The ‘Synthetic Tone’, Sewall Cabot, USA, 1918

Patent documents of Cabot's Synthetic Tone Instrument
Patent documents of Cabot’s Synthetic Tone Instrument. Image United States Patent office.

The ‘Synthetic Tone’ was an electro-mechanical instrument similar but much smaller to the Choralcelo designed by the Brookline, Massachusetts electrical engineer Sewall Cabot. The instrument created complex tones by resonating metal bars with a tone-wheel generated electromagnetic charge.1Roads, Curtis,(1996) Early Electronic Music Instruments: Time Line 1899-1950, Computer Music Journal Vol. 20, No. 3 (Autumn, 1996), MIT Press, 20-23.

“One object of my present invention is to provide an improved musical instrument of relatively small cost and small dimensions in comparison to those of a pipe-organ, but capable of attaining all the musically useful results of which a pipe-organ is capable. Another object is to provide an instrument that will produce desirable tonal effects not heretofore obtainable from a pipe-organ.”2 United States Patent Office,#1705395

Sewall Cabot was a U.S. electrical engineer and an early (1906) contributor to the development of vacuum tube detectors before lee de Forest’s ‘Audion’ patent of 1912. 3 Cabot, Sewall, (1927) Detection—Grid or Plate, QST 1927-03: Vol 11 Iss 3, 30 Cabot was responsible for the later (1916) re-design of the Choralcelo electronic instrument.


References:

  • 1
    Roads, Curtis,(1996) Early Electronic Music Instruments: Time Line 1899-1950, Computer Music Journal Vol. 20, No. 3 (Autumn, 1996), MIT Press, 20-23.
  • 2
    United States Patent Office,#1705395
  • 3
    Cabot, Sewall, (1927) Detection—Grid or Plate, QST 1927-03: Vol 11 Iss 3, 30

 

‘Electromechanical Piano’ Matthias Hipp, Switzerland,1867.

Matthias Hipp
Matthias Hipp ” The Swiss Edison” 25.10.1813 –3.5.1893

Matthias (or Matthäus) Hipp’s –  (Blaubeuren, 25 October 1813 – 3 May 1893 in Fluntern) –many inventions and adaptations include; Chronoscopes, Chronographs, Galvanometers, railway signalling equipment, watch and clock mechanisms, Telegraphic time detectors, telexes, networked electronic clocks, fire alarms, Microphones, Seismographs, electronic Gyroscopes and possibly the first electro-mechanical musical instrument.

Hipp described his invention in the 1867 edition of the Polytechnisches Journal – Das elektrische Clavier; von M. Hipp, Director der Telegraphen-Fabrik in Neuenburg (Schweiz). 1Polytechnisches Journal. Herausgegeben von Dr. Emil Maximilian Dingler. Hundertdreiundachtzigster Band. Jahrgang 1867. Hipp’s instrument, a confluence of the technologies of watch mechanics, telegraphy and electro-magnetism, was an electro-mechanical player-piano, controlled by a perforated paper role. (and itself an improved version of an earlier (1861) attempt at building an electrical piano by Herr Andrea of Sindelfingen, Baden-Württemberg Germany). Music was encoded into the paper by cutting variable length perforations – pitch and duration– with a separate track for volume. The paper roll traversed over a set of brushes or ‘feathers’ which they made contact through the perforations, closed a circuit and triggered the piano hammer mechanism of a standard acoustic piano:

“A small instrument serves as a player–machine, in which there is a resilient metal tip for each key; these tips rest on a metal roller with corresponding pressure and send the electric current through the associated electromagnet every time this roller is touched, thus causing the relevant note to strike. Over the roller and between it and the tips runs (as in Bain’s telegraph) a wide, perforated paper tape; the position of the holes across the strip determines the height or depth of the notes to be played at the same time, the length of the holes in the direction of the length of the strip determines the duration of each note. The correct guidance of the paper tape on the Hipp’s Piano is effected by guide tips on the metal roller, by engaging the same in guide holes on the two edges of the paper tape.” 2Anon (1875) The electric pianino, Dingler’s Polytechnisches Journal, Herausgegeben von Johann Zeman in Augsburg und Dr. Ferd. Fischer in Hannover, Zweihundertundachtzehnter Band. Jahrgang 1875, volume 218,  457-458.

Hipp's Electrical Clavier
Hipp’s Electrical Clavier

Hipp describes his invention in the 1869 edition of Instruments de Musique while at the same time musing on what was to become a central debate in development of electronic music, the mechanical reproduction of ‘soul’ in music: 3 Comettant, Oscar (1869) INSTRUMENTