Jasper Republican, Volume 1, Number 43, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 9 July 1875 — Music by Electricity. [ARTICLE]

Music by Electricity.

The acme of machine music appears to have been reached in an ingenious instrument which was exhibited to a select few at Philadelphia one day last week. The apparatus reads notes and plays upon an organ with absolute correctness of tune and touch, the only assistance given it by the operator being to feed in the end of a roll of music and start the machinery in motion. Organs have been played by electricity before, but.the only part performed by the electric fluid has been to transmit the power from a distant bank of keys to open the valves of the instrument. Such mi electrical organ has been exhibited in London for some time past. Inthe Schmoele instrument the electric current is endued with a seeming intelligence and distinguishes the notes in the same way that a blind man does—by feeling. Marvelous as this appears at first thought, it is simple enough. The score is written on a long roll of stout paper by cntting boles through it in the form of squares and parallelograms. The reading instrument, which is about as large as a sewing-ma-chine, is provided with a multitude of small brass fingers, each of which is connected by a wire with the pipe of the organ which it operates. The roll of music is fed in over a brass tube. When the fingers rest on the paper no electric current is transmitted, because paper is a nonconductor; but whenever they fall into the holes cnt in it they touch the brass below, the current is transmitted and the sound prodnced.

The length of the note is governed by the length of the slit in the paper. A noiseless fellow-machine, run by wind conducted through a pipe from the organ, works the feeding apparatus. To aid in producing orchestral effects, drums, cymbals, bells, etc., are added to the ordinary pipe organ and operated by electricity in the same manner as the pipes. A greatly increased volume of much richer harmonic combinations can be made by this instrument than it is possible for a single performer to produce upon an organ, in consequence of the fact that the performer has only his ten fingers, while the electrical machine has 200, and can strike as many notes at once as desired. All the notes on the organ that can be combined into a chord can be brought out together. The overtures to “ Scmiramide” and “William Tell” were performed last evening with pleasing effeqj;. As the reading instrument is mechanically accurate, and the score correctly written, there were, of course, no false notes. It was obviously machine music, however, but machine music of the highest order, and might readily have been mistaken for the performance of a well-drilled but rather spiritless orchestra. The inventors hope soon to apply their device to a piano. —Philadelphia Paper.