Music Trade Review

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Music Trade Review.
The Only Music Trade Paper in America, and the Organ of the Music Trade of this Country.
Fo-anded
VOL. X. No. 14.
1879.
NEW YORK, FEB. 20 TO MAR. 5, 1887.
and regular vibrations having a slow rate, produce
only noises.
Savart determined that the lowest note apprecia-
ble by the e.ir is produced by from seven to eight
complete vibrations per second, and the highest by
21,000 complete vibrations per second.
EDITORS AND PHOPHIFTOBB.
The zylophone and metalaphone are examples of
musical instruments employing free vibrating rods
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supported at their nodes, The zylophone consists of
a series of wooden rods of different lengths, bored
Notes and Mall matter should be
transversely
at their nodes, or points of least vibra-
made to
tion , and strung together on cords. The instrument
may eilher be suspended by the cords or laid upon
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loosely twisted cords situated at the nodes. By pass-
EDITORS k PROPRIETORS.
ing the small spherical wooden mallet accompanying
the instrument over the wooden rods, very agreeable
liquid musical tones are produced by the vibration
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of the rods, and when the rods are struck by the
SUBSCRIPTION (including postage) United States and Canada,
mallet they yield tones which are very pure, but not
$3.00 per year, in advance; Foreign Countries, $4.00.
prolonged.
The cheaper forms of zylophone are tuned by slit-
ADVERTISEMENTS, $2.00 per inch, single column, per insertion;
unless inserted upon rates made by special contract.
ting the rods transversely at their centers on the
under side, by means of a saw, to a depth required to
Entered at the JVew Fork Pott Office at Second Clou Matter.
give them the flexibility necessary to the production
of the desired tones. The rods are divided by the
SCIENCE IN TOYS.
nodes Into three vibrating parts, the parts between
the nodel points and the ends being about one-fourth
HE student of acoustics need not go beyond the of the distance between the two nodes.
The metalophone Is similar in form to the zylo
realm of toys for much of his experimental
apparatus. The various toy musical instru. phone, but, as its name suggests, the vibrating bars
ments are capable of illustrating many of the pheno- are made of metal—hardened steel. The bars rest at
mena of sound very satisfactorily, if not quite as well their nodes on soft woolen cords, secured to the up-
per edges of a resonator forming the support of the
as some of the more pretentious apparatus.
Sound is a sensation of the ear, and is produced by entire series of bars. The resonator is tapered both
sonorous vibrations of the air. It may be in the na- as to width and depth, and serves to greatly increase
ture of a mere noise, due to irregular vibrations, like the volume of sound.
The resonator has a depth equal to half the length
the noise of a wagon on the street, or it may be a
sharp crack or explosion, like the cracking of a whip of a sound wave. When a bar is struck, its downward
movement produces an air wave which moves down-
or like the sound produced by the collision of solid
bodies. The clappers, or bones, with which all boys ward, strikes the bottom of the resonator, and is re-
are familiar, are an example of a class of toys which flected upward in time to re enforce the outwardly
create sound by concussion, and the succession moving ? air wave produced by the upward bending of
of sounds produced by the clappers are irregular, »nd the ba .
The metalophone yields a sweet tone, which is
clearly distinct from musical sounds. A succession
of such sounds, although occurring with considera- quite different from that produced by the vibration of
bjy frequency and perfect regularity, will not be- wooden bars.
The music box furnishes an example of the class of
come musioal until made with sufliclent rapidity to
bring them within the perception of the ear as a prac- Instruments In which musical sounds are produced
tically continuous sound. The rattle, or cricket, pro- by the vibration of bars or tongues which are rigidly
held at one end and free to vibtate at the other end.
duces such sounds.
The wooden springs of the cricket snap from one The tongues of the music box are made by slitting the
ratchet tooth to another, as the body of the cricket edge of a steel plate, forming a comb which is ar
is rapidly swung around, making a series of regular ranged with its teeth projecting into the paths of
taps, which, taken all together, make a terrific noise, the pins of the cylinder, which are distributed around
having none of the characteristics of musical sounds. and along the cylinder in the order necessary to se-
cure the required succession of tones. The engage-
That a musioal sound may be made by a series of
taps Is illustrated by the buzz, a toy consisting of a ment of one of the pins of the cylinder with one of
disk of tin having notched edges, and provided with the tongues raises the tongue, which, when liberated,
two holes on diametrically opposite sides <>f the cen- yields the note due to Its position in the comb.
