CEAP. n.j MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS. 119 



CHAPTER II. 



MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS SIMPLE INSTRUMENTS. 



A STUDY of the various instruments by the aid of which musicians 

 utilize their art, considering each of them in connection with 

 the laws of sound, would be extremely curious, but both delicate and 

 difficult. Among all nations and in every age of history, and as far 

 back as the most remote savage people, similar instruments have 

 been found, from the clumsiest attempts to the studied forms of 

 modern violins, imitated from Stradivarius, Guarnerius, or the Amati, 1 

 and the complicated combinations of large cathedral organs. The 

 theory of musical instruments is still on many points very obscure, 

 and the ablest musicians, like the most learned physicists, find it 

 difficult to account for the forms which experience has established. 

 Nevertheless there is a certain number of principles on which the 

 construction of musical instruments is based ; and it is interesting to 

 see how these principles are connected with the laws of the sound 

 vibrations produced by bells, strings, pipes, and membranes. 



This we shall endeavour to show by reviewing the types of 

 instruments the sounds of which are produced by different modes 

 of vibration, which can then be arranged in classes. We shall there- 

 fore examine successively : 1st, those simple instruments which 

 generally give but one sound, such as bells, triangles, drums, etc. ; 

 these are based on the vibrations of solids of revolution, of metal 



1 Celebrated musical instrument-makers of Cremona, who occupied themselves 

 chiefly with the manufacture of violins and stringed instruments and bows. The 

 Amati were three brothers, one being master of Stradivarius, who had Guarnerius 

 as pupil. 



