 



143 



Eb = 



Logarithm. 

 - 255 



Bb 



Ratio. 

 16 



Logarithm. 

 .. 250 



79 



204 



28 



153 



*l 



Ratio. 

 9 

 5 

 6 

 5 

 8 

 5 



16 

 15 



45 



This information will enable any student of musical 

 theory to judge of the capability of the instrument to 

 play modern music with just intonation. The great 

 object is, of course, to play the consonant triads, major 

 and minor, in strict tune, and it will be found that the 

 instrument, as above arranged, will play the following 



Major Triads on — 



C, D, E, F, G, A, B, 



F)(, Bi,, Eb, Ab, Db, Gb, 



Minor Triads on — 



C, D, E, F, G, A, B, 



Ff, C% G#, Djf. Kl Bb, 



and some of each in duplicate with a comma variation. 

 These would certainly seem sufficient for all ordinary 

 music in C major or A minor. 



By means of the transposing movement, the key-board 

 can be set upon either of the eleven other keys, for which 

 a similar modulating power is obtained, except in some 

 very remote cases. In order, however, to effect this, ten 

 additional notes are used, making thirty-six in all. But 

 the adaptation of them is entirely automatic, and the 

 mechanism for this purpose constitutes one of the chief 

 novelties of the invention. 



This is the provision for the purpose by the manu- 

 facturer. Now, let us see what the. perfortner has to do. 



In the first place, whatever key the original composi- 

 tion is in, it must be played in the key of C. In these 

 days of strict examinations by the College of Organists, 

 it is not uncommon to find players who can transpose at 

 first sight from any key into any other. For players who 

 cannot do this the piece will have to be re-copied, but this 

 is nothing in comparison with the great gain in simplicity 

 of the key-board. 



Secondly, the performer has not only to play the music 

 in the ordinary way, but he has another problem before 

 him^namely, where certain notes are in duplicate, he 

 has to decide which of the two to use. Now this, although 

 by no means a difficult matter, requires some knowledge 

 of the theory of music, in a sense beyond what is ordi- 

 narily taught. To explain it would lead us into more 

 technical detail than would be proper here ; but Dr. 

 Tanaka, in compassion for those unfortunates with whom 

 music *' has not been made an affair of vibrations," has 

 shown that the printed music can have certain very 

 simple symbols prefixed to the notes, which will easily 

 guide the purely " practical " player what to do. 



In this way any competent organist, though he may 

 never have heard of the system before, may, after a 

 few minutes' explanation, and a quarter of an hour's 

 practice, play any piece of music correctly in the true 

 musical intonation, a result which, I believe, has never 

 been attained by any former instrument, and which says 

 much for the ingenuity of the whole contrivance. 



It is recorded that the Emperor of Germany expressed 

 a wish to see the experiment tried on a large organ, and 

 the inventor is now engaged in constructing one with 

 eight stops, and a simplified enharmonic pedal-clavier,, 

 for the Prussian Goverment. William Pole. 



