Music Trade Review
Issue: 1932 Vol. 91 N. 1 - Page 19
Music Trade Review -- © mbsi.org, arcade-museum.com -- digitized with support from namm.org
PIANO FACTORY and
PIANO SERVICING
DR. W M . BRAID WHITE
Technical Editor
MUSIC PRODUCTION
on an
ENGINEERING BASIS
to prevent the engineers who have devel-
oped sound recording, sound reproduction
and sound broadcasting from going into the
field of sound producing. In a word, the
men who have organized and brought to
its present state of excellence the reproduc-
ing acoustic arts are beginning to look
keenly at the primary or producing art, that
is to say, at the musical instruments, at their
design, at their construction and even at
their playing technique.
DR. WM. BRAID WHITE
HAPPY NEW YEAR to every-
body!
I have just been reading an ar-
ticle upon music and engineering
by an acoustic engineer attached to one of
the great sound-reproducing industries. It
is his opinion that the engineers are here-
after to become more and more necessary
to the musical arts, and that the future de-
velopment of those arts, along technical lines,
will be in their hands. He speaks at some
length of the various attempts now being
made in laboratories to build up new elec-
trically operated instruments of music, of
which the purpose obviously is to take the
place of the present orchestral hosts and to
evoke musical tones superior as to both
quality and quantity. He speaks in a con-
fident tone. What he says is being said
by many others. What does it all portend?
Just this, so it seems to me: that, whether
you and I like it or not, we shall be unable
A
Estate*
f
TRIAL AND ERROR
Stringed and wind instruments are in all
essentials today what they have been for at
least a century. I do not for a moment
believe that the Cremona fiddles could not
be duplicated, or even improved, by scien-
tific method and the engineering arts; but
the fact remains that up till now every
empirical attempt that has been made in
that direction has ended in grotesque failure.
Dr. Dayton C. Miller, who possesses what
is by far the greatest and most nearly com-
plete collection of flutes ever amassed, is of
the opinion that the Boehm flute stands alone
among wind instruments in near approach
to a genuinely scientific design. The Boehm
flute has its faults; yet it is almost perfec-
tion compared with the clarinet and even
more with the oboe. The latter, with its
complementary English horn, bassoon and
contrabassoon, is undoubtedly the most in-
convenient and difficult of all musical in-
struments. To play it well demands almost
superhuman patience, constant practice and
a serenity proof against any imaginable ir-
ritation. Really great oboists are extremely
few, really great bassoonists are as scarce.
The double reed presents appalling difficul-
ties to its w r ould-be master. It is commonly
held that those who have acquired com-
plete domination over it have done so only
at the cost of shattered nerves and ruined
dispositions.
Much of the difficulties which surround
the playing of these wind instruments lies
in the fact of their having grown up out
of very crude beginnings by a slow process
of trial and error. Improvements have been
few, and have succeeded each other only
at long intervals. This has been because
there never was any public interest in the
making of improvements. Music has always
been an exotic art to the masses; and the
musical artist has usually been of necessity
wrapped up in his own esoteric concerns
and more or less withdrawn from the world
of hurly-burly. Musical instruments, for
parallel reasons, have been treated as if they
too possess esoteric and mysterious qualities;
their worst faults have been regarded
as in some inexplicable fashion inevitable
accompaniments of their virtues.
What is true of one is to some extent true
of all musical instruments. The clarinets,
the horns, the trumpets and even tubas are
only less clumsy and inconvenient than the
double-reeds. The stringed instruments of
the violin family need not here be discussed.
Everybody knows that, for some extraordinary
reason, no successor to the Cremona makers
has ever been able to produce fiddles in any
size or shape equal to the products of
Stradivari, the Anigtii, LhajGittatyerK and the
Magginis.
O515
5U
A
THE NEW ERA
Now the art of music on this its technical
side is rapidly approaching the opening of a
WHERE CAN YOU GET
PLAYER ACTION
REPAIRS and SUPPLIES
BUCKSKIN
The MOORE and FISHER Manufacturing Co.
Deep River, Conn.
1049—3rd St.
NORTH BERGEN, N. J.
