468 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. LIV. No. 1402 



advocated by Busoni who published a few 

 pages of music written on what may be called 

 the " black key staff." 



Corresponding to the whole-tone staff the 

 very logical whole-tone keyboard has likewise 

 been proposed by several patentees and is most 

 notably found in the Janko keyboard; this 

 had considerable vogue in Germany and a few 

 were built in this country some twenty years 

 ago; but the instruments with this keyboard 

 are so rare that the musician could scarcely 

 afford the time to practise on it if he had 

 access to one. 



A Question of Tuning. — One of the musical 

 trade papers reported some months ago that 

 a phonograph dealer in Chicago had two 

 similar pianos tuned alike, except that in one 

 of them one string belonging to each set of 

 these unisons was tuned to give a slow beat 

 with the other two. Then the public was 

 asked which tuning it preferred; a large 

 majority chose the one with the beat. This 

 preference quite disconcerted the editor who 

 reported it ; " What is the use," he says, " of 

 trying to keep a piano in tune when a mis- 

 tuned one is really liked better ? " 



This does not seem to me to involve the 

 question of being out of tune in the ordinary 

 meaning of the term; if a chord is struck 

 two thirds of the strings will sound together 

 in the usual way, though the accuracy of 

 tuning will be somewhat blurred or masked 

 by the beats due to the other strings. 



But a similar even more marked effect 

 has long been obtained in other ways and 

 has often been proposed by inventors. It is 

 akin to the tremolo which is familiar as a 

 means of expression on many instruments and 

 which in vocal music may be a sign of emo- 

 tion or even weakness. On the violin a 

 tremolo may come from the rolling of the 

 player's finger along the string, and on 

 mechanical violins from intermittent pres- 

 sure on the tail piece. Even more closely 

 analogous to the effect in the piano experi- 

 ment and long known are the results of the 

 " Celeste " stop on the reed organ that brings 

 into use two sets of reeds which beat slightly 

 with one another; and in the pipe organ of 



the " Vox Celeste " or " Unda Maris " stop 

 that brings on two sets of pipes which beat 

 producing a very few waves per second. 



So the Chicago experiments seem to me to 

 indicate, not that hearers object to having 

 the notes of the piano in tune, but that they 

 welcome a new way of introducing variety, 

 vitality, into piano tone. After the key is 

 struck there comes the loud thud characteris- 

 tic of the piano sound and then the gradual 

 dying away of the sound; the musician can 

 do nothing with the tone but let it die away 

 till he is ready to drop the damper. The 

 player of most other instruments has consider- 

 able control over the loudness of a continued 

 sound and occasionally to some extent over 

 its pitch and quality; this is obviously true 

 of most orchestral instruments, and of the 

 organ with its swell and the harmonium with 

 its " expression " due to pumping. 



This double control, of loudness and pitch, 

 was realized in the old clavichord and was 

 sought for in the " Steinertone " patented 

 and built by the late Morris Steinert fifteen 

 or twenty years ago. I have recently learned 

 from the makers that in the reproductions 

 built some years ago by Chickering & Sons 

 under direction of Mr. Dolmetsch " the clavi- 

 chord was tuned with one string of each note 

 two or three waves sharper than the others, 

 and on the harpsichord the second unison was 

 slightly sharper than the first." In the elec- 

 trical " Choralcelo " exhibited in Boston some 

 years ago there was control both of loudness 

 and quality while a note was sounding. 



So the Chicago experimenters and listeners 

 are in good company. 



Of course the piano must have some great 

 compensating advantages to lead the world 

 to overlook so great a defect as this lack of 

 variety, but they do not concern us now or 

 here. 



The Tuning Fork. — In a recent article in 

 a psychological journal the tuning fork is 

 considered as composed of two bars each at- 

 tached at one end to a solid block; in a cur- 

 rent book for piano tuners a fork is illustrated 

 as sending off a train of waves in one direc- 

 tion, both prongs being bent in the same direc- 



