AuGCsi 1, 1896.] 



KNOWLEDGE. 



175 



one of whose pavilions (struck at Bordeaux) is all that we 

 have space to illustrate here (Fig. 25 : obverse, EDwardus 

 PrimOGeNituS REGis ANGUiU priNCepS Aquitani» ; 

 reverse, DomiNus AdiVTOr & ProTECTOr MEus &. In iPsO 

 SPerAVIT COR MEVM. Buvdigala-). 



APPRECIATION OF MUSICAL PITCH. 



By Dr. J. G. McPheesox, F.R.S.E., late Mathnuaticnl 

 Examiner in the University of St. Andrew. 



DR. McKENDPJCK, the Professor of Physiology in 

 the University of Glasgow, lately brought before 

 the Eoyal Society of Edinburgh a remarkable case 

 of the early appreciation of musical pitch. His 

 attention was drawn to the wonderfully accurate 

 ear of John Baptist Toner, a boy of four and a half years 

 of age. From the photograph shown us we could see that 

 he was a smart and intelligent boy ; he seems quite healthy 

 and cheerful. His parents are both young and musical. 

 His father excels on the organ and piano, and has studied 

 musical harmony ; his mother sings well, and loves music ; 

 but no other member of the family, collateral or ancestral, 

 is known to be of a musical turn of mind. 



John used to watch his father playing on the piano, and 

 when two years of age would by himself finger the keys. 

 Shortly before Professor McKendrick saw the boy, John had 

 been told by his father the names of the notes on the piano. 

 The exact notes left a lasting impression on the boy's 

 mind. He acquired the names of the white keys in two 

 or three minutes, and that over the whole keyboard. 

 Next day he picked up the black keys in the same short 

 space of time. The impressions seemed photographed on 

 his memory, for when any note, white or black, was 

 struck, he would instantly name it, though his back was 

 turned to the instrument. 



Professor McKendrick examined the boy in his father's 

 house, so as not to disturb him by a change of associations. ! 

 The professor struck notes here and there on the piano, 

 when the boy could not see the keyboard, and John named 

 them as soon as he heard the soimd, without any hesitation 

 or mistake. Not only so, but when the professor struck 

 any two notes at random on the keyboard, the boy named ! 

 them accmrately at once. The boy even went the length 

 of naming three notes when simultaneously struck by the 

 professor on any part of the keyboard, commencing at the 

 highest note and coming downwards in the naming of ' 

 them. The boy's attitude during the experiment was 

 leaning over the sofa at the other side of the room from 

 where the piano stood, with his back to the instrument ; 

 and it was the professor who struck the keys. The piano 

 was at concert pitch. Dozens of experiments accurately 

 answered satisfied the professor that the boy had a 

 remarkably acute ear for appreciating the different notes. 



It was the concert pitch notes that were fixed in John's 

 memory ; for when, on another occasion, he tested the boy's 

 ear with a set of Koenig's forks, he gave different names to 

 the notes. These forks are lower than concert pitch, and 

 the boy would give the name of the note corresponding to 

 the concert pitch note. When a fork at concert pitch was 

 struck, the boy would at once name the exact note with 

 which his ear had been familiar. The notes seemed to be 

 as accurately marked in his mind as the words of a verse 

 of poetry. 'The boy accurately named the sounds as they 

 corresponded to his standard. Thus ho had acquired a 

 standard of pitch fixed by his father's concert piano, and 

 he remains true to that standard in all circumstances. If 

 the professor named a note within the compass of the 

 child's voice, John at once sang it correctly at concert 



pitch, as immediately after tested by striking the corre- 

 sponding key on the piano. 



John was then taken to the house of the professor to 

 have his skill tested on the piano and organ there. The 

 Bechstein piano and American organ were both at concert 

 pitch. The boy was at first a little diverted from the 

 necessary concentration of mind by the changed associa- 

 tions ; but after a time he settled down and answered with 

 perfect accuracy all the notes and groups of two and three 

 notes simultaneously sounded on these instruments, 

 although his back was turned to them. 



This remarkable case is quite different from the tonic 

 sol-fa system. In the latter the keynote is given three 

 times, and the pupil is then expected to sing to words or 

 to the syllable la any part in a psalm or hymn tune in 

 the tonic sol-fa notation not seen before ; and many 

 thousands of children can do this easily. But there the 

 keynote is given — quite a different test from that given 

 to John Toner. This boy hid no key or reference note 

 given to him to guide and steady him in his search after 

 particular notes. In his case the pitch is appreciated 

 directly, and where he has had no musical training what- 

 ever. He had the standard and main key fixed in his mind. 

 Of course for two years and a half the boy had been fre- 

 quently touching the keys of the piano and listening to the 

 corresponding sound ; that was, so far, an education in the 

 variety of notes. But it was only a short time before the 

 professor saw him that he was told by his father the names 

 of the white notes and the black notes. Moreover, the boy 

 detects the notes within the whole range of the piano. 



Professor MoKendrick noticed the peculiarity in the 

 boy's discrimination of the three notes simultaneously 

 sounded. John always mentioned first the one highest in 

 pitch, and he seemed to " feel about," as it were, for the 

 other notes ; but he invariibly named them accurately 

 within a quarter of a minute. The severe strain of three 

 notes told on him, for after a time he would make mistakes, 

 as if his little brain had not been able to retain the three 

 impressions with suftioient distinctness to fix them 

 accurately. When fresh, however, he invariably answered 

 with correctness. The lowest note of the piano was struck 

 by the professor and the boy could not name it correctly ; 

 but it was ascertained that that note was out of tune. The 

 boy asked his father to name the notes in the same way, and 

 laughed when mistakes were made, naturally wondering 

 why his father could not do what to him was so very easy. 



Dr. McKendrick directed attention to the importance of 

 this case in connection with the question of " tonal fusion 

 and analytic powers." In some cases a quick " ear " can, 

 after long training, discriminate the several notes struck in 

 this way, but many skilful musicians are deficient in the 

 faculty. "One can hardly resist the conclusion," he says, 

 " that it is a gift dependent on the delicacy of the ear 

 and the part of the brain that receives auditory impres- 

 sions, and that each note of a given instrument has, to 

 such an individual, an undefinable quality or colour by 

 which it is identified." 



Professor Edgren, of Stockholm, gives some remarkable 

 instances of the marvellous ease with which young children 

 acquire the discrimination and expression of sounds before 

 they can speak. ]\eyer brought over a niue-months-old 

 child which accurately repeated the notes sounded on the 

 piano. Stumpf's child sang the scales exactly at the age of 

 fourteen months. The son of a compositor, Dvorak, of 

 Prague, sang, when only a year old, the •' Fantinitza- 

 marsch," with its nurse. When eighteen months old it 

 sang the melodies of its father, which he accompanied on 

 the piano. But these curious cases are quite different 

 from the marvellous discrimiration of young John Toner. 



