Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1906-06-19
MUSIC BY TELEPHONE
Latest Development of the
Possibilities.
LOCAL MANS INVENTION
Melodies to Be Sent Out From Gen.
trail Station.
PERFORMERS TO PLAY DYNAMoS
Ingenious and Complicated Instru-
ment to Be Installed
in New York.
BY WILLIAM E. CURTIS.

washington, on MONDAY, April y, lotl, dt
which 1t was announced that Music VIII
be transmitted by telegraph for the second
time" and that the people Of the national
capital by the payment of 81 admission
fee and fifty cents extra for reserved
seat, to- be secured at Mr.. Metzerott's mu-
sic store, would be able to witness this
supreme triumph of American science"
The advertisement reads that Mr.. Maui
rice Strakosch has the honor Of announcing
| that the second public performance on
| Prof Elisha Gray's marvellous telephone
| 9. The following musical melodies will be
performed in Philadelphia and distinctly
heard by the audience in Washington:
a. Home, Sweet Home
"2. Com Gentir CDon Pasquale).
49, Then You'll Remember Me- ('Bo-
| hemian Girl).
- The Last Rose of Summer
"5 MApparf (romance 'MarthaD.
&C. The Carnival of Venice"
I remember distinctly that the expert
ment waS remarkably successful and that
| the audience left the hall very much mys-
| titled. good many of them were inclined
! to doubt whether the music they had heard
had really been sent over the wire from
| Philadelphia Humbugs are always about
| and while Maurice Strakosch had an ex-
| cellent reputation as an impressarfo, and
| Elisha Gray of Evanston, ILL.,, the inventor
vibrations and tones and that sort of thing
several doubling Thomases'' were inclined
to suspect that music box might have
been hidden under the stage.
Up-to-Date Development.
II was a great sensation. The papers
were full of it the next day. but the use
| of the telephone for the transmission of
| music has not been extensive as for
business purposes. The reason Is obvious
but 1t looks as If the time had come for
| its development along that line, and If you
will to the of broadway and
seth street, where Park & Tflford recently
had big grocery store, you will find a lot
of busy workmen engaged in fitting up the
first central station ever established in the
world for the distribution of music by tele-
phone. 1t is to be the headquarters OF the
Cahill Telharmonic Company of Washing
ION, ID. c. 1t will be ready for business about
the middle of June, and 1t will supply resi-
dences, hotels, boarding houses, restau-
| rants, saloons, barber shops. hospitals, asy-
lums, schools and whomever 1t may con-
Germ from O'Clock in the morning until
any hour Of the night with all the music
| they may desire. 1t is only necessary to
subscribe as you do for telephone and
have an instrument put in. Then you can
| turn on the music whenever you want it,
day or night, just as you turn on electric
| light gas or water. You switch the key
and the band begins to play loud enough
| to be heard by any ordinary audience or in
any part of an ordinary house.
AT the central station, corner Broadway
and 18th street, the managers are now in
stalling enormous machine seventy feet
| long, ten feet wide and five feet high
which weighs 200 tons and contains $50
dynamos. This is the instrument which Is
| to aInuse all New York.
1t was invented by Thaddeus Cahill of
| Washington. originally from Oberlin. Ohio.
| He used to be private secretary to Represen-
| tatve Amos Cummings, and while acting in
| that capacity studied law at George Wash
| ington University and got a degree. Mr..
| Cahill has more taste for electricity than for
Jurisprudence. and has always been "fooling
| with tools. He invented the telharmonic
| about ten years ago in Washington, and
took the model to Oscar F. Crosby of
| Washington, who, with f. c. Todd of Balti-
| more. furnished him the means to perfect 1t.
| They organized a company and built fac
tory at Holyoke. Mass. where the first great
| instrument. now being installed here In New
York. was made
The Instrument Described.
| 1t Is not musical instrument, or anything
Hike what we understand by that term.
There is keyboard at which the
| performer sits, with keys like those of
plano, but it is not piano or an
| organ or an orchestra nor brass
| band. but a combination of one hun
| bred and fifty dynamos, controlled through
| a switchboard in such way that they Will
| produce vibrations. and when thrown upon
| a telephone surface those vibrations will
| produce sounds loud enough to fill the Wal
dorf-Astoria Hotel. The switchboard is on
| the same principle as that In a telephone
| exchange. Dut instead removing or insert
/ ing a plug to make the connection the op-
orator touches key similar to the key of a
piano. It is the business OF the performer
| to throw the currents of electricity off and
| on the wire lust as a telegraph operator
| does when he In sending message; only he
| has hundred and fifty keys, while tele-
graph operator has only one, and he touches
| two or three or six of them at the same
| time in order to produce harmony. Each
| of the one hundred and fifty dynamos
/ Is tuned" as you may say. to certain
| tone; that is. 1t produces a certain tone
| In the musical scale. When several of the
! dynamos are In operation at the same time
| they produce a combination of vibrations,
| and consequently combination of tones
| like striking chord upon piano. The
| operator modulates these vibrations in or
| der to express his Interpretation of the
| score of music which lies before him.
Three or four professional pianists have
crate these dynamos. They sit on an ord-
! nary piano stool before an ordinary key
board and run their fingers over the
keys just as IL they were playing an or
| gan; only there are no strings, no pipes. no
! stops. or any Of the ordinary apparatus,
| but only wires which are attached to the
! keys and connect them with the dynamos.
/ BY an exceedingly complicated and in
genious contrivanoe every time a key is
| touched the dynamo with which 1t Is con-
nected causes a vibration to pass over
central wire or a series of central wires
which are attached to all OF the one hundred
| and fifty dyuamos and each vibration pro-
| duces a sound. This sound Is conveyed
/ from the central wire to a thousand auxil-
| larry wires. lust a sensation Is conveyed
| through the human body by the network of
nerves. These auxiliary wires lead into
| houses. residences. restaurants. hotels and
other places where the sound they conceal
| may be released by turning a switch The
sounds thus produced are composition of
vibrations caused by the simultaneous pres
sure Of the operators fingers upon several
Keys at the central Office. The machine will
| be played continuously from early morning
until late at night.
How the Business Will Be Run.
| The business win be managed on sys-
| TEN similar to that of telephone COM
| pany. Patrons win be asked to enter into
| contracts for year or part of year.
Hotels. restaurants vaudeville shows.
| theaters. saloons and other public places
will be first supplied. The terms have not
yet been fixed. but there will be monthly
| rate Just like that charged for telephone
I or an electric light When patron signs