Scan 3
Musical instruments in the South Kensington Museum, 1869
24 lines. Read by computer on 28 September 2026. No printed page number was found. See the scan on archive.org.
1MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS.
3USIC, in however primitive a stage of development it may be with some nations, is the most universally appreciated of the Fine Arts. The origin of vocal music may be surmised to have been coeval with, if not antecedent to, language; and the construction of musical instruments evidently dates with the earliest inventions which suggested themselves to human ingenuity.
5An arrangement of the various kinds of musical instruments in a regular order, beginning with that kind which is the most universally known, and progressing gradually to the least usual, gives the following result:—
7Instruments of percussion of indefinite sonorousness, or in other words, pulsatile instruments which have not a sound of a fixed pitch,—as the drum, rattle, castanets, &c.—are most universal.
9Wind instruments of the flute kind—including pipes, whistles, flutes, Pandean pipes, &c.—are also to be found almost everywhere.
11Much the same is the case with wind instruments of the trumpet kind. These are often made of the horns, bones, and tusks of animals; but also frequently of vegetable substances, and of metal.
13Instruments of percussion of definite sonorousness are chiefly met with in China, Japan, Burmah, Siam, and Java. They not unfrequently contain a series of tones produced by slabs of wood or metal, which are beaten with a sort of hammer, as our harmonicon is played.
15Stringed instruments without a finger-board, or any similar contrivance which enables the performer to produce a number of different tones on one string, are generally found among nations whose musical accomplishments have emerged from the earliest state of infancy. The strings are twanged with the fingers, or with a piece of wood, horn, metal, or any other suitable substance serving as a plectrum; or the strings are made to vibrate by being beaten with a hammer, as our dulcimer is played.
17Wind instruments with reeds, i.e. such instruments as are blown through a single or double piece of vibrating cane, straw, or similar substance,—like our hautboy, bassoon, and clarionet,—are chiefly met with in European countries. They are, however, also constructed in several Asiatic countries, in Egypt, the Barbary States, &c.
19Stringed instruments provided with a finger-board, on which different tones are producible on one string by the performer shortening the same more or less,—as on the guitar, violin, &c.—are met with almost exclusively among nations in a somewhat advanced stage of musical progress. Such as are played with a bow, are the least universal; they are, however, known to the Chinese, Japanese, Hindus, Persians, Arabs, and a few other nations, besides those of Europe and their descendants in extra-European countries.
21Wind instruments of the organ kind,—i.e. such as are constructed of a number of tubes which can be sounded together by means of a common mouth-piece or some other contrivance, and upon which therefore chords, and combinations of chords, or harmony can be produced,—are, comparatively, of rare occurrence. Some interesting specimens of them exist in China, Japan, Laos, and Siam.
23Besides these various kinds of sound-producing means employed in musical performances, a few others, less widely diffused, could be pointed out, which are of a construction not represented in any of our well-known European specimens.
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