Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1909-12-12

mathematics. The practical difficulty of Il
piano maker may be apprehended IN an UNI
technical way by an examination OF the key
board of your piano This, you will find IS
divided off into alternating groups of four
white keys inclosing three black keys and three
white keys inclosing two black keys. y combi-
nation of these two groups makes what IS
rightly known as septave. But the more
usual expression IS to include the first note OF
the next group and call the notes included be-
tween any note and its octave above or below,
an octave. Each septave contains seven white
KEYS and five black keys, each key representing
musical note.
In the KEY of c major, the white keys in re-
lation to one another represent perfect whole
intervals of tone and the black keys perfect
half intervals or semitones. But when get
away from the key of c our troubles begin.
For instance. if we 60 to the key OF ID, we lear
only semitone between E and + natural,
where in the kew of c we heard full interval,
and between F natural and sharp we hear {.
full interval. where in the key of we heard
only semtone.
As we pass into other KEYS, we begin to find
that piano keys have a double significance.
The same piano key will represent sharp in
one signature and G. fiat in another. In like
manner. the next black key above it may be
either G. sharp or A fiat, the next sharp or b
fiat. Even the white keys B and and Z and
F interchange. Now as scientific fact any
two of these notes represented by the same key
nearly alike; but not quite.
Now we begin to see the piano makers prob
lem. If he was to undertake to build an lnstrr-
ment capable of giving perfect reproduction to
every tone in everyone of the twelve scale keys
in which music can be written, he would have
to put tifty-three keys in each octave, and his
keyboard instead of being comfortably inside
of five feet would stretch out over twenty feet.
No one but a millionaire could own such an
instrument, and only Marathon runner could
play it.
Some practical compromise was necessary,
and the problem was tackled in d crude way
as soon as the first keyboard was constructed to
fit the system of notation perfected by Guido
ID Arezzo. Eirginals, spinetS, clavlers and
harpsichordS antedated the piano great many
wears and the makers of these instruments in
which the musical tone is produced by strik-
ing Wire began to have their troubles about
tuning Organ builders had even greater trou-
bles as the prolongation of the tone in that in
stru1nent makes the dissonances due to the
limitations of the keyboard more apparent
than in the instruments of percussion.
Guido himself is said to have been sponsor
for system of tuning which has not added any
to his glory. His idea was to tune the rest of
his instrument in perfect octaves from the
septave of middle c. This sounds reasonable
on paper but quite otherwise in actual prac-
tice The reason underlying this is intricate
and technical, but is practically demonstrable
If a piano was tuned to-day it would not
require musical ear to detect that it was de
cidedly off pitch.
Salinas, an organist in the cathedral of Bur-
gos in Spain. invented what is known as the
meantone system of tuning early as 1913
In a general way. his aim to make all the
white KEYS perfect and throw all the error on the
black KEYS Here we have the old human in