Classic Mode

Music Trade Review

Issue: 1919 Vol. 68 N. 4

Music Trade Review -- © mbsi.org, arcade-museum.com -- digitized with support from namm.org
THE MUSIC TRADE
JANUARY 25, 1919
REVIEW
Player Manufacturers Who Are Endeavoring to Improve the Tone of Their
Instruments Should Remember That the Secret of Good Tone Lies Largely in
the Action of the Hammer and the Manner of Its Contact With the String
If you are going to design a mechanism which
is to play the piano, under what control soever,
in a manner which shall be tolerably artistic,
you must find out, first of all, in what consists
the mechanical process of tone production.
Many men have, designed players, and sold
them, too, without thinking enough of this, and
in consequence have made expensive mistakes,
which they have been obliged later to undo.
The mechanical process of playing the piano
consists in causing the hammer to strike a
string and immediately rebound therefrom. At
the moment of its contact with the string the
hammer is not, and must not be, in contact with
the impelling action. It must have been tripped
up out of the contact an instant before. This
is so that the hammer will not block against
the string after striking it and so smother the
latter's vibrations.
An Experiment
Now, of course, it is obvious that any sort of
mechanism which will actuate the machinery
whereby the hammer is thrown at the string
is, in a sense at least, the sole needed actua-
tion. But it is only necessary to make a few
experiments to find out that tone production is
not such an easy matter. Let the amateur go
to a piano, sit down at the keyboard and strike
a key very hard. What does he hear? A loud
sound, and also a sound which can only be de-
scribed by the very unsatisfactory word "harsh."
That is to say, the amateur finds that he can
make a loud noise but not a noise both loud
and agreeable. If he now resolutely sets him-
self out to produce a pleasing quality of tone
from the piano he will find himself producing
sounds by no means so loud, and at first he will
think that these sounds are very pleasant. If
he can run a broken chord up and down the
piano he may get a loud result or a result less
loud. He may get a pleasant or an unpleasant
sound. But it is almost certain that he will not
succeed in getting a sound at once loud and
pleasant or soft and pleasant.
The softer
sounds will be more pleasant, of course, but
they will probably be mushy and uncertain, and
in trying not to make them harsh the amateur
will very likely press the keys insufficiently in
some places and so get no tone at all.
The Artist
Now if our amateur goes to hear a real artist,
a pianist of the first rank, play the piano, he will
hear something altogether different. It matters
little whether the hearer "understands" the mu-
sic he hears or not, what he is now to do is to
listen only to the "quality" of the sound produced
by the pianist. He will find that even when the
piano is emitting sounds of tremendous inten-
sity, there is nothing of "hitting" about the
feeling one gets from the sound. It seems as
if the hammers "draw" the tone from the strings
instead of getting it by a percussive process.
The hammer stroke seems to disappear and one
gets a feeling as if the hammer were a bow,
the bow of a violin. When our pianist is play-
ing with very slight power and the tone he pro-
duces is light, we notice, when we have learned
by practice how to do so, that there is still an
incisiveness, a crispness, a certainty about the
tones that seem to drip from his fingers, which
the poor amateur cannot even think of produc-
ing. Here, then, is piano playing as it should
be. What is it that the pianist does which the
amateur does not?
The Key
He does much, and also there is much he
does not. He does not in the least use an ac-
tion or a key different from the amateur's on
his piano. Moreover, if the action of the piano
be carefully examined it will at once be seen
that the key itself, which the pianist presses
with that wonderful hand of his, might be taken
away altogether from the action if only the
pianist's hands could manipulate the hammer as
easily without it. In a word, it is seen on ex-
amination that the key of the piano action is
put where and how it is only because the hand
is how and where it is.
The Action
Thus if our amateur is thinking about tone-
production with reference to a piano player ac-
tion he will soon see that he must go beyond
the key for his secret. The secret is some-
where, and the key is necessary to the artist's
hands, but the secret is not in the key, since the
latter's only function is to convey a motion to
a vertical rod. This rod, in turn, conveys its
motion to a swinging arm, which in turn con-
veys it to a shouldered trip, which pushes the
hammer near the string, releases it to travel
to the wire by its momentum, when it is instan-
taneously drawn back. It is fairly plain that
no amlount of work on the key will by itself
