Twentieth Century Inventions: A Forecast

by George Sutherland

Delicate pianissimo effects, somewhat resembling those of the Eolian lyre, are produced by playing the notes with the air-blast alone, without the aid of percussion. But the louder sostenuto notes depend upon the added atmospheric resistance offered by a strong current of air to those movements of the wire which have been originally set up by percussion, and the fact that this resistance gives rise to a corresponding continuance of the motion. The prolongation of a note in this way is analogous to the continual swinging of an elastic switch in a stream of water, the current by its force producing a rhythmic movement.

When these Eolian effects, as applied to the pianoforte, have been carefully studied, many devices for controlling them will be brought forward. The main purpose, however, must be to connect the air-blast with the percussion apparatus in such a manner that, as soon as a key is depressed, the nozzle of that particular note in the air-blast is opened exactly at the same time that the wire is struck by the hammer, and it remains open as long as the note is held down. The movement of an extra pedal, however, has the effect of throwing the whole of the air-blast apparatus out of gear and reducing the piano to a percussion instrument, pure and simple.

It will be on the concert platform, no doubt, that this kind of improvement will find its first field of usefulness. Performers will require, in addition to their grand pianos, reservoirs of compressed air attachable by tubes to their instruments. In private houses hydraulic air-compressors will be found more convenient. When the piano has by some such means acquired the faculty of singing its notes, as well as of ringing them, its ascendency, as the finest instrument adapted to solo instrumentalism, will be assured.

The common domestic piano is rightly regarded by many people as being little better than an instrument of torture. One reason for this aversion is that, in the great majority of cases, the household instrument is not kept in tune. Probably it is not too much to say that the man who would invent a sound cottage piano which would remain in tune would do more for the improvement of the national taste in music than the largest and finest orchestra ever assembled. The constantly vitiated sense of hearing, which is brought about by the continual jangle of notes just a fractional part of a tone out of tune, is responsible for much of the distaste for good music which prevails among the people. When the domestic instrument is but imperfectly tuned, it is natural that those pieces should be preferred which suffer least by reason of the imperfection, and these, it need hardly be remarked, generally belong to the class of music which must be rated as essentially inferior, if not vulgar.

The device of winding a string round a peg and twisting it up on the latter in order to obtain tension for a vibrating note is thousands of years old. It was the method by which tension was imparted to some of the earliest harps and lyres of which history is cognisant; and it is still to be found to-day in the most elaborate and costly grand piano, with but few alterations affecting its principle of action. The pianoforte of the future will be kept in tune by more exact and scientific methods, attaining a certain balance between the thickness of the wire and the tension placed upon it by means of springs and weights.

Besides the ravages of the badly-tuned piano, much suffering is inflicted by the barbarous habit of permitting a sounding instrument to be used for mere mechanical exercises. The taste of the pupil is vitiated, and the nerves of other inmates of the house are subjected to a source of constant irritation when long series of notes, arranged merely as muscular exercises, and some of them violating almost every rule of musical form, are ground out hour after hour like coffee from a coffee-mill. The inconsistency of subjecting the musical ear and taste of a boy or girl to this process, and then expecting the child to develop an innate taste for the delicacies of form in melody and of the beauty of harmony, is almost as bad as would be that of asking a Chinese victim of foot-binding to walk easily and gracefully.

The use of the digitorium for promoting the mechanical portion of a musical education by the training of the fingers has already, to some slight extent, obviated the evils complained of. But this instrument is, as yet, only in its rudimentary stage of development. The dumb notes of the keyboard ought to be capable of emitting sounds by way of notice to the operator, in order to show when the rules have been broken. Thus, for instance, the impact caused by putting a key down should have the effect of driving a small weight upwards in the direction of a metal bar, the distance of which can be adjusted. Another bar, at a lower level, is also approached by a second weight, and the perfect degree of evenness in the touch is indicated by the fact that the lower bar should be made to emit a faint sound with every note, but the higher one not at all. The closer the bars the more difficult is the exercise, and remarkable evenness of touch can be acquired by a progressive training with such an instrument.

The organ has been wonderfully improved during the nineteenth century. Yet the decline of its popularity in comparison with the pianoforte may be accounted for on very rational grounds. While ardent organists still claim that the organ is the "King of Instruments" the public generally entertain a feeling that it is a deposed king. It remains for the organ-builders of the twentieth century to attack the problem of curing its defects by methods going more directly to the root of the difficulty than any hitherto attempted.

As contrasted with the pianoforte, the organ is extremely deficient in that power which the conductor of an orchestra loves to exercise—facility in accentuating and in subduing at will the work of each individual performer. For all practical purposes the ten fingers of a piano-player are the ten players in an orchestra; and, according to the force with which each finger strikes the note, is the prominence given to its effects. An air or a motif may be brought out with emphasis by one set of fingers, while the others are playing an accompaniment with all sorts of delicate gradations of softness and emphasis.

By multiplying the manuals, the organ-builder has endeavoured, with a certain degree of success, to make up for the unfortunate fact that the performer on his instrument possesses no similar facility in making it speak louder when he submits the note to extra pressure. One hand may be playing an air on one manual, while the second is engaged in the accompaniment on another; and the former may be connected with a louder stop, or with one of a more penetrating quality than the latter.