The tongues are tuned by filing or scraping them
ter, and furnished with an endless cord passing
through the holes. The disk is rotated by pulling in at their free or fixed ends, or by loading them at their
opposite directions on the twisted endleas cord, al- free ends. In this instrument the sonorous vibra-
tions are produced by the tongue, which itself has
lowing the disk to twist the cord in the reverse di
the desired pitch.
rection, then again pulling the cord, and so on.
In reed instruments the case is different. The
If, while the disk isrevolvlng rapidly, its periphery
is brought into light contact with the edge of a piece sound is not emitted by the reed, but sonorous vi-
of paper, the successive taps of the teeth of the disk brations are produced by air pulsations, controlled
upon the paper produce a shrill musical sound, which by the reed, which acts as a rapidly operating valve.
varies in pitch according to the speed of the disk. The mouth organ, or harmonica, is a familiar exam-
Such a disk mounted on a shaft and revolved rapid- ple of a simple reed instrument.
When reeds are employed in connection with re-
ly is known as Savart's wheel.
It is ascertained by these experiments that regular sonating pipes, as in the case of the reed pipes of an
vibrations of sufficient frequency produce musical organ, the pipe synchronizes with the reed, and re-
sounds, and that concussions, irregular vibrations, enforces the sound. When the reed is very stiff, it
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T
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commands the vibrations of the air column, and when
it is very flexible, it is controlled by the air column.
The horn is a reed instrument in which the lips *ct
as reeds, and the tapering tube serves as a resona-
tor.
The ancient Pandean pipes present an example of
an instrument formed of a series of stopped pipes of
different lengths. These pipes are tuned by moving
the corks by which their lower ends are stopped, and
the air if? agitated by blowing across the end of the
tubes.
The flageolet is an open pipe in which the air is Bet
in vibration by blowing a hin sheet of air through
the air slit of the mouthpiece against the this edge of
the opposite side of the embouchure. The rate of the
fluttering produced by the air striking upon the thin
edge is determined by the length of the pipe of the
instrument, the length being varied to produce the
different notes, by opening or closing the finger holes.
By comparing the flageolet with the Pandean pipes,
it is found that for a given note the open flageolet
pipe muet be about twice as long as the Pan pipe.
When all the finger holes of the flageolet are closed,
it is then a simple open pipe, like an organ pipe, and,
if compared with the Pan pipe yielding the same
note, it is found to be just twice ae long as the closed
pipe. If, while the holes are closed, the open end of
the flageolet pipe be stopped, the instrument will
yield a note an octave lower. These experiments
show that the note produced by a stopped pipe is an
octave below the note yielded by an open pipe of the
same length, and the same as that obtained from an
open pipe of double the length.
The ocorina is a curious modern instrument, of
much the same nature as the flageolet. It is, how-
eqer, a stopped pipe, and shows how tones are mod-
ified by form and material, the material being clay.
It produces a mellow tone, something like that of a
flute.
The Zither, now made in the form of an inexpen-
sive and really servicable toy, originated in Tyrol.
It consists of a trapezoidal sounding board, provided
with bridges, and having 24 wire strings.
Its tones are harp-like, and with It a proficient
player can produce agreeable music. Much of the
nature of the vibration of strings may be exhibited
by means of this instrument. By damping one of
the strings by placing the finger or a pencil lightly
against its center, and vibrating the string, at the
same time removing the pencil, the string will yield
a note which is an octave higher than its fundamen-
tal note. By examining the string closely, it will be
ascertained that at the center of the string there
is apparently no vibration, while between the cen-
ter and the ends it vibrates. The place of least
vibration at the center of the string is the
node, and between the node and the ends of the
strings are the venters. It will thus be seen that
the string is practically divided into two equal vi-
brating segments, each of which produces a note
an octave higher. That the note is an octave higher
than the fundamental note may be determined by
comparing it with the note of the string which is an
octave above in the scale of the zither.
By damping the string at the end of one-fourth of
its length, the remaining portion of the string divides
itself into three ventral segments, with two nodes
between.
The division of the string into nodes and venters
occurs whenever the string is vibrated, and all of
the notes other than the fundamental are known as
harmonics, and impart to the sound of the string
its quality.
By tuning the first two strings in unison, the vibra-