affect the tone of the strings.
The Hammer
It is plain then that the secret must be found
in the travel of the hammer itself. But this
conclusion again only leads us to another ques-
tion. The hammer turns on a fixed center
through the arc of a circle and the last portion
of its path by its own momentum, the action
being momentarily disengaged from it by a
special contrivance delicately regulated for the
purpose. It is evident that since the path of
the hammer cannot be changed, any changes or
modifications or treatments which the pianist
contrives to make, must have to do solely with
the speed of its travel, with the material of
which it is made, or with its shape.
Now the last two of these may be disre-
garded, because we know that unskilled persons
cannot produce from a piano the fine tone which
the artist will evoke from the same instrument.
The speed of the hammer is then the first and
principal element in the control of tone produc-
tion, after the density, thickness and shape of
the hammer have been settled and fixed.
The Element of Touch
There is, however, a second element. We
note that the string which has been struck con-
tinues to vibrate as long as the hand remains
on the key or on some part of the action whose
retention will keep it in its rebound position
against its back-check. When the key or ac-
(Con tinned on page 8)
traube
Player-pianos in the past year have been
the means of establishing an enviable pres-
tige for dealers in many parts of the country.
Straube Dealers
new and old, KNOW that any goods they
handle bearing the name STRAUBE are
built by men who have standardized the
highest ideals of workmanship (plus good
material) and tonal qualities in their manu-
facture.
Straube Upright, Style K
"Sing Their Own Praise"
Stranbe Player, Style 15
"Sing Their Own Praise"
STRAUBE PIANO CO.
HAMMOND
INDIANA
Music Trade Review -- © mbsi.org, arcade-museum.com -- digitized with support from namm.org
8
THE MUSIC TRADE REVIEW
PNEUMATICS
(Continued from page 7)
tion is released a damper drops on the string
and muffles it. It seems evident then that, in
a succession of tones, if the keys are pressed
so that the string N has not ceased to vibrate
before string P is touched, and the key at-
tached to P is in turn not released until key
Q has been pressed, the tones of the strings will
to an extent run into each other. The better
the piano the more the tones will prolong if
the strings are left open after the hammer-
stroke. Hence,- with a very good piano, one
can undoubtedly produce an entirely different
quality of tone from a succession of tones, by
"binding them together" as the phrase is.
Dampers
This is only one possibility, of course, out of
many. The pianist has ten fingers and eighty-
eight keys. He also has a device called the
"damper pedal" whereby he can cause all the
dampers to rise from the strings and remain
free of them as long as desired. In this way
the tone of any string once sounded can be
caused to resound lightly in all strings which
bear harmonic relations to the first one. This
means therefore, according to the manner of
manipulating this damper pedal, a prolongation
of tone's or an entirely different and character-
istic quality of tone.
The Roll
Now it is evident that all pianists will be
obliged to set about the same process if they
desire the same result in any case. It is there-
fore easy to see that the quality of tone pro-
duced from a player-piano when a hand-played
roll is used must be different from and usually
better than the tone produced from a mathe-
matically cut roll, other things being equal,
which they are not always. But it is also evi-
dent that a well cut roll, taking advantage of
pianists' technique as revealed by the study of
many hand-played rolls, might enable the player-
piano to reproduce any beautiful quality of tone
common to good piano playing and suggested
to the arranger by the nature of the passage.
When we imagine such a roll, and add to it
We Can Help You Attain
Your Greatest Year's Business
Why Not Let Us?
Yes, we can, and we will; if you on your part
will get in touch with us NOW.
Our preparations for 1919 business in the man-
ufacture and sale of the wonderful
M. Schulz Company
Player-Piano
are on a scale of completeness never before
equalled, even by our great plants.
You will find during
the year in greater
measure than ever
Technical Refinements
Tonal Betterments
Selling Aids
Constant Co-operation
More than 140,000 of our pianos and player-pianos have been
made and sold, and our player-piano is our own throughout,
designed and made in our own factories by our own men!
We are ready to talk with you. Will you talk with us?
M. SCHULZ COMPANY
Established 1869
General Offices
Schulz Building
711 Milwaukee Are.
CHICAGO
3 Factories in
CHICAGO
Southern Wholesale Branch
1530CandlerBldg.
ATLANTA, GA.
JANUARY 25,
1919
damper and speed control, tinder the hands of