Tel.: 7—4367
THE
MUSIC
TRADE
REVIEW,
January,
1932
19
PIANO FACTORY and
PIANO SERVICING
DR. W M . BRAID WHITE
Technical Editor
MUSIC PRODUCTION
on an
ENGINEERING BASIS
to prevent the engineers who have devel-
oped sound recording, sound reproduction
and sound broadcasting from going into the
field of sound producing. In a word, the
men who have organized and brought to
its present state of excellence the reproduc-
ing acoustic arts are beginning to look
keenly at the primary or producing art, that
is to say, at the musical instruments, at their
design, at their construction and even at
their playing technique.
DR. WM. BRAID WHITE
HAPPY NEW YEAR to every-
body!
I have just been reading an ar-
ticle upon music and engineering
by an acoustic engineer attached to one of
the great sound-reproducing industries. It
is his opinion that the engineers are here-
after to become more and more necessary
to the musical arts, and that the future de-
velopment of those arts, along technical lines,
will be in their hands. He speaks at some
length of the various attempts now being
made in laboratories to build up new elec-
trically operated instruments of music, of
which the purpose obviously is to take the
place of the present orchestral hosts and to
evoke musical tones superior as to both
quality and quantity. He speaks in a con-
fident tone. What he says is being said
by many others. What does it all portend?
Just this, so it seems to me: that, whether
you and I like it or not, we shall be unable
A
Estate*
f
TRIAL AND ERROR
Stringed and wind instruments are in all
essentials today what they have been for at
least a century. I do not for a moment
believe that the Cremona fiddles could not
be duplicated, or even improved, by scien-
tific method and the engineering arts; but
the fact remains that up till now every
empirical attempt that has been made in
that direction has ended in grotesque failure.
Dr. Dayton C. Miller, who possesses what
is by far the greatest and most nearly com-
plete collection of flutes ever amassed, is of
the opinion that the Boehm flute stands alone
among wind instruments in near approach
to a genuinely scientific design. The Boehm
flute has its faults; yet it is almost perfec-
tion compared with the clarinet and even
more with the oboe. The latter, with its
complementary English horn, bassoon and
contrabassoon, is undoubtedly the most in-
convenient and difficult of all musical in-
struments. To play it well demands almost
superhuman patience, constant practice and
a serenity proof against any imaginable ir-
ritation. Really great oboists are extremely
few, really great bassoonists are as scarce.
The double reed presents appalling difficul-
ties to its w r ould-be master. It is commonly
held that those who have acquired com-
plete domination over it have done so only
at the cost of shattered nerves and ruined
dispositions.
Much of the difficulties which surround
the playing of these wind instruments lies
in the fact of their having grown up out
of very crude beginnings by a slow process
of trial and error. Improvements have been
few, and have succeeded each other only
at long intervals. This has been because
there never was any public interest in the
making of improvements. Music has always
been an exotic art to the masses; and the
musical artist has usually been of necessity
wrapped up in his own esoteric concerns
and more or less withdrawn from the world
of hurly-burly. Musical instruments, for
parallel reasons, have been treated as if they
too possess esoteric and mysterious qualities;
their worst faults have been regarded
as in some inexplicable fashion inevitable
accompaniments of their virtues.
What is true of one is to some extent true
of all musical instruments. The clarinets,
the horns, the trumpets and even tubas are
only less clumsy and inconvenient than the
double-reeds. The stringed instruments of
the violin family need not here be discussed.
Everybody knows that, for some extraordinary
reason, no successor to the Cremona makers
has ever been able to produce fiddles in any
size or shape equal to the products of
Stradivari, the Anigtii, LhajGittatyerK and the
Magginis.
O515
5U
A
THE NEW ERA
Now the art of music on this its technical
side is rapidly approaching the opening of a
WHERE CAN YOU GET
PLAYER ACTION
REPAIRS and SUPPLIES
BUCKSKIN
The MOORE and FISHER Manufacturing Co.
Deep River, Conn.
1049—3rd St.
NORTH BERGEN, N. J.
Tel.: 7—4367
THE
MUSIC
TRADE
REVIEW,
January,
1932
19
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