 |
University of Edinburgh | |
| | The Galpin Society |
 |
COLLOQUIUM ON HISTORICAL MUSICAL INSTRUMENT ACOUSTICS AND
TECHNOLOGY
Meeting organised jointly by the Edinburgh University Collection of
Historic Musical Instruments and the Galpin Society
22-23 August 1997
Abstracts of Papers
Web URL: http://www.music.ed.ac.uk/euchmi/galpin/gxita.html
Contents
Return to the Colloquium Home Page
See also the abstracts of the
International Symposium on Musical Acoustics held in Edinburgh 19-22 August 1997.
See also the One-day Conference on
Instrumentalischer Bettlermantl, a 17th-century Musical
Compendium in the Edinburgh University Library Special Collections,
University of Edinburgh, Sunday 24th August 1997.
Return to Contents
History of Musical Acoustics
| The State of Progress with the Edinburgh University
Manuscript Instrumentalischer Bettlermantl
J. Patricia Campbell
Department of Fine Art, University of
Edinburgh, U.K. |
The 17th century manuscript Dc.6.100, written partly in German and
partly in Latin, entitled Instrumentalischer Bettlermantl, was
introduced to the Galpin Society at its meeting in Edinburgh in June
1994. Since then a team of scholars from a variety of disciplines has
been preparing a transcription, translation and commentary of the
extensive illustrated text. This paper outlines some of the recent
findings of the team which
- further identify the author, "A.S.", a "native of Habach
and a member of the minor reformed order of Fransiscans"
- distinguish material about instruments and performance practice
derived from published sources from original commentary
by "A.S."
- suggest a closer dating and geographical location for the manuscript
based on the figures named in the text
A full and detailed discussion of the significance of the information
contained in the manuscript will form the programme of a
one day conference
on Sunday August 24th, following this colloquium.
| Application of Acoustical Science by Historical Makers
of Keyboard Instruments
John Koster
The Shrine to Music Museum, University of South
Dakota, Vermillion, U.S.A. |
Until late in the eighteenth century stringed-keyboard instruments and
organs were designed either empirically or according to traditional
Pythagorean notions of proportions. The only practically significant
aspect of valid acoustical science was the calculation of string
lengths, especially in matters of tuning and temperament. This remained
the case for about 150 years after modern acoustical science began with
the investigations of Galileo, Descartes, Mersenne, and others in the
early seventeenth century. Even though Dom Bedos de Celles's L'Art
du facteur d'orgues (Paris, 1766-1778) was sponsored by the French
Royal Academy of Sciences, with which such important acousticians as
Sauveur and Daniel Bernoulli were associated, this exhaustive treatise
on organ building contains no acoustical theory and the described
methods of design are medieval in origin. The advent of a truly
scientific approach is marked in organ building by logarithmic
pipe-width scaling, first proposed by G.A. Sorge about 1760 and
followed by German-American builders; and in piano making by Broadwood's
experimentation with rational strike points in pianos made shortly after
the publication of Thomas Young's "law" in 1800. Later
treatises on instrument making, for example, Carl Kützing's
Beiträge zur praktischen Akustik als Nachtrag zur Fortepiano-
und Orgelbaukunst (Bern, 1838), attempt to establish a scientific
basis for design, including, for example, consideration of Chladni's
experiments with vibrating plates as applicable to the design of piano
soundboards.
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Acoustics of Historical and Traditional Wind Instruments
| Early Years of the Modern Trombone: Some
Observations
Arnold Myers [1] and Raymond Parks [2]
1. Faculty of Music, University of Edinburgh, U.K.
2. Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Edinburgh, U.K.
|
The acquisiton of a French trombone from the early years of the 19th
century by the Edinburgh University Collection of Historic Musical
Instruments has stimulated investigations into the history of the
trombone in the period 1750 to 1850, a period embracing most of the
transition from the renaissance "sackbut" to the modern
trombone and which saw the development of distinct models of trombone in
France and Germany.
The acoustically-significant characteristics of
some trombones in various museum collections are discussed, with
particular reference being made to the design and workmanship of the
instrument by François Riedlocker now in Edinburgh.