the player-pianist, we see that we have all the
machinery for tone-production of the artistic
sort, save control of hammer-speed.
The Player Action
This, of course, is a matter of stack and bel-
lows design. The perfect player would per-
haps be one in which the motor would be run by
a separate source of power and perhaps even a
very small power applied to help the playing
action on hard work, leaving the foot-control as
flexible as possible and the action responsive
to the least touch. Given this we have results
worth talking about.
The contact of the pneumatic with the action
is a matter of complete indifference, so long
as it be mechanically correct. Speed control is
the requirement, and that is a matter of moving
the action with the least friction, and with the
least possible wastage of power.
AUTOPIANO DECISION SUSTAINED
Court of Appeals Sustains Finding of Lower
Court in Case of the Autopiano Co. vs. Otto
Higel Co.—Injunction Now Binding
The United States Court of Appeals has af-
firmed Justice Augustus N. Hand's decision of
February 7, 1918, in the case of the Autopiano
Co. vs. Otto Higel Co., Inc., defendants, where-
in it was held that the Otto Higel Co., Inc.,
had infringed the O'Connor Tracking Device
Patents. Judge Hand's opinion of a year ago,
which has been sustained by the Court of Ap-
peals, follows:
AUGUSTUS N. HAND, District Judge.
This is a suit for infringement of claims 9, 21 and 23 of
reissue Letters Patent to James O'Connor, on a Perforated
Note Sheet Guide, reissued April 2, 1912, No. 13,398.
This patent has been sustained many times by this court
in numerous litigations, and its merit frequently commented
upon. The only defense worthy of serious consideration is
based upon the small size of the bleed openings of the
pneumatic apparatus which render the collapsing of de-
fendant's apparatus slower than in the O'Connor device in
use. That a readjustment of the mechanism is instantly
inaugurated in the defendant's device is evident. It is
also true in practice that there is instantly some readjust-
ment of the mechanism itself. If the note sheet gets far
out of position it will run forward some distance in the
defendant's device before there is complete readjustment.
In so far as this is the case, the slow means of readjust-
ment which renders such action possible is but an impair-
ment of the function of the O'Connor mechanism, only im-
portant under what may be regarded as abnormal circum-
stances, and only I think designed to avoid infringement.
There is an jnstant inauguration of the process which re-
sults in readjustment and an instant readjustment of the
ordinary slight deviation of the note sheet from the true
path. This readjustment is instant for all practical pur-
poses, and is adequate for those occasions for which a
delicate mechanism operated with the carefully made note
sheets for which such piano players are designed needs to
be used. If the word "instant" were taken to mean with-
out the slightest interval of time, neither the O'Connor
device nor any conceivable one would meet the require-
ment. If it is given the reasonable meaning of such a
prompt readjustment as will prevent any deviation of the
note sheet from its straight path, sufficient to occasion
under normal circumstances the discords which are sought
to be obviated, the defendant's mechanism falls within
the term.
I can see no substantial differences between the defendant's
device and that before the Court of Appeals in the case of
Autopiano Company v. Claviola Company. Judge Veeder's
opinion in that case is controlling and under it claims 9,
21 and 23 are infringed.
The usual decree is granted to the complainant for an
injunction and accounting with costs.
Dated Feb. 7th, 1918.
A. N. H., DJ.
Judge Hand's decree for an injunction and an
accounting, with costs, is now binding upon the
defendant.
ADOPTS PROFIT-SHARING SYSTEM
Western Automatic Music Co., Dallas, Tex., to
Give Percentage of Profits to Employes
DALLAS, TEX., January 18.—D. L. Whittle, presi-
dent of the Western Automatic Music Co., an-
nounced to their employes at the annual ban-
quet of the company that a percentage of the
profits of the company, since April 30, 1918,
would be divided among the employes at the end
of the fiscal year, according to their length of
service.
"While the music trade has been seriously
hampered by the war, still it has made an en-
viable record," said Mr. Whittle. "Along with
this our company has enjoyed an excellent busi-
ness, and we want those who have played a large
part in our success to share in the results.
Prospects for the new year are very bright, and
the agricultural, industrial and commercial out-
look is excellent."

Download Page 7: PDF File | Image

Download Page 8 PDF File | Image

Future scanning projects are planned by the International Arcade Museum Library (IAML).

Pro Tip: You can flip pages on the issue easily by using the left and right arrow keys on your keyboard.