Music Trade Review

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THE
12
MUSIC TRADE
REVIEW
Conducted and Edited by Wm. B. White.
THE TONE-QUALITY OF PIANOS—ITS NA-
TURE, CREATION AND REFINEMENT.
Article 3.
It had for long been believed by acousticians
that the tone-quality of a sound-wave must be
determined by its form or shape, but no definite
understanding of the matter was possible until the
classic investigations of Helmholtz had rendered
everything clear. Ever since the time of Mersenne,
father of modern acoustics, there had been a pretty
clear and general understanding of that complex
sub-division of a string which I described in the
last article. And it had been guessed that this
train of secondary tones had something to do with
determining the shape or form of a wave, and per-
haps the quality of its tone. Helmholtz proceeded
with characteristic thoroughness to solve the
problem experimentally. He devised a number of
resonators; hollow metal spheres of different sizes
and each adapted to resonate some specific sound.
These resonators were each fitted with a small ear
piece, and with an aperture opposite to this for the
admission of sound-pulses from a sonorous body.
Helmholtz then selected various instruments and
tested their sounds by means of the resonators,
until he was able to detect the procession of
secondary or partial tones in each. When any
partial tone corresponding in pitch to one of the
resonators was present in a given instrumental
sound, it would be greatly magnified and em-
phasized in volume when that particular resonator
was held by the experimenter to his ear. And the
relative intensity of each detectible partial tone
could also be judged. Having thus analyzed the.
content of a complex sound, Helmholtz proceeded
to synthesize. He obtained tuning forks corre-
sponding in pitch to the ascertained fundamental
and partials of a given instrumental tone, and by
fitting them with special resonators adjusted to re-
inforce each according to the degree of intensity
observed during analysis, he was able to reproduce
the instrumental color which he had before sub-
jected to the inductive treatment. In this man-
ner he established, after a long and arduous series
of experiments, the truth that
THE TONE QUALITY BELONGING TO ANY GIVEN VOCAL
OR INSTRUMENTAL SOUND IS DETERMINED BY THE
NUMBER, PROMINENCE AND INTENSITY OF THE
SECONDARY OR PARTIAL TONES WHICH IN GREATER
OR LESS DEGREE FORM PART OF THE COMPLEX FORM
OF EVERY SOUND-WAVE.
Thus, by a series of logical inferences, we are
able to come to consideration of the third and so
far most important of the questions which I pro-
pounded at the beginning of these articles. We
may now ask:
WHAT ARE THE PHYSICAL DIFFERENCES
BETWEEN AGREEABLE AND DISA-
GREEABLE TONE-QUALITY?
The rule laid down above suggests at once an
obvious answer to this question. Since tone-
quality is determined by the manner in which
partial tones appear in connection with a funda-
mental, it is plain that if the procession of these
varies, tone-quality must vary also. And as we
know, there is continually such variation. All in-
struments have their individual tone-colors, even
those of the same kind. No two human voices are
alike. Plainly, then, there must be a multiplicity
of causes continually operating to prevent uni-
formity and create variety in sound-wave forms.
As a matter of strict faqt, every minute differ-
ence in the constitution of two sonorous bodies,
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every variation in the manner of their excitation,
every slight change in any condition of their re-
spective existences, will suffice to cause a cor-
responding variation in the resultant complex
wave which is the cause of their audible manifesta-
tions. Where the totality of existing conditions is
itself composed of such delicately adjusted and min-
utely related components, which themselves are so
readily susceptible to change on account of their
microscopic dimensions, it is clear that very slight
disturbances are sufficient to distort the resultants
arising from their interaction. And the mere fact
that our ears perceive very delicate varieties of
tone-color is enough to prove that uniformity of
sound-wave form is impossible of attainment,
strictly speaking, even among sonorous bodies of
the utmost practicable similarity. Certainly it is
not difficult to perceive that partial tones arising
from the valuation of very minute segments of
short steel strings, such as those used in the piano,
are of feeble strength and exceedingly delicate con-
sistency. Slight disturbances will blot out one and
strengthen another. A state of unstable equilib-
rium is not only probable but inevitable.