Return to Contents
Acoustics of Historical and Traditional Stringed Instruments
| New Materials for Early Music Instruments
Charles Besnainou
Laboratoire d'Acoustique Musicale,
Université Pierre et Marie Curie, Paris, France |
Recently the new taste for Early Music has induced craftmen, musicians
and scientists to rediscover ancient instruments and also old technics.
Musical strings are very important for the instruments: they are its
motor. They have to be adapted to the instrument, to the style of music
and to the player. For instance, lutes or gambas basses were fitted
with modern wounded strings with heavy sound and very long decay ; to
refind the "authentic" spirit of those instruments gut stings
must necessarily be used, but which ones ?
Gut strings differ from
monofilament extruded strings by their texturation. They are made of
several thin strips twisted together, this shape allows greater
flexibility and elasticity. These properties are drastically important
for the intonation and the harmonicity of the string. Modern gut
strings are quite bad compared to ancient ones : it is a question of
technic of elaboration.
We present a study on gut strings and their
texturation - ancient and modern - and we present a new type of
texturation for synthetic polymer - as nylon or PVDF - to get the same
behaviour as ancient gut strings.
By the way, we present also a
concept of composite fibers to replace wood for musical instruments. A
baroque lute stringed with our new strings will be demonstrated.
| Tone Development in Stringed Instruments, I: the
Degradation of Hemicellulose
Ephraim Segerman
Manchester, U.K. |
It has been shown that increasing the moisture content of wood
increasingly damps sound vibrations. Dry wood is made up of about half
cellulose, a quarter lignin and a quarter hemicellulose. The swelling
and contraction of wood as a result of varying moisture content is
almost all associated with the hemicellulose in the cell walls absorbing
and losing water. In contrast with cellulose and lignin, which are very
stable, hemicellulose is unstable and breaks down into gasses with time.
At 20 degrees C., completely dry wood loses about 1% of its weight per
century by this process. The degradation rate increases with increasing
temperature (exponentially), with increasing moisture content, and with
lower pH. The less hemicellulose content left in the wood, the less
moisture that can be absorbed, and thus the damping of sound vibrations
at any particular ambient relative humidity is less.
This is most
probably the major factor explaining why old wood sounds better than
wood seasoned for a few years, and why seasoned wood sounds better than
freshly dried wood. There is evidence that some 17th and 18th century
instrument makers speeded up the seasoning process by stewing the wood
(in a "salting" process to deter rot and worm) before
assembling the instrument. By varying stewing time, any degree of
artificial aging can be achieved.
| Tone Development in Stringed Instruments II: Acoustic
Vibration and Creep
Ephraim Segerman
Manchester, U.K. |
When a body is stressed to deform inelastically (creep) and is
simultaneously vibrated acoustically, energy can transfer from the
vibration to the deformation. This leads to acceleration of the
deformation and absorption of the vibration. Musicians observe this
interaction in their strings and instruments as tone quality that is
poorer than expected. Examples of how this is experienced with strings
is the loss of tone just before a gut string breaks and the inferior
tone of brass strings on a harpsichord when first put on. Examples of
this effect with violins is the delay in achieving full tone on new
instruments (with "playing-in" speeding it up) and on
instruments that have had major surgery or a substantial soundpost
alteration.
The initial period of fastest creep (and poorest tone)
can be shortened by humidity cycling or by enhanced playing-in (driving
a piezoelectric transducer on the bridge by the output of an amplifier).
| Sympathetic Stringing as applied to the Baryton and
other Bowed Instruments of the 17th and 18th centuries: Origins -
Applications - Acoustics
Terence M. Pamplin
London Guildhall University, London,
U.K. |
The first application of sympathetic stringing to a bowed instrument in
the 17th century, is to the Lyra Viol at the beginning of the century.
Reference is made to the stayed patent application of Edney and Gregory
and to the references in the Sylva Sylvarum of Francis Bacon of 1627 and
other treatises.
