STEW AKRANGEMENT OF KEYS OF MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS. £15 



X. 



Description of a new Construction and Arrangement of the Keys 

 of Musical InslrumenlSj invented by John Trotter, Esq. 

 (W. N.) General ac- 



IN the piano forte and other instruments, in which the notes ji^s^nu^enu. 

 of the musical or diatonic scale are afforded by wires, strings, 

 pipes, or other parts of invariable figures, lengths, or other 

 affections, and produced by the action of keys,-it is well known, 

 that one principal series has its notes designated by the first 

 seven letters of the alphabet. A, B, C, D, E, F, and G ; and 

 that ihe intervals of gravity or acuteness are all (nearly) equal 

 to each other, except the ii-iterval between B and C, and that 

 between E and F, which are (nearly) half the magnitude of 

 the others ; and that by interposing other notes at (nearly) equal 

 distance between each of the greater intervals, a series of such 

 smaller intervals (called the intervals of semitones) is constitu- 

 ted, and affords the number of twelve notes in all ; out of which 

 it is practicable, by commencing from any individual note, to take 

 a regular diatonic series, having its notes and half notes disposed 

 hi a similar manner to those of the principal series before men- 

 tioned. The present occasion does not require any illustration 

 of the nature of the musical scale, or the degrees of imper- 

 fection to which the secondary scales of fixed instruments are 

 unavoidably subject, and the remedy usually afforded in part by The principal 

 temperament. Practical musicians are aware, that the white keys ral'notes^ex- 

 of a piano forte, and the lines and spaces of a oiusic bock, are pressed by sim- 

 apptopriated to the notes of the principal series, called the natu- ?' j'^fr'r^ded^*' 

 ral scale ; and that the auxiliary half notes are given by black by white keys, 

 keys on the instrument, and marked in the book by the same 

 character as denotes the note next ascending or descending, but 

 have the modifying character of flat or sharp prefixed in the cliff Notation by 

 or elsewhere. That this mode of notation is unscientific and fiatsand sharps 



1,1 1 r ■, -i • coudemaed. 



awkward ; and that the correspondent structure or the keys is 



irregular and embarrassing, will scarcely be controverted by any 

 one who shall maturely consider the subject. In the natural 



each will be in pi-oportion to the square of its distance. For example; 

 if two lights give shadows equally black cr dark, when their distances 

 from the wail or surface are respectively five and seven feet, the inten- 

 sity, or quantity of light emitted from them, will be respectively as 25 

 ^or 5x5^ and 49 (or 7K7J.— N. 



series 



