CERTAIN: NEW IMPROVEMENTS IN THE CONSTRUCTION OF HARPS AND PIANO FORTES, BOTH LARGE AND SMALL
Year: 1801

page_text: TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME,..I, SEBASTIAN
ERARD, of Great Marlborough Street, in the Parish of Saint James, -West-
minster, and County of Middlesex, Musical Instrument-Maker, send greeting.
WHEREAS His present Majesty, by His Letters Patent under the Great
Seal of Great Britain, dated the Sixteenth day of May last, did give and
grant unto me His especial license that during the term of years therein-men-
tioned, I sliould and lawfully might use,, exercise, and vend, within England,
Wales, and the Town of Berwick-upon-Tweed, my Invention of CERTAIN: NEW
IMPROVEMENTS IN THE CONSTRUCTION OF HARPS AND PIANO FORTES, BOTH LARGE AND
SMALL;" in which Letters Patent there is a proviso; obliging-me; by an instru-
ment in writing, 'to cause a particular description of my Invention, and in what
manner the same is to be performed, to be inrolled in the Court of Chancery
within one calendar month after the date of the said Letters Patent
NOW KNOW YE, that in compliance with the said proviso; I; the said
Sebastian Erard, do hereby declare that the nature of my said Invention, and
the manner in which the same is to be performed, is herein-after particularly
described and ascertained as follows, that is to say:
Figures 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 exhibit the apparatus. of. the newly invented
method of rendering the harp capable of modulating into every usual or
practicable scale of music, by immediately rendering the tone or pitch of all.
the chords or strings of the same name or denomination either flat, sharp, or
natural at pleasure, by the instantaneous operation of a lever, treadle,. or other
suitable instrument of communication from the hand or foot, so as to alter

page_text: the tension of the said strings, and also of turning each several chord or
string with greater certainty and precision than has hitherto been done.
Figures 1, 2, 3, represents the parts and disposition of an apparatus which
I substitute instead of the peg or pin upon which the chord in stringed
instruments is wound. In all these Figures the same numbers and letters
denote the same thing.
No. 4 is a
at 6 is a lantern pinion or small
No. 7 is a wheel driven by the
1 represents a piece upon which the string is wound as seen at a, a; in
Fig. 2 it is screwed at 2 upon the round steel or metallic pin 2, 3.
toothed wheel, fixed upon the same pin. No. 5 is a tube or socket, fitted upon the
part 3 of the pin, upon which it easily turns;
wheel composing part of the socket or tube:
lantern pinion 6, and carrying a small lantern pinion 8 which locks into and
drives the wheel 4 when the whole is put together. In Figure 2 and 3 the
socket No. 5 and wheels are in their places; and in this situation, if No. 5 be
turned by a key or otherwise while the pin 2; 3, is drawn by the reaction of
the string a, the consequence will be that the pinion 6 will drive the wheel 7,
and the pinion 8 will drive the wheel 4, and; necessarily, the pin itself, but
much more slowly in its angular motion than the socket, whence a double
advantage will be gained in the facility of moving the socket to any degree of
precision, and the accuracy with which the tension may be adapted to re-
quired pitch. The plates or pieces b and c, when applied face to face, form a
receptacle or frame to receive and support the pin and the other centers in
the relative positions, in which situation these plates are fastened together by
screws. It will readily be seen, that if the pin 2 (thus fitted up with its socket,
wheels, pinions, and caps or frame) were loosely thrust through or into the
usual perforation or hole in the body of the instrument, it would be drawn
round by the reaction of the string a, u, and could not be applied, as before
described, to tune the said string, unless the caps ör frame b, e, were retained
and prevented from following the pin in its rotation; this effect is produced by
the slide or piece 13, attached to the caps or frame b, c, d, at 12, by means of
which that frame may either be held steady and motionless, or moved back-
wards and forwards as herein-after described.
In Figure 2 and 3, No. 9 is a screw, capable of revolving on its pivots by
the action of a bevel toothed pinion 10, driven by a worn or endless screw 11;
the screw 9 carries a nut 12, which, being set farther off or nearer to the
pin 2, by the means just described will cause the angular motion of the pin
to be less or greater, when equal direct motions are communicated by the
slide 13.
Figure 4 represents part of an harp, to shew the method of applying the