The Baryton is an unique application of the
principle, with a second combined instrument, comprising a set of
secondary wire strings performing the function of both sympathetic
strings and a plucked bass second manual. Other instruments with
applied sympathetic stringing include the English violette, the viola d'amore, the sultana and the Hardanger fiddle of Norway.
It is the
intention of this paper to address the cultural origins and acoustics of
applied sympathetic stringing to bowed instruments. Contemporary and
early world music sources will be discussed to locate pre- 17th century
origins in the Hindu and Greek traditions of the Pinaki and Nissanka
vinas and the Kemanes of Cappadocia.
Return to Contents
Acoustics of Historical and Traditional Percussion Instruments
Return to
Contents
The Harpsichord
| English Virginal Design Concepts and Pitch
Standards
Darryl Martin
Faculty of Music, University of Edinburgh,
U.K. |
The twenty-two surviving English virginals show a great variety of
design layouts. This is partly due to the large number of different
makers represented by the surviving instruments, but it also appears
clear that individual makers used more than one general layout design,
and even can be shown to have used different construction methods to
create the basic layout. This is in great contrast to contemporary
instruments from other countries, and later English practice as observed
in spinets and the eighteenth-century harpsichord makers.
This lack
of general "models" presents many difficulties in trying to
determine the original design concepts. However, despite the variety
shown, a number of elements tend to regularly occur, and by examining
all of the surviving instruments it has proved possible to show some
basic design concepts used by the original makes and come to some
conclusions regarding pitch standards.
This paper will show some of
the approaches used by makes in designing their instruments, giving
details of the methods used when designing instruments for specific
pitch standards, and how other details of the layout were the result of
construction method rather than design. The problems associated with
trying to determine the pitch standards will be discussed.
Until the time of the Napoleonic invasions of the Italian peninsula each
of the major cities in Italy used its own unit of measurement, and the
size of these units varied from place to place. The braccio, piede,
canna, palmo, etc. and their subdivision into the oncia and pollice
were therefore characteristic of each of the centres in which
instruments were built. Therefore if the unit of measurement used in
the design and construction of an instrument can be determined, this can
be used in turn to establish the centre of its origin. It is also
essential to know the unit of measurement in order to help to establish
the original dimensions and scalings of an instrument, such as the
Edinburgh Bolcioni harpsichord, which has been radically altered.
The procedure used for determining the unit of measurement used to
construct both virginals and harpsichords is first of all outlined in
general terms. Then the length of the unit of measurement used by
Bolcioni is determined with reference to other instruments by him.
The harpsichord in the Russell Collection by Stefano Bolcioni presently
has a disposition of 2x8', 1x4' with three keyboards. However, this
state is totally inauthentic and clearly dates from a falsification of
the instrument by Leopoldo Franciolini at the end of the nineteenth
century. Because of the drastic alterations to the instrument it has
hitherto been very difficult to establish the original compass,
disposition, scalings and pitch relationship of this instrument.
Comparison with the only other surviving Bolcioni harpsichord and
application of the unit of measurement used to construct it then enables
one to determine its original case dimensions. It is then possible,
using marks on the baseboard, traces of the original bridge position on
the soundboard, and construction marks on the jackslides, to establish
with some certainty its scalings and its pitch relationship to the other
Bolcioni instruments. The original compass determined by this analysis
is an interesting and unusual variant of the common C/E to c3 range with
split accidentals.
| Technology in the Kirkman Workshop: the State of the
Art
John R. Watson
Colonial Williamsburg Foundation,
Williamsburg, Virginia, U.S.A. |
Jacob Kirkman, history's most prolific pre-revival harpsichord maker,
worked on the eve of the industrial revolution and at the culmination of
the harpsichord-making tradition. Close examination of the surviving
instruments reveals the collected insights of generations of harpsichord
makers, fossilized in the form of tool marks and other evidence. Used
as primary documents, the surviving products of this workshop describe
in surprising detail the procedures, tools and technologies used in
their manufacture. The very high degree of accuracy, consistency, and
apparent efficiency of Kirkman's jack-making activities is as
astonishing as the elegance and sophistication of the mature
eighteenth-century English harpsichord action design. At a time when
the industrial revolution had hardly touched the furniture making trade,
Kirkman's workers were producing about 18,000 jacks each year, all
within the minute tolerances we normally associate with precision
metalworking of a century later.
