The general outline of the book can be explained with little detail. Recognizing, as has already been suggested, the dependence of all right pianoforte making upon the observance of the established principles of acoustics, the author has thought it well, after a short historical sketch of the pianoforte, to make a general statement of the laws that govern the propagation and transmission of sound. It is but a step from this to a concise explanation of the peculiarities of stretched strings and their behavior under varying conditions of excitation, and differing phases of tension, etc. This leads us directly to the discussion of pianoforte strings, their dimensions, and the manner in which they become the agents of sound-production in the instrument.
Continuing our investigations, we pass to the subject of resonance and come naturally to a discussion of the resonating apparatus of the pianoforte.
The framing that holds together these two vital elements is next subjected to analysis and explanation, and finally the mechanisms of percussion and touch are brought under our inquiry and their peculiarities noted and expounded. The remarks upon the draughting of pianoforte scales, that conclude the volume, are necessarily broad and general, since it is quite impossible to indicate with exactitude the actual method to be employed in making mechanical drawings, at least within the limits that the relative importance of the subject imposes on us. Attention has been drawn more particularly to the calculations for shrinkage that are rendered necessary by the vagaries of cast iron, such as is used in the manufacture of metal frames, and to the details of hammer-stroke points and string dimensions, the principles of which have been explained in their proper places within the body of the work.
CHAPTER II.
THE EVOLUTION OF THE PIANOFORTE.
While the present work is by no means intended to serve as an elaborate analysis of pianoforte development, it seems that a proper comprehension of the various principles that are laid down in the course of our argument will be facilitated by a short survey of the evolution of the instrument, undertaken from an historical viewpoint. As we recognize in the pianoforte of to-day the culmination of the musical-mechanical effort of ages, and as a complete study of the results that have been achieved can best be introduced by a preliminary knowledge of the manner in which the various steps towards latter-day excellence have been attained, it seems that we cannot do better than make an attempt to survey the field of pianoforte evolution in a manner broad and general, though necessarily brief.
As was incidentally remarked in the last chapter, we may properly consider the modern pianoforte as essentially the product of all the ages. The origin of stringed instruments is lost in the mists of antiquity, but Greek mythology has supplied us with a most pleasing legend to account for the invention of that pioneer of all stretched-string instruments, the classic lyre. We are told that Hermes, walking one day along the shore, found lying at his feet the shell of a dead tortoise. The intestines of the animal had been dried in the sun and were stretched along the rim of the shell so that when Hermes’ foot struck against one of them, a musical sound was given forth and Lo! the lyre was born. Earlier still are the accounts, in the shape of cuneiform or other inscriptions, that show a form of lyre to have been in use among the Assyrians. The biblical descriptions of various stringed instruments, such as the psaltery, or the harp of David, are generally familiar.
While doubtless we need not consider it illogical to trace the beginning of modern stringed instruments, whether they be of the key-board variety or otherwise, to such misty and vague traditions, we must look to more modern times for a true understanding of the causes that operated to produce the key-board. This, the distinguishing feature of the pianoforte family, first arose through the need for a facile means of accompanying the voice in the then newly beginning art of music which required the simultaneous sounding of different tones. Instruments of the organ type were earlier in the field, for we have accounts of the water-organ in the writings of the historians of the later Roman Empire. The earliest form of key-board seems to have been introduced in Europe in the latter part of the eleventh century A. D. At about the same period we hear of a stringed instrument called the organistrum, having three strings, one of which was in connection with a number of tangents which were adapted to be pushed in upon it so as to sound different segments and produce different notes. Later we find that the ecclesiastical musicians were in the habit of using more or less complicated monochords for the purpose of training their pupils in the plain-chants of the church. These monochords gradually became more complex and finally were mounted on a kind of sound board in groups and thus became no longer monochords but trichords, tetrachords, or polychords. The next step was obviously to furnish the instrument with a set of balanced key-levers borrowed from the organ and with tangents to connect the keys with the strings, these latter coming from the organistrum. Thus we have at once the famous clavichord.
But this was not the only form of keyed instrument that was thus early devised. We learn that the psaltery had contemporaneously been fitted with keys. There were two forms of this famous instrument, one trapezoid and one triangular. When both of these had been fitted with keys there were two more distinct forms of keyed instruments; differences which had a large influence upon the later development of the type.