In the case of the piano, we have to consider the
causes which may intervene to produce one or
another kind of tone-color in strings. The specific
question which I propounded above has to do with
the physical causes for the existence of agreeable
and disagreeable tone-quality. Bearing in mind
what has just been said as to the inevitable varia-
tions in exciting causes, let us first ask ourselves
what we mean by agreeable or disagreeable in this
sense.
To a large extent, of course, such a question is
indeterminate. Tastes differ. "De gustibus non
est disputandum" is as true as ever. Still, there
are certain broad divisions which appeal to, and
are recognized by, everyone who has any right
whatever to discuss the subject-matter of these
articles. There are the widest differences in taste,
and yet everybody is agreed that certain things are
beautiful while others are the opposite. Yet it is
equally impossible to say where beauty in any class
of objects ends, and where ugliness begins. On
the other hand, we are all agreed that a Steinway
grand piano, style B for instance, has a beautiful
tone. And we are equally agreed that an old
square piano has not. What we have to examine,
then, is the basis of such broad differences as I
have suggested. What are the causes, and how
may they be controlled?
In examining the physical causes of tone-color
variations I have called attention to the many and
inevitable differences in conditions which neces-
sarily correspond to variations in tone-quality. In
the case of the piano we have to consider the
strings at first; their constitution, manner of appli-
cation to the instrument and method of excitation.
We may tabulate the various casual conditions,
although an absolutely complete and exhaustive
list is probably impossible of attainment. In col-
umn A of the table below I have enumerated the
physical factors and in column B the pertinent con-
ditions, variation in which causes corresponding
changes in tonal results:
A
B
1. Strings.
Material,
Length,
Diameter,
Weight,
Tension,
Point of contact with ham-
mers.
2. Hammers.
Material,
Softness or hardness.
Point of contact with strings,
Weight.
3. Sound-board.
Material,
Method of bridging,
Method of ribbing.
Method of crowning.
1 Plate.
Material,
Weight,
Distribution of iron on
bridges,
Distribution and weight of
braces.
(To be continued.)
PLAYER-MECHANISM AND PIANO TOUCH.
The subject matter which I am discussing with the
readers of this department in the above and suc-
ceeding articles will not have been treated with
any completeness until some attention has been
given to considering the influence which the
pianist himself has upon the tone-quality which he
evokes from his instrument. Without any desire
to plunge into the waters of musical pedagogy, so
tumbled and polluted with grotesque theories and
equally absurd "systems" of piano technic, we
must not neglect entirely the fact that after all
is said and done, after the piano has been con-
structed from end to end with every possible re-
finement of scientific knowledge and painstaking
skilled artisanship, there still remains the human
factor, that personal equation that, try as we may,
we can never disregard or abolish. In piano play-
ing, of course, we do not want to disregard it.
We require that after the piano maker has done
his work, the musician shall know how to extract
what the former has put into the instrument. If
the tone-quality is there it can be gotten out.
And, I take it, the question of touch, in its in-
fluence on tone-quality, is one of tremendous in-
terest to those who deal with player-pianos and
playing mechanisms generally. The existing piano
action has been built throughout, naturally enough,
with the idea of presenting a delicately re-
sponsive mechanism to the human fingers. Finger
touch has been the only possible method of piano
playing until within a decade or so, and naturally
all developments in piano building have been
directed towards making the evocation of its in-
herent tone from the piano as easy as possible
by the fingers of the performer. Not a great
deal of penetration, therefore, is required to dis-
cern that any radical change in the method of
exciting the action must naturally result in cor-
responding change in the kind of blow inflicted by
the hammer. And as we shall show in the articles
on Piano Tone-quality, this matter of hammer
attack is very important indeed in determining
the possibility or otherwise of extracting from any
instrument the tone which inherently is in it.
Now, the first thing that we note in the player
mechanism is that it by all means does introduce
a radically new and different manner of exciting
the piano action and through it the hammer. The
pneumatic actuates the piano action by the direct
and continuous push of a lever moving through an
arc of perhaps ten degrees. This push is usually
directed either at the wippen of the piano action
or at the bottom of the abstract through a short
rocking lever, sometimes called a secondary key.
But it is to be observed that, even when the pneu-
matic exercises its functions on the manual piano
key itself, its manner of attack is essentially dif-
ferent from that of the human finger. For, when
all is said and done, the one is a push and the
other is not. Plainly we have here an irreconcila-
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