Books › A special loan exhibition of musical instruments, manuscripts, books, portraits, and other mementoes of music and musicians, formed to commemorate the tercentenary of the granting by King James I of a charter of incorporation to the Worshipful company of musicians in 1604 .., 1904 › scan 119
Scan 119
A special loan exhibition of musical instruments, manuscripts, books, portraits, and other mementoes of music and musicians, formed to commemorate the tercentenary of the granting by King James I of a charter of incorporation to the Worshipful company of musicians in 1604 .., 1904
6 lines. Read by computer on 1 October 2026. No printed page number was found. See the scan on archive.org.
1the strings. The principle of tone production is identical in both cases. The dulcimer under various names is still popular, and is to be found in every civilised country.
3It is certain that a keyboard was known to the Greeks and Romans, for their so-called Water Organs were furnished with keys for the fingers. In all probability this simple device of a balanced lever passed out of mind in consequence of the troubles and darkness which ensued on the invasion of Italy by the Goths and Vandals in the early Christian era. Art and learning died; they did not revive from their long sleep until hundreds of years after the sacking of Imperial Rome. The lever key, one end for the finger and the other for the hammer, had to be re-invented. In the case of the clavier instruments strung with catgut or wire, two distinct types of mechanism were employed. One, derived from the action of plucking the string of the harp by the finger, gave us the virginal, spinet, and harpsichord; the other, following the practice of the dulcimer players, took the form of a "tangent" by way of hammer, which struck a blow, and so caused the string to sound. But the vibration did not last long, the string was not free—it was held tight as long as the finger kept the key down; thus the tone was feeble and evanescent. Not quite so in the case of those instruments where the string was plucked; a simple piece of mechanism termed a "jack," furnished with a piece of leather or quill attached to its tongue plucked the string, as was done by the plectrum in the cithara of the Greeks; thus a more sustained sound was produced, until the descent of the key brought a little piece of cloth on to the string and the sound was damped.
5These two types of a keyed dulcimer ran side by side for hundreds of years, and not a little beautiful and interesting music was written for the instruments. They supplied the wants of the creators of music of the day, yet to a great extent they lacked what we deem the soul of music, viz., expression. In the harpsichord clever makers employed ingenious devices for varying the tone quality, but in all these
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