Stoney — On Equal Temperament upon Piano Music. • 63 



source. Their being separate from one another, with, open spaces 

 between, does however facilitate that horizontal position of the 

 fingers which seems to produce a softening effect, unconsciously to 

 the performer. 



On pianos which have been some time in use, the difference in 

 quality between the black and white notes is very miicli augmented 

 by the white notes having been more used than the black, and the 

 hammers having, from this cause, become harder. On such pianos 

 the greater part of the observed effect is probably due to this 

 hardening of the hammers and consequent reinforcement of the 

 upper harmonics ; but it cannot be any part of the cause on new 

 pianos ; and, accordingly, on new pianos the variety of artistic 

 effects in the different keys is less distinct. Assuming that the 

 keys of A, Ab, Bb, C, D, E, Eb, F, and Gr, or their relative 

 minors, are equally played upon a piano — and the great pre- 

 ponderance of music is in one of these keys — ^the white keys 

 will, on the average, be used twice as much as the black; and 

 when the softness of a new piano is beginning to be lost, the 

 deterioration will affect the white keys more than. the black. It 

 is easy to assure oneself that from this cause the black notes of 

 pianos which have been much played on are, over a great part 

 of the keyboard, sensibly softer than the white. 



We have next to inquire how a softer quality of tone in the 

 black notes, whether it arise from the fingering or from their 

 having been less used, can produce the difference of artistic effect 

 in the different keys which is observed. And here what occurs on 

 the violin comes to our aid. The notes Gr, D, A will, whenever 

 played, be reinforced by sympathetic vibrations in the open strings. 

 And it, is found that on the violin the brightest keys are those 

 in which the tonic, dominant or even subdominant, chance to 

 fall on these notes. Hence the effect of joyous brightness is 

 due to a slight difference of this kind between these notes of 

 the scale and the rest. 



Before proceeding farther, it is well to state the principal facts 

 to be accounted for as they are presented to us in piano music. 

 The bright effect of sharp keys appears to my ear to culminate in 

 A major with three sharps, and to be present in a very marked 

 degree in D with two sharps, and in E with five. The soft effect 

 of flat keys seems to me to be at its best in A b major with four 



