Evening Republican, Volume 15, Number 6, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 7 January 1911 — MUSIC IN WORKSHOP [ARTICLE]

MUSIC IN WORKSHOP

New Solution of Labor Problem Is Seen in Recent Electric Invention. I - . TELHARMONIUM IS RESTFUL Electrical Music Machine Boothes Nerves and Leaves Little Room for Discontent —Cheerful Stimulating Music Mixed With Slow and Restful Kind. Will electrical music in the workshops help to solve the labor problem? j Would the garment workers have organized a walkout if they could have stitched to the music of "Tannhauser," “Faust,’’ “The Merry Widow" or “The Sweetest Girl in Paris?” Dr. Thaddeus Cahill, inventor of the telharmonium, says that his instrument will be the saving clause when disruptions are threatened in the big Industrial plants of the world, George Cahill, a brother of the inventor, has been in Chicago for some time interesting electrical concerns and financial men in the formation of a $1,000,000 corporation to furnish telhannonic concerts not only in the workshops of the great industrial plants, but also to the clubs, cases, hotels, and public schools. Chicago will get its first glimpse of the telharmonium at the annual electrical show in January. Tel harmonic music is distributed from one big electrical musical instrument, known as the telharmonium and invented by Dr. Thaddeus Cahill. There are now only two of these wonderful instruments in existence. They cost upwards of $200,000 to build. One is now at Dr. Cahill’s laboratories at Holyoke. Mass. The other is working with success in New York City. in a word .the teleharmonium is a system by which a few musicians at a central station will do the work of 1,000 orchestras with orchestral purity and volume in each subscriber’s place, it is claimed. This music is delivered on the same principle that you get your electric lights on your telephone service —Just turn on the switch. Dr. Cahill’s intention all strings, reeds, and pipes are dispensed with snd alternators are used to produce the required vibrations. One alternator produces electrical vibrations corresponding to one note and another alternator, vibrations corresponding to another note, and so on through the whole musical compass. Alternation can be made of any horse

power required, those used by Dr. Cahill varying from ten to twenty horsepower. It is not necessary to multiply performers to multiply volume. Referring to the possibilities of electrical music for the workers during working hours, Dr. Cahill says: “The efficiency of music in relieving physical fatigue has been knowh and used In the armies of the world for thousands of years. Men can march with little conscious effort when aided by music and at a speed they would find fatiguing without music. And so in other kinds of work. There is here a new field, the Importance of which is Just now difficult to state, but it seems reasonable to assume that in many factories and shops where work involving manual labor, rather than intellectual effort, is done music might be used during working hours. At times cheerful stimulating music should be used, at other times slower and more restful music. Good musio of any kind would tend, by pleasing the workers, to relieve their tasks and to diminish the discontent which tired muscles and nerves so easily create.”