New-York tribune., 1901-09-08
HOW THE ORGAN GREW.
WHISTLES. PREHISTORIC, ANCIENT AND
DEAN PIPES AND BAGPIPES-
CLASSIC LEGENDS.

Stories Real and Alleged" that a pious old
lady of Scotch Presbyterian anteeedents, hear
ing d church organ for the first time. gave it
her opinion that it a pretty box OF
Whistles. but awful way of worshipping the
Lord Many true thing is said in jest. and
many apt characterization is hidden under
the disguise OF frivOlty- So here. An organ is
a box of whistles; all that is needed to make the
description complete is to add that the whistles
are of many kinds and are sounded By
chanicaI means instead of the breath of the
player. What is beyond that is detail and
elaboration. There pipes in which the i'm
rrisoned air is set TO vibrating so gen.
crate a tone by jet blown into the end that
it impinges upon sharp lip at an orffce near
by. Those pipes have their prototypes in the toy
whistles which boys make by carefully with
drawing the bark from sections of willow or
alder twigs and fashioning them in a way too
familiar need description These are the
diapasons-the foundation of the instrument
There others in which the aerial vibrations
are caused by the trembling OF tongue of
metal which covers a narrow aperture in the
pipe and emits the imprisoned air in puffs un-
der pressure of the bellows This is the beat
ing reed" and it's prototype in the playland OF
the country boy is the stalk OF the pumpkin or
squash trimmed of it's leaf (but to leave
the small end closed and provided with two
lateral sits producing "A narrow tongue which
vibrates in the mouth of the blower and causes
the green tube to utter a raucous note delight
ful To the of the rustic musician Then there
are other pipes in which metal tongue vibrates
freely through a slot. accomplishing what rigid
lip and striking reed accomplish but producing
musical speech of a different quality from
either This is the free reed and so far as
the records go it's primitive home was China
Thes.. are the fundamental principles under
lying organ construction, and they are all 70 he
found in primitive types among the savage and
exotic instruments in the Metropolitan Museum
of Art Here is A group of single whistles or
pipes gathered from different cases. Those
who made them We're the aborigineS Ito speak
popularity who at some unknown time mot
necessarily very long ago. however, Inhabited
the islands off Southern California Peru and
Mexico and the present inhabitants of India
These instruments Of bone. pottery, WOOD
and wood and sOurd combined some nave NO
finger holes and produce hut a single souho'
some have several. The TOltec flute anu the
Algoja of India are of the latter kind ana cah'
bv courtesy be called fageOlets. But names
need not trouble us The prehistoric Whistles
of the Californian islands whether only two
centuries or two rniIIenniuIns old. invite the same
line of thought such whistles have been found
the world over In France they have been picked
mn along with relics Of the cave bear ana the
cave man and are therefore held to date back 10
the stone age in civilization But the fact that
il is rudcIy made of bone * no proof OF age IN
a whistle for the Indians of South America
make. bone whistles to-day. and it is only short
time. ago comparatively. that these same IN
dians made. their flutes out of the bones of their
enemies slain in battle. But primitive man
also made whistles out of bone The ancient
F,gvptians who had flutes with the embOuchuTe
at the. side like the modern transverse flute as
vau as flutes with the ernhOuchure at the end
tnutis-a bee beak flutes. they are cailetD called
the. instrument -sebi': the Romans called ~
"tibia~ Both words mean the same thins-the
LES. hone AS usual legend comes up with an
eNpIanation once upon time Diana took the
Ies bone of a deer drilled holes IN it. and. blow
i,e, in il initiated the kissing sound made by
th. snakes on the head OF the SorSon Medusa
Thus originated the flute
There is a theory that not only instruments
of the flute kind hut music itself may have
orj..inatt in primitive mans observation of the
sound made 10y the wind blowing across the
.1,.n ends of broken reeds Mere speculation, Of
course. hut if some of the bone whistles found
in caves and thought be relics of the stone
ase are really whistles and not something else
they show a know ledge of such a means of pro-
ducin.s sound. IL is the means employed in blow
ing across the tube of a hollow key or the
mouth of an empty bottle. These relics of the
stone aet. are little bones. phaianges. with holes
hi.b