IMPROVEMENTS IN APPARATUS FOR PLAYING ORGANS, HARMONIUMS, PIANOS, AND OTHER SIMILAR KEYED INSTRUMENTS, AND ALSO IMPROVEMENTS IN REED MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS
Year: 1862

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by Wardle Eastland Evans at the
Office of the Commissioners of Patents, with his Petition, on the 29th
October 1862.
I, WARDLE EASTLAND EVANS, of No. 8, Newton Terrace, Bayswater, in the
County of Middlesex, do hereby declare the nature of the Invention' for
"IMPROVEMENTS IN APPARATUS FOR PLAYING ORGANS, HARMONIUMS, PIANOS, AND
OTHER SIMILAR KEYED INSTRUMENTS, AND ALSO IMPROVEMENTS IN REED MUSICAL
INSTRUMENTS," to be as follows:-
This Invention has for its object improvements in apparatus for playing
organs, harmoniums, pianos, and other similar keyed instruments, and also
improvements in reed musical instruments. In chambre
In chambre organs, harmoniums,
pianos, and similar instruments it is very inconvenient to arrange pedal keys
as is usual in large organs, in consequence of the space they occupy, and the
additional room that is required under the key board to give freedom for the
movement of the legs as is required in pedalling.
According to my Invention to obviate these inconveniences, I construct an
apparatus which can be applied to an ordinary chambre organ, harmonium,
piano or other similar keyed instrument, when it is desired to play it by means
of pedal keys in conjunction with finger keys. This apparatus consists of a
finger key board or finger key boards and pedals underneath coupled therewith,
each finger key is made when depressed to give motion to a lever the end of
which, when the apparatus is in its place for playing the instrument, stands
over the corresponding key of the ordinary finger key board of the instrument

page_text: to be played, so that when a finger key of the playing apparatus is depressed,
the corresponding key of the instrument itself is struck by the lever and the
instrument is caused to sound; the pedal keys as before mentioned being
coupled with the finger keys thereof act in a similar manner the playing
apparatus when not required for use being separate from the instrument can
be moved away therefrom. In small orchestras and amateur orchestras more
especially it is very difficult to obtain performers on the wind musical instru-
ment, this especially applies to the oboe, clarionet, bassoon, and French horn,
and to some extent also to the flute, cornet, and trombone.
According to my Invention I make small instruments with finger keys like
a piano for the purpose only of representing one or other of these wind instru-
The instrument has a number of finger keys corresponding with the
number of notes required of the ordinary wind instrument to be imitated.
The finger key instrument is also furnished with reeds like a harmonium and
with bellows or wind feeders by preference worked by pedals. Instruments
representing horns and clarionets for which instruments the music is liable to
be transposed from one key to another, I furnish with a stop or action by
which the transposition can be effected by transferring the finger key from
one reed to another so as to avoid the necessity of mental transposition by
the performer which otherwise would be necessary.