Belmont chronicle. [volume] (St. Clairsville, Ohio) 1855-1973, 1892-01-21
BEATING TIME.
When the Baton Was First Used 1t Was
A Formidable Six Foot Club.

When the Baton Was First Used 1t Was
Formidable Six Foot Club.
Investigations into the origin of the
baton. or stick for beating time, which
is used nowadays by the conductor of
every large orchestra, have brought out
the interesting fact that the first conduc
tors baton was formidable staff, about
six feet long, which the old time French
musician, Lully by name, who invented
it, may have used as much to intilnidate
the members of hfs orchestra as to marx
the time. In the very oldest orchestras,
as in Chinese orchestras of the present
day, there was no conductor in the
modern sense. Every performer played
as well as he could, and the man who
played upon the loudest instrumental
kettle drum, for instance-marked the
time for the rest.
When music became more systematic
and refined, the chief command of the
orchestra was given t. the member who
was regarded as the most accomplished
and skillful. He assigned the other MEM
bers their parts, drilled them at re-
hearsals and supervised the final per-
formance.
To produce good effect it was neces-
sary of course that the musicians
should play in time, and the chief Of the
orchestra, who himself played one in
strument, was accustomed to mark the
beat by stamping on the floor with one
foot. For this reason the conductor of
an orchestra was at that period called
the pedarius.
Afterward it became customary for
him to give the time by clapping the
fingers of his right hand against the hol-
low of his left. The beater of time after
this fashion was called the manuductor.
Meantime experiments were made in
marking the time by striking together
shells and bones. The bones were soon
given up as instruments tc be used by
the conductor of an orchestra; but they
survived as an independent instrument.
Boys and negro minstrels ''play on the
bones" with great gusto to this day.
In the early part of the Seventeenth
century the musician already alluded to,
Lully by name, arose. He found all
these instruments of leadership ineffec-
tive, and in order to reduce his perform
ers to complete subsection, he procured
stout staff six feet long, with which he
pounded vigorously on the floor to mark
the time.
One day, becoming particularly impa-
tient, and pounding with especial vigor,
Lully struck his foot instead of the floor
with his baton. The wound gangrened,
and Lully died from its effects in 1897
The baton continued in use through
out the Seventeenth and Eighteenth
centuries, but though it gradually de-
creased in size, there is no evidence that
conductors marked the time in any other
way than by pounding upon their music
stands or some other hard object.
All this pounding must have had an
unpleasant effect upon the music, and
critics and musicians began to ridicule
the practice. In course of time, there
fore, we find musical conductors no
longer humping upon the floor or their
music stands, bat beating the time en-
tirely in the air. 1t seems to have taken
players very long time to learn that
they could get the time as easily by
means of the eye as by means of the ear
Youths Companion.