Sentence:  But there was neither harmony nor melody in their tones, for they belonged to the different stages and shows ; and if the musicians agreed in any thing, it seemed only in the efforts which they made to <WSD>outscrape</WSD>, outscreech, outblow and outdrum each other. 
Meaning of the word marked with <WSD> tags:  To scrape better than; exceed or outdo in scraping