The star. (Reynoldsville, Pa.) 1892-1946, 1907-07-03
Music of A. D. 1000 Here.
By CARL HERBERT.

Imagine listening IN your home to
the performance of Paderewski or
a Kneisel Quartette who are miles
away, the tones being just as orig
inal in your parlor as they are at
the musicians elbow. Imagine hav-
ing such fine music available to your
home at any time by merely turning
on an electric switch, large corps
of the best musicians of the day play
ing continuously at the central sta
tion.
Imagine such music service at a
nominal charge per hour, you using
as many or as few hours as you wish
so that with room full of your
guests, the cost would average cent
or two per guest, per hour.
1t is a literal realization of Ed
ward Bellamy's dream of the music
of A. d. 1000, ninety three years
ahead of the prophesied time, as pic
tured in that wonderful book of fif-
teen years ago, Looking Backward. I"
Imagine that hitherto impossible
dream of the social reformer-the de-
mocracy of fine music-come true,
the poorest as well as the richest in
the community being able to enjoy
the best music, interpreted by the
living touch of the finest musicians
Imagine musical instrument
weighing two hundred tons, when
built on scale to supply New York
City, with wiring system of twenty
five thousand subscribers, and cost
ing hundreds of thousands of dollars
One by which, playing as they would
on piano or an organ keyboard,
musicians may produce not only ap-
proXimations of the known instru-
ments, but hundreds of new tone
qualities never heard before, and can
change any tone at will into any
other conceivable quality.
Imagine an instrument that has
absolutely certain intonation, no note
of which can ever be out of tune, and
having three times as many tones to
the octave as the piano, these finer
shadings of intonation enabling mu-
sicians to produce a "velvety smooth
ness of harmony unfamiliar to musi-
cal ears since the days of Palestrina, I"
as one prominent musical critic has
written about it.
Imagine bedridden sufferers In
sick rooms and hospital wards being
soothed and engrossed with concerts
by the foremost instrumentalists,
without even turning in bed, and
with no intrusion upon their privacy
by the musicians, who in this case,
are miles away.
Fourteen years ago, Thaddeus
Cahill, native of Iowa, already the
inventor of several practical i'm
provements in the typewriter, con-
ceived the idea of a musical instru-
ment with a keyboard, the keys of
which should control vibratorily
timed electric currents. Special dy-
namos, each with its own rapidity
of alterations, were found neces-
sary; each rate of alterations corre-
spending to the vibratory rate of the
sound of musical notes, according to
the law which makes the pitch of a
note the result of its vibratory rapid
ity. These currents, vibrating tele-
phone diaphragms in unison with
their own alterations, should pro-
duce the music as played.
After years of difficulties he was
backed by men prominent in the op-
Grafton of electric utilities. Last year
two hundred tons of elaborate mech
anism were installed in a building at
New York. The wiring system was
extended to several outside points in
the city where special service was
rendered as early as November last.
The wonders of the process created
widespread interest and many thous-
ands of New York's amusement seek
ers and music-lovers attended the
performances. Among the novel fea-
lures was the rendering of the music
from ordinary arc-lights as the musi-
clans played.
On January 23, at the Hotel I'm
perial, wedding took place, the mu-