Books › Ayars, Contributions to the Art of Music in America by the Music Industries of Boston (1937) — the Squier, Farley, Rettberg, Rockwell and Elias Howe matter, 1937 › scan 157
Scan 157
Ayars, Contributions to the Art of Music in America by the Music Industries of Boston (1937) — the Squier, Farley, Rettberg, Rockwell and Elias Howe matter, 1937
16 lines. Read by computer on 27 September 2026. Printed page 135. See the scan on archive.org.
12. REED ORGANS
3a. Early Development
5The reed organ, seraphine, harmonium, or melodeon is a keyboard instrument deriving its tone from a free reed which vibrates upon the passage of forced air.
7"Known from an early time in China" through the mouth blown Cheng, free reeds were greatly developed in 1810 by a Frenchman named Grenié.¹ Around the time that Sebastien Erard made his experiments Eschenbach of Bavaria, Greeks, Anton Häckel of Vienna, and other Germans developed various instruments using the free reed. Kratzenstein of Russia may have been the first European inventor to make practical "speaking reeds."² The first instrument of real importance embodying the free reed with metal tongues was the Harmonium invented and patented, including the name, August 9, 1840, by Alexander Debaine in Paris. The French Harmoniums were generally constructed on the "force system" in which the wind apparatus forces air upwards through the reeds producing a somewhat harsh, strident tone.
9According to Henry A. Goodrich in Church Organs: Some Early Builders in New England Ebenezer Goodrich's greatest invention was the musical reed of the reed organ, which he used as a stop in his parlor organs fourteen years before any other reed was known.³ His friend, Lowell Mason, urged him to make an entire reed organ. Apparently he followed his advice and gave his first such instrument to the eminent portrait painter, Gilbert Stuart. Henry L. Mason stated that reed keyboard instruments were first made in the United States in 1818. Unfortunately Henry A. Goodrich neglected to state when Ebenezer Goodrich made this gift and thus permit making sure whether his was the first referred to above.
11The early instrument of about this date and later generally had exhaust bellows. In this a vacuum is created in the so-called air chamber below the reeds by the exhausting power of the pedals, and an air current rushing down from above to fill it naturally
13¹ Mason, H. L. The History and Development of the American Cabinet Organ.
14² Statement of William B. Goodwin.
15³ For further information about this see pp. 151-2.
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