1891); L. T. Morris, Famous Musical Composers (London, 1891);
H. de Brémont, The World of Music (London, 1892); J. K. Paine,
Famous Composers and their Works (Boston, 1892–1893); E. Polko,
Meister der Tonkunst (Wiesbaden, 1897); R. F. Sharp, Makers of
Music (London, 1898); L. Nohl, Mosaik Denksteine aus dem Leben
berühmter Tonkünstler (Leipzig, 1899); T. Baker, A Biographical
Dictionary of Musicians (New York, 1900); M. Charles, Zeitgenössische
Tondichter (Leipzig, 1888); A. Jullien, Musiciens d’aujourd’hui
(Paris, 1892).
MUSICAL-BOX, an instrument for producing by mechanical means tunes or pieces of music. The modern musical-box is an elaboration of the elegant toy musical snuff-box in vogue during the 18th century. The notes or musical sounds are produced by the vibration of steel teeth or springs cut in a comb or flat plate of steel, reinforced by the harmonics generated in the solid steel back of the comb. The teeth are graduated in length from end to end of the comb or plate, the longer teeth giving the deeper notes; and the individual teeth are accurately attuned, where necessary, by filing or loading with lead. Each tone and semitone in the scale is represented by three or four separate teeth in the comb, to permit of successive repetitions of the same note when required by the music. The teeth are acted upon and musical vibrations produced by the revolution of a brass cylinder studded with projecting pins, which, as they move round, raise and release the proper teeth at due intervals according to the nature of the music. A single revolution of the cylinder completes the performance of each of the several pieces of music for which the apparatus is set, but upon the same cylinder there may be inserted pins for performing as many as thirty-six separate airs. This is accomplished by making both the points of the teeth and the projecting pins which raise them very fine, so that a very small change in the position of the cylinder is sufficient to bring an entirely distinct set of pins in contact with the teeth. In the more elaborate musical-boxes the cylinders are removable, and may be replaced by others containing distinct sets of music. In these also there are combinations of bell, drum, cymbal and triangle effects, &c. The revolving motion of the cylinder is effected by a spring and clock-work which on some modern instruments will work continuously for an hour and a half without winding, and the rate of revolution is regulated by a fly regulator. The headquarters of the musical-box trade is Geneva, where the manufacture gives employment to thousands of persons.
The musical-box is a type of numerous instruments for producing musical effects by mechanical means, in all of which a revolving cylinder or barrel studded with pins is the governing feature. The position of the pins on the barrel is determined by two considerations: those of pitch and of time or rhythm. The degrees of pitch or semitones of the scales are in the direction of the length of the cylinder, while those of time, or the beats in the bars, are in the path of the revolution of the cylinder. The action of the pins is practically the same for all barrel instruments; each pin serves to raise some part of the mechanism for one note at the exact moment and for the exact duration of time required by the music to be played, after which, passing along with the revolution of the cylinder, it ceases to act. The principle of the barrel operating by friction, by percussion or by wind on reeds, pipes or strings governs carillons or musical bells, barrel organs, mechanical flutes, celestial voices, harmoniphones, violin-pianos and the orchestrions and polyphons in which a combination of all orchestral effects is attempted. In the case of wind instruments, such as flutes, trumpets, oboes, clarinets, imitated in the more complex orchestrions, the pins raise levers which open the valves admitting air, compressed by mechanical bellows, to various kinds of flue-pipes, and to others fitted with beating and free reeds. The sticks used for striking bells, drums, cymbals and triangles are set in motion in a similar manner. A fine set of full-page drawings, published at Frankfort in 1615,[1] makes the whole working of the pinned barrel quite clear, and establishes the exact relation of the pins to the music produced by the barrel so unmistakably that some bars of the piece of music set on the cylinder can be made out. The prototype of the 19th-century musical-box is to be found in the Netherlands where during the 15th century the dukes of Burgundy encouraged the invention of ingenious mechanical musical curiosities such as “organs which played of themselves,” musical snuff-boxes, singing birds, curious clocks, &c. A principle of more recent introduction than the studded cylinder consists of sheets of perforated paper or card, somewhat similar to the jacquard apparatus for weaving. The perforations correspond in position and length to the pitch and duration of the note they represent, and as the web or long sheet of paper passes over the instrument the perforated holes are brought in proper position and sequence under the influence of the suction or pressure of air from a bellows, and thereby the notes are either directly acted on, as in the case of reed instruments, or the opening and closing of valves set in motion levers or liberate springs which govern special notes. The United States are the original home of the instruments controlled by perforated paper known as orguinettes, organinas, melodeons, &c. All these instruments are being gradually replaced in popular favour by the piano-players and the gramophone. (K.S.)