This paper describes some of the
"state-of-the-art" technologies used in the Kirkman workshop -
particularly those to produce jacks, registers, and keyboards. Also
described are some of the modern technologies the author used to
"read" the evidence of once-forgotten early technologies.
Return to
Contents
The Pianoforte
| Early Iron Framing in Pianos: The Work of Alpheus
Babcock and the Boston School
Darcy Kuronen
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Massachusetts,
U.S.A. |
It has long been recognized that Alpheus Babcock of Boston was the first
to patent, in 1825, the use of a one-piece cast iron frame for pianos, a
feature that was ultimately adopted in the construction of all pianos.
However, published research has examined the circumstances surrounding
this development only in cursory fashion. First-hand examination of
numerous early Boston pianos has revealed useful data in assessing the
initial frequency of use (or disuse) of iron framing in such
instruments. The recent discovery of one particularly significant
instrument by Babcock has also shed new light on how his frame design
changed and developed during his working career. I am currently
researching archival sources to attempt to learn more about the working
relationships of the various Boston makers and also the circumstances
that led them to introduce iron framing ahead makers in New York and
Philadelphia. This paper outlines this research and illustrates
technical features of key instruments from the period.
| G.F. Sievers and mid 19th-century Pianoforte
Technology
Marco Tiella
Rovereto, Italy |
In 1868 in Naples was published the book "Il pianoforte - Guida
pratica per Costruttori, Accordatori, Dilettanti e Possessori di
Pianoforti con 300 disegni parte intercalati nel testo e parte in
apposito atlante di Giacomo Ferd. Sievers fabbricante di pianoforti
in Napoli - Napoli Stabilimento tipografico Ghio in Santa Teresa agli
Studi - 1868" [The Pianoforte - Guide for Makers, Tuners, Amateurs
and Owners of Pianofortes with 300 drawings, partially inserted in the
text and partially in an atlas by Giacomo Ferdinando Sievers
Pianoforte-Maker in Naples - Naples, Ghio, S.Teresa agli Studi - 1868].
Sievers, of Russian origin, working there at least from about 1840
and won medals (London, Florence, Naples), prizes (Brevetto di privativa
1840 [Patent]) or Privative [Patents] in 1840, 1850, 1859, 1861, 1862
(Italy, France). In fact, the book of 250 pages, which contains 8
tables with the drawings of 151 tools, is completed by an atlas with 15
tables and more than 100 drawings beautifully engraved concerning
technical illustrations of pianoforte mechanics, described by Sievers in
the book, among which there are those of Streicher, Rohden, Sievers,
Pleyel, Pleyel Wolf, Krigelstein, Steinway, Erard, H. Herz, Brinsmead,
Hornung-Moeller, Keim & Günther, Wankel & Temler, Stöcher,
Eisenmenger, Pape (father), Alison & Son.
The book also contains a
lot of interesting and even unexpected information about the
technological processes known or used by Sievers (woods, timbering,
tools, felts, skins, varnishes, glues, stains, pianoforte design for
cases and mechanics of grands, square and upright; instrument care;
addresses of furnishers; report on the Exposition Universelle of Paris,
1867; most of which are summarized and discussed in the paper.
Return to Contents
String Instruments
| Endongo (Bowl Lyre) of the Baganda of Uganda: an
Examination of its Acoustical Properties
James K. Makubuya
MIT Music and Theater Arts, Cambridge,
MA, U.S.A. |
In examining the acoustical properties of the ndongo, this paper will be
limited to the sound source acoustics which are:
- the eight strings
- the resonator
- the water lizard skin
- the hole drilled on its side
- the plucking technique used in activating the sounds
In the authentic tradition of the Baganda (people), the ndongo is fitted
with a set of eight strings. In addition to constituting one of the
principal physical characteristics particular to the ndongo, this set of
eight strings also forms the instrument acoustic centre. The basis of a
good ndongo sound depends on the combination of the vibrating strings as
the generators, providing a wide range of harmonics to be examined.