page_text: pins and apparatus before described. t, t, t, etc. denote the upper curved arm
to which the strings are attached, and upon which the small circles designate
the places of insertion of the pin. Six of these pins are shewn at p, p, p, etc.,
with the apparatus for turning and altering their position as aforesaid, and the
other pins in the actual instrument are fitted up in the same manner, tho' to
prevent confusion they are not so represented in this sketch; besides, as by this
improvement there is no division of the string, it would be easy to adapt to
the brass plate which contains the whole of the mechanizm dampers, that
would stop the vibration, as is done in piano-fortes. e, h, is the pedal, move-
able vertically on its fulcrum or pin g, and sideways on the point f; seven of
these pedals are affixed to the instrument, for the purpose of rendering the
seven strings of the octave either flat or sharp at pleasure. The pedal,
when depressed at e, acts upon the lever h, k, and by the wire or bar k, l,
depresses the extremity and raises m of the lever l, m, of which the
fulcrum or pin is at n, and consequently gives motion to every one of the
slides S, S, S, etc.; the said slides S, S, S, etc. are fixed to the nutts 12 of
Figures 2 and 3 of each pin, either immediately, or by the intervention of
levers,, r, etc., the intention or use of which levers consists in forming an
independant communication between m and each several pin, as may readily
be apprehended from the Figure.
But in order to explain this more fully, I shall point out the pins
marked W and X in the two loft octaves, where it was not thought necessary
to interpose any lever. In those, if the adjustment of the nut 12 in W
were altered, it would not only change the angular motion of that pin,
but also that of the pin X, and render it necessary to adjust the nutt
of this last; and in like manner, if the levers or pieces r, r, etc. were not
interposed, any alteration of the first nutt would require an alteration of all the
subsequent nutts of the higher strings.
Figure 5 exhibits the piece for retaining the pedal in its three situations.
When the branch or arme (Figure 4) lies in the position denoted by the end,
section 3 (Figure 5), the strings are to be turned to the natural note of their
respective denomination by means of the tube or socket, No. 5, (Figure 2,) on
each pin. The pedal must be then moved sideways by its joint f to 4
(Figure 5), when it will ascend to the position 5. In this situation (the
lengths of all the levers having been adjusted in the construction so as nearly
to cause the strings to become the proper half tone flatter by the change),
the precise and. last adjustment or turning of each string to this flattened
semitone is effected by the key applied to the screw No. 11, (Figures 2 and 3)

page_text: which moves the nutt 12. In the next place, the pedal must. be de
pressed to the position 1, where it is retained in its lowest situation, by
having been moved sideways out of the course through which it descended.
In this situation all the strings connected with the pedal will have their
tone rendered half a note sharper, the ultimate precision of which
may be obtained (once for all, by regulating the distance through which the
pedal shall be permitted to descend. When these adjustments are made
throughout the whole system of strings,' (first) the natural series of notés, or
those of the principal key, will be had throughout whenever the pedals are
placed in the situation, No. 3, (Figure 5); and (secondly). all, the chords or
notes of one and the same name or letter will be raised one semitone whenever
the pedal belonging to that particular note shall be depressed' to the position,
No. 2, (Figure 5); and (thirdly) all the chords or notes of one and the same
name or letter 'will be dépressed or lowered one semitone whenever the
pedal belonging to that particular note shall be raised to the position, No. 5,
(Figure 5); and, accordingly, it will be in the power of the performer to
modulate into any desired key, and to execute pieces of music of which this
excellent instrument has hitherto been supposed to be incapable.
.
Figure 6 shews' a new improvement or method of opening and shutting the
swell. a, b, is the swell, turning on hinges at 6, and attached to the lever, d, f,
at g; h, i, is a spiral spring, of which the branch i, h; acts firmly and with
much uniformity on the arm k of the lever d, f; the extremity & receives its
motion from a pedal by the usual mode of communication or otherwise.
The last of my new improvements on the harp, which remains to be
described, consists in the position of the springs by which the pedals and
mechanisni (of the improved harp, for which His Majesty was pleased to grant
unto me, 'the said Sebastian Erard, His Letters Patent, bearing date the
Seventeenth day of October, One thousand seven hundred and ninety-four, are
made to recover their situation. Instead of fixing the said springs among the
said mechanisin where they cannot be easily come at, and whence they cannot,
if broken or defective, be taken out without deranging the whole instrument,
I fix all the said springs within the lower side of tlie curved arm, as near to
each other and to the first bent levers or cranks as conveniently can be done,
by which disposition the reaction upon the said levers or cranks is direct and
effectual, and the springs themselves can be readily and singly taken out in
case of fracture or any other want of repair.
Figure 8 represents a new improvement in the piano-forte, the chief
advantage of which is that it admits of an adjustment that renders what-is

page_text: known by the name of the touch either hard or soft to any degree at the
election of the performer, instead of this essential quality of the instrument
being left to the workman.
In the first construction A, B, is the key, as usual to be occasionally pressed
at A by the finger of the performer'; B, D, is the fork which supports E, F, the
hammer, of which the head F rises and strikes the string S, S, by virtue of the
reaction of G against the tail E, when the fork B, D, is elevated; I, K, is a wire,
which raises the damper P at the same time; M is a stop, to prevent the
damper from being raised too high. It is well-known that the light or hard
touch of a piano-forte depends on the greater or less space through which the
hammer must pass in order to give its stroke. G, G, is a springing piece,
against which the tail of the hammer is made to act as it rises to the situation
denoted by the dotted outline; H is a screw, by which the piece G may be
set at pleasure, either higher or lower, by virtue of which the head of the
hammer when at rest will stand higher or lower, and therefore have a less or
greater distance accordingly to pass before it arrives at the string. This
mechanism possesses the farther advantage that it does not require any
injurious alteration to be made in the sounding-board in order to introduce the
additional keys, as is obvious by inspection of the design, where it is seen that
a very small separation only is required in order that the hammer may have
access to the strings.
In witness whereof, I, the said Sebastian Erard, have hereunto set my
hand and seal, the Sixteenth day of June, in the year of our Lord
One thousand eight hundred and one.
Inrolled the same Sixteenth day of June, in the year above written.