Books › A descriptive catalogue of the musical instruments recently exhibited at the Royal Military Exhibition, London, 1890 …, 1891 › scan 270
Scan 270
A descriptive catalogue of the musical instruments recently exhibited at the Royal Military Exhibition, London, 1890 …, 1891
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1scale of ratios or multipliers could be used to represent actual vibrational as well as proportional values, we would have a standard for the musical scale of a similar character to those usually adopted for other scientific work involving measurements. In such standards, either unity, or some power of ten, is taken as a datum to which variations can be referred for comparison, and from which proportions can be calculated. In the given table of ratios, the removal of the decimal point two places gives 100.00 as the basis of the scale in place of 1.0000, and this number happens to agree closely with the vibrational value of G, which in Philharmonic pitch is 100.67, and in French pitch is 96.97. There is a suitability in the note on the lowest line of the customary musical staff being taken as a datum, and if it can be shown upon examination that the value G = 100 is one that in the event of any general standard being adopted in this country would create the least disturbance, the strongest practical reason would be added to the arithmetical advantage of a simple and easily remembered numerical basis.
3Table II. shows the scale fully written out for three octaves on the proposed basis of G = 100; in this scale a' = 448.98 and c'' = 533.94, or in whole numbers 449 and 534 respectively.
5The Society of Arts' c'' fork as actually made in 1860 gave 534.46, equal to G 100.1; so that, although intended to give c'' 528, it was quite unintentionally exceedingly close to the standard now proposed.
7Table III., annexed, shows how widely spread throughout Europe at the time of the French Commission in 1858-9, and also at the time of the Society of Arts' investigations in 1859 and again in 1869, were different pitches varying but a very few vibrations from the proposed a' 449, based upon G 100. The tendency towards a gradual rise in pitch, already noticed in the body of this Appendix, as illustrated by Mr. R. S. Rockstro's Philharmonic fork a' 447.1 of the year 1845 as compared with a' 452.5 between 1846 and 1854, is to be seen also in the Milan pitch of 446.6 as given by Marloye's fork in 1845, compared with the pitch in 1856, 450.3 as sent to the French Commission.
9The total range of pitch covered in Table III. from a' 435.0 to a' 457.9 is equal to \( \frac{89}{100} \) of a semitone.
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