MUSICAL NOTATION, a pictorial method of representing
sounds to the ear through the medium of the eye. It is probable
that the earliest attempts at notation were made by the Hindus
and Chinese, from whom the legacy was transferred to Greece.
The exact nature of the Greek notation is a subject of dispute,
different explanations assigning 1680, 1620, 990, or 138 signals
to their alphabetical method of delineation. To Boethius we
owe the certainty that the Greek notation was not adopted by
the Latins, although it is not certain whether he was the first
to apply the fifteen letters of the Roman alphabet to the scale
of sounds included within the two octaves, or whether he was
only the first to make record of that application. The reduction
of the scale to the octave is ascribed to St Gregory, as also the
naming of the seven notes, but it is not safe to assume that such
an ascription is accurate or final. Indications of a scheme of
notation based, not on the alphabet, but on the use of dashes,
hooks, curves, dots and strokes are found to exist as early as
the 6th century, while specimens in illustration of this different
method do not appear until the 8th. The origin of these signs,
known as neumes (νεύματα, or nods), is the full stop (punctus),
the comma (virga), and the mound or undulating line (clivus),
the first indicating a short sound, the second a long sound, and
the third a group of two notes. The musical intervals were
suggested by the distance of these signals from the words of the
text. The variety of neumes employed at different times, and
the fluctuations due to handwriting, have made them extremely
difficult to decipher. In the 10th century a marked advance
is shown by the use of a red line traced horizontally above the
text to give the singer a fixed note (F＝fa), thus helping him to
approximate the intervals. To this was added a second line in
yellow (for C＝ut), and finally a staff arose from the further
addition of two black lines over these. The difficulty of the
subject is complicated for the student by the fact that an
incredible variety of notations coexisted at one period, all more
or less representing attempts in the direction of the modern
system. A variety of experiments resulted in the assignment
of the four-lined staff to sacred music and of the five-lined staff
to secular music. The yellow and red colours were replaced
by the use of the letters F and C (fa and ut) on the lines. This
use of letters to indicate clef is forestalled in a manuscript of
Guido of Arezzo’s Micrologus, dating from the 12th century, in
which is the famous hymn to St John, printed with neumes on
a staff of three lines (see Guido of Arezzo). The use of letters
for indicating clefs has survived to the present day, our clef
signatures being modified forms of the letters C, F and G, which
have passed through a multitude of shapes. Before the 12th
century there is no trace of a measured notation (i.e. of a
numerical time division separating the component parts of a
piece of music). It is at the time of Franco of Cologne[2] that
measured music takes its rise, together with the black notation
in place of neumes, which disappeared altogether by the end of
the 14th century. Writing four hundred years after St Gregory,
Cottonius complains bitterly of the defects in the system of
neumes: “The same marks which Master Trudo sang as
thirds, were sung as fourths by Master Albinus; while Master
Salomo asserts that fifths are the notes meant, so at last there
were as many methods of singing as teachers of the art.” Possibly
the reckless multiplication of lines in the staff may have
contributed to the obscurity of which Cottonius complains.
In the black notation, which led to the modern system, the
square note with a tail (
) is the long sound; the square note
- ↑ See S. de Caus, Les forces mouvantes; and article Barrel Organ.
- ↑ The principles of Franco are found in the treatises of Walter Odington, a monk of Evesham who became archbishop of Canterbury in 1228.