The resonator too, constructed using specific materials like the
settaala type of wood, the nswaswa (water lizard) skin with a hole
drilled on its side, provides significant acoustical properties that
give the ndongo a characteristic sound of its own.
To be discussed
too will be the most effective plucking technique that strengthens the
sound in the lowest and highest ranges.
| "Tension-Free Instruments" - the Guitar and
Mandolin Designs of Orville Gibson
Darryl Martin
Faculty of Music, University of Edinburgh,
U.K. |
The name Gibson is today best known in the guitar world as the company
that makes some of the finest electric guitars, including the Les Paul,
Explorer, Flying V and Firebird models. It is also renowned for their
acoustic instruments - Mastertone banjos, SJ200 and Advanced Jumbo flat
tops guitars, L5 and Super 400 Archtop guitars and the F5 mandolin - the
first choice instruments of many leading professional players.
All
of these instruments are far removed from those of the man who founded
what was to become the company and gave it his name - Orville Gibson.
Gibson was born in 1856 and moved from upstate New York to Kalamazoo,
Michigan by 1881. Sometime within the next ten years he began to
custom-make guitars and mandolins along unique lines. He filed for a
patent in 1895, awarded in 1898 for "tension-free
instruments", and built his instruments along the principles
presented in his papent utilising carved sides and neck, back and
soundboard.
This paper will discuss the ideas behind the patent,
Orville Gibson's instruments built according to this
"tension-free" principle, the success which encouraged
investors to set up the Gibson Mandolin and Guitar manufacturing Company
following his designs, and the reasons for the abandonment of his design
concepts shortly after the founding of the company.
The paper will
also discuss an incidental aspect of the patent - the carved soundboard
and back - features which became the industry standard found in all top
mandolins and archtop guitars to this day.
| Some Technological Features of Russian Seven-String
Guitars
Nina Mileshina and Alexander Batov
The Glinka State Central
Museum of Musical Culture, Moscow, Russia |
The 19th century was the "golden age" in the development of
the Russian seven-string guitar. The leading manufacturer in Russia
from circa 1820 to 1875 was Ivan Krasnoschokov of Moscow. Other makers
seem to have been following the stylistic features of his instruments.
However, the main stylistic and organological features of the Russian
seven-string guitar seem to have been borrowed from the French
"romantic" guitar-making school. The main features are
- slender body shape without markedly pronounced middle bouts (though
towards the end of the 19th century the tendency was to the opposite of
this)
- peg-plate in the form of a figure of eight, joined to the neck
by a V-joint (though sometimes a lyre-shaped peg-plate was used
- ebony veneered neck and peg-plate back (though on cheaper
instruments there was no veneer and the V-joint was imitation)
- strings are fastened to the bridge by means of small hard wood
wedges with capped upper ends
- barring under the sound-board of three
or four struts, one of which is under the bridge area (as in many French
guitars of the time)
There are several unique features of the
construction of Russian seven-string guitars:-- the use of a
neck-angle adjustment mechanism (a French invention but not widely used
in French guitars) allowing control of the clearance between strings and
finger-board
- well-rounded fingerboard with metal frets of striped
type (the use of open-chord tuning and the predominantly accompanying
rôle of the instrument with frequent use of barré technique
seems to have led to this)
- predominant use of so-called
"Russian" or "Moscow" pegs which are found on many
guitars up to the end of the 19th century when machin epegs came into
common use and which were mounted on a pegbox rather than a pegplate (as
in earlier instrments).
