The Harp is, in fact, nothing but a magnified bow, with a number of strings of graduated length and tension. Some very beautiful experiments have been made on this subject by the Rev. Sir F. A. G. Ouseley, Professor of Music at Oxford, who stretched a string of sixty-four feet in length, and found that although, when vibrating, it must produce a note, there was no human ear that could distinguish it. Yet, if combined with other musical instruments, it would probably do its work well. The theory of the vibrations will be briefly described on another page.
These vibrations may be produced in various manners. The string may be pulled with the fingers, as in the harp, the guitar, the zither, or even the violin, &c., in pizzicato passages.
The old harpsichord, now an instrument vanished into the shadows of the past, pulled the strings with little strips of quill, acting like the thumb-ring of the zither-player. The “plectrum” of the ancients acted in the same manner, and the Japanese have at the present day a sort of guitar played with a plectrum. I have heard it, but cannot particularly admire the effect, the notes appearing to be without feeling, and as if they were played on a barrel-organ.
Sometimes, as in our modern pianos, the strings are struck by hammers instead of being pulled by fingers, plectrum, or goose-quill.
The most ingenious mode of causing musical vibration is the Bow, which is too familiar to need a detailed description. Suffice it to say that it really is a modified bow, the place of the string being supplied by a flat band of horsehair, which is drawn over the string, and so causes it to vibrate. In order to enable the bow to grip the string, it is rubbed with resin almost as often as a billiard-player chalks his cue.
Some skill is required even in producing a sound by the bow. It looks as if any one could do it, but a novice, if he extorts any sound at all, never rises above a squeak. When I took my first violin lessons, nearly thirty years ago, I was so horrified at the discordant sounds elicited from the instrument, that I retired to the topmost garret of the house in order not to hurt any one’s feelings except my own.
On the left hand of the illustration is seen a well-known example of the imitation of Nature by Art. This is the common Cricket, whose loud shrill call is more familiar than agreeable.
Some years ago, while engaged on my “Insects at Home,” I gave much time to the examination of the structures by which such a sound can be produced. On the under side of the wing-covers, or “elytra,” as they are scientifically termed, are notched ridges, which, when examined with a moderate power of the microscope, have something of this appearance ~~~~~~~. The friction of these notches produces the musical sound, which, as the reader will see, is exactly analogous to the friction of the bow upon the string.
Next we come to the Vibrator, sometimes called the Reed. It is introduced into various musical instruments, such, for example, as the harmonium, the clarionet, the oboe, the bassoon, and various organ pipes.