Rensselaer Union, Volume 9, Number 31, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 19 April 1877 — How Music is Photographed. [ARTICLE]

How Music is Photographed.

Os* of the latest novelties In applied science, it seem#, i« to photograph musical tones, and in .this way to record by light «giaids that are usually apparent only to the ear. The art of photography, foi- a long tithe past the, magnetic pulsations or the earth have been automatically written down by that most faithful and trustworthy of clerks, and ait the Kew Observatory' we hear of dmlvrecordsbc ing the sun r’frVfywf late ijthpr bashful lajj prevaijm,ppon to 'show ms race, fte movetnlhteor’tlffe baromSBftWmmtizxiTiSZ; puls# beats of thfeir patients. It is, peril aps, only in the ltalural course of events therefore that' notesiand sounds should be found oaphbfo if bnng written down by the same wtmdfflfutagency. Dr. Tyndai’t showed us some jmrs ago how flames warn tofipsneed- by sounds..uttered in their immediate neighDorttdoo7and how they frwfcjtoabldM appgfeciating various ius?KrfiaEra%h£; that he exhibited was so sensitive that, like a delicate-minded pet»on, it invariably went out when particular word or vowel was mentioned] Mr. Koenig, of Baris, has already eflapyed to record by photography the change that overcomes names from 1 this ‘ cabs#: • but a German physicist, Dr. Stein, has . successfully accomplished the “photography of,tones’ 0 by a much more direct method His plan, it appears, ip mmniytodx upon ,a violin string an upright disk or screen of mica, with a hole in k. 1 A'brilliant ray of light is made to pass through .this lit--tie hole on to a sensitive photographic plate, which movfes Along at a rapid pace. Of course if the disk and toe tiny orifice in it remain perfectly Stationary while toe photographic plate is moving, all that will be produced jn . the, end upon the plate is a long and eveh line where the ray of light has acted. Bbt as soon as the string vibrates, as soon, that is, as the violin how is drawn across it; ‘the little disk also trembles and -vibrates, moving up and down with great celerity, and the ray of light -reflected upon me photographic plate behiving in a similar manner, a curved, line is, the resvjt. and the number'dr these cufves denotes the number of vibrations which, are thus made tograpked in tfcfe w#y, Dr. stein has M&featti attached to sos strings, like titap. of j a violin, one above another, so that four curved lines are written down itttknko.—BoMon, TranMpt- .i, iu. i