The Arizona sentinel., 1890-01-25
PIANO HAND ORGANS.
How Those Popular Instruments of thu
Street Are Put Together.

How Those Popular Instruments of the
street Are Put Together.
Their musical merits aside, the me-
chanical pianos trundled about the
streets by the re-esta blished peripatet
performers are remarkable affairs. The
principle on which thry are made is, of
course, well known. They are enlarged
music boxes, the hammers that strike
the wires being set in action by coming
n contact with minute pegs set in
cylinder that extends the whole length
of the frame, or, popularity, the key
board. In the largest of these pianos
the cylinder is pegged to play ten tunes,
and it makes one complete revolution of
the cylinder to finish one tune. After
that the performer may continue to
grind out the same tune again, or by
moving lever push the cylinder for
ward by as much as the width of one
peg, and so bring out a different
piece. These pegs are not nearly as
broad as a pin head, and the fact that,
unpleasant as the machines are to a
trained ear, they rarely if ever strike
false notes, is evidence of the care and
nicely employed in their construction.
For, in machine pegged for ten tunes,
the cylinder is simply black with the
pegs, and the slightest inaccuracy in
placing them would bring out wrong
note somewhere.
The relation of the pegs to the ham,
mers may be understood if one lays his
two hands side by side upon the table,
palms down. The fingers and thumbs
may represent the pegs, each peg play
ing its part in the different tunes. The
space between the levers which one peg
lifts is just wide enough to pass nine
other pegs. 1t happens, of course, that the
same note does not occur in every one of
the ten tunes; in that case no peg would
be driven in in the line of ten when it
came to setting the cylinder for this
especial piece.
ia manufacturer in Elizabeth street
makes most if not all of the mechanical
pianos heard on the streets in the neigh
borhood. He makes every thing in his
own establishment.
There" he said, pointing to pile of
lumber, "are well-seasoned boards that
are being kept for working into frames
and other parts of the piano. There is
the machine for making the wires. And
all through the house are materials for
the various parts of the instruments and
the tools for putting them into shape.
If kept within doors and played moder-
ately like house piano, it would re-
main in good tune for many weeks; in
fact, as long as the swell instruments.
Played out of doors, it gets out of tune
more quickly. The exposure to weather
and the rumbling over rough pavements,
as well as constant playing, brings this
about. The men who have pianos in
use bring them in here on an average of
once in two weeks to get them returned
Of course, another influence to put them
out of tune is the extreme force with
which the wires are struck"
''How is music adjusted to the cylin-
der?''
at requires not only musician, but |
man who understands the mechanism
OF the machine to do this. The first
thing after selecting the composition ja
to buy the piano score. Then the mu-
stefan takes sheet of paper just laEge |
enough to cover the cylinder entirely, |
a.1id writes the piece upon it in dots
The dots correspond to the pegs. The |
of course, knows the mechan-
ism, SO that he can tell where to place |
dot to bring out the corresponding tone. |
When he has marked the paper over, a
mechanic uses it for chart, and drives
pegs into the cylinder exactly on the |
spots indicated by the dots. But the
part is by no means limited |
to a mere transfer of the composition |
from one style of notation, as it were,
to another. If that were done the eff |
feet would be feeble and utterly uninter-
esting. The mechanical piano has its
own characteristics, and the musician |
must understand them so that he can
double notes in a chord, and even quad |
ripple them, in order to make the sound |
tell in the open air. As matter OF
fact, piece played on mechanical pi-
ano is substantially the same as if ii |
were arranged for eight hands on two
pianos. IN. Y. Sun.