Return to Contents
Wind Instruments
| The Stock-and-Horn
Charles Foster
Aberdeen, U.K. |
Four types of the Scottish stock-and-horn, all of which have the common
feature of a cowhorn bell, can be traced from iconographical sources,
literary descriptions and surviving instruments, namely:
- The primitive instrument made from an elder branch plus a single
elder reed
- A similar instrument made from a sheep's leg-bone - a specimen,
formerly belonging to Robert Burns, has recently been gifted to the
Royal Museum of Scotland
- A capped instrument, like a practice chanter attached to a cowhorn,
four examples of which survive in museums (these require a double reed
as in the modern practice chanter)
- The slender capped instrument depicted in several versions of Sir
David Wilkie's painting, "The Gentle Shepherd"
This paper will explore, with the aid of reconstructions, the acoustical
peculiarities of all four types. In particular, the curious design of
the windcap of type 4 will be discussed. In addition, it will be
proposed that effective playing with a single reed requires special
articulation, which can be discerned from the notational system of
canntaireachd.
| The Pace Family: Their Life and Times in
LondonLouise Bacon
Department of Collections
Conservationand Care, The Horniman Museum and Gardens, London
|
A brief progress report will be given on current reserach into the
examination and analysis of copper alloys and jointing materials which
were used in the making of early brass instruments in the collection of
the Horniman Museum.
Arising out of this work into the workshops
and makers of instruments, an explanation will be given of the different
members of the Pace family of musical instrument makers and their lives
and times in London.
| On Archaisms in the Musical Instrument Culture
of BelarusInna Nazina
Belarusian Academy of Music,
Minsk, Belarus |
Both archaic and modern phenomena coexist in Belarusian folk musical
instrument culture. A range of signs are indicators of the archaic
nature of the zhaleika, a wind instrument with a single percussion reed.
It is found throughout Belarus, in a variety of forms, and it has
several local names. The archaism of the instrument is demonstrated by
the following body of evidence: - primitive structure (having at
its closed end a cut-off single reed; the absence of fingerholes or
their small number - from 3 to 5; a cow-horn or bark bell)
- material
(hollow rye, reed or dill stems; tree branches)
- mode and place of
manufacture (cutting-off, cutting-out, burning-out; in the forest, in
the field, near the river)
- "voice" with a specific timbre,
which is not associated with a human voice
- usage by herdsmen,
hunters and children, to give signals in order to imitate natural sound
phenomena, to execute calendraical-agricultural, family ritual, and old
dance melodies
- peculiarities of stylistics and structure of melodies
which are not considered by the players to be "music"
- the
anthropomorphic ideas associated with the instrument, which derive from
Indo- European traditions.
The zhaleika which is used by
professional folk musicians as soloists or in ensembles, during ritual
and non-ritual festivities, is qualitatively of another order, being
manufactured specifically for the execution of music. It is no accident
that the professional musicians' zhaleika has now been replaced by the
clarinet. The multicentury history of the existence of the zhaleika in
Belarus provides evidence for the stable preservation of the musical
instrument tradition and of its steady development.
This paper is
based on the data gathered during my fieldwork in Belarus over the last
25 years.
| Might-have-been Bassoons: Reform Instruments by Boehm,
Tamplini and Kruspe
William Waterhouse
London |
The reforms carried out in the 1820s by Carl Almenräder to the
18th-century German bassoon have hardly been superseded to this day. It
is not generally known, however, that important efforts continued to be
made to improve an instrument usually considered inferior in most
technical and acoustical respects to all the others. The most
significant of these experiments were carried out in the 1850s and
1890s. The Italian Giuseppe Tamplini in collaboration with Cornelius
Ward exhibited his model in London in 1851. Theobald Boehm's design,
built by the Paris maker Frédéric Triébert and his
partner the player Angelo Marzoli, was exhibited there in 1855, winning
praise from Fétis. Finally Friedrich Kruspe of Erfurt, one of
the most brilliant and innovative woodwind makers of the last century
who had earlier trained under both Boehm and Triébert, patented
his "Reform-Fagott" in 1892: this was enthusiastically
received at the Chicago Exposition the following year.
An example
of each of these models will be demonstrated and discussed.
Return to Contents
See also the One-day Conference on
Instrumentalischer Bettlermantl, a 17th-century Musical
Compendium in the Edinburgh University Library Special
Collections,University of Edinburgh, Sunday 24th August 1997
Further information from:
Arnold Myers,
Collection of Historic Musical Instruments,
University of Edinburgh,
Reid Hall,
Bristo Square,
EDINBURGH EH8 9AG, U.K.
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