Part 107

DULCIMER.]

Wherever we search among the records of early nations we find evidence that they were familiar with the music obtainable from playing upon stringed instruments, but we have never been able to discover what people or what persons first learned that music could be produced with such instruments.

~THE FIRST STRINGED MUSICAL INSTRUMENT~

The harp was probably the first practical stringed instrument. Its music was produced by picking the strings with the fingers or with a piece of bone or metal.

The next step was the psaltery, which was produced in the Middle Ages. It was a box with strings stretched across it and represented the first crude attempt at using a sounding board. A larger instrument which came about the same time and was very like the psaltery, was the dulcimer. Both were played by picking the strings with the finger or a small piece of bone or other substance.

Then came the keyboard, first used on stringed instruments in what is called the clavicytherium. This consisted of a box with cat-gut strings ranged in a semitriangle. On the end of each key was a quill, which picked the string when the key was operated.

After this came the clavichord. It was built like a small square piano without legs. The strings were made of brass and on the end of each key was a wedge-shaped piece of brass which picked the strings. The elder Bach composed his music on the clavichord, his favorite instrument, and that is why the music written by Bach is full of soft and melancholy notes. The clavichord produced only such notes.

The next steps brought the virginal, spinet and harpsichord. The strings on all three were of brass with quills at the key ends for picking the strings. The virginal and spinet were very much alike. The harpsichord was larger and sometimes was made with two keyboards. These instruments had notes covering four octaves only.

CLAVICHORD.]

The arrangement of the strings in the harpsichord provided one step nearer to our piano. It had five octaves of notes and there were at least two strings to each note instead of only one, as in previous instruments.

SPINET.]

Why Do We Have Only Seven Octaves On a Piano? Why Not Twelve or More Octaves?

Ordinarily the longest key-board of the piano has seven octaves and three notes in addition, or 52 notes, not counting the sharps and flats. An octave you, of course, know consists of the seven notes C D E F G A B. Every eighth note is a repetition of the one seven notes below or above. The reason that there are no more notes or octaves on the piano is that if we extended the key-board either way one or two octaves more, we should not be able to hear the notes struck on the keys. There would be sound produced, or course, but the vibrations would be too fine for the human ear to hear. It is said that the range of the human ear does not go beyond somewhere between eleven and twelve octaves.

UPRIGHT HARPSICHORD.

(From the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City.)]

Picture by courtesy Browne & Howell Co.

QUEEN ELIZABETH’S VIRGINAL.]

Photo by Kohler & Campbell Piano Co.

PUTTING ON THE SOUNDING BOARD.

The first operation in producing the piano is to make a wooden frame or back on which is attached first the sounding board, then the iron, harp-shaped frame to which the strings are fastened.

The tones of the piano are produced by felt-covered hammers striking the strings. The sounding board, which is made of wood, magnifies the tones.

This picture shows the mechanics glueing the sounding board to the back.]

Photo by Kohler & Campbell Piano Co.

FASTENING THE STRINGS.

The strings are hitched on to pins in the iron frame at its lower end and fastened at the upper end by a metal pin or peg driven into the back. The peg is square on top, so that it can be turned with a tuning hammer or wrench in order to tighten or slacken the strings, which is the operation of tuning the piano.]

Photo by Kohler & Campbell Piano Co.

BUILDING THE CASE AROUND THE SOUNDING BOARD.

As soon as the sounding board with its iron frame and strings is complete, the outside case is built up around it, the front being left open to receive the action and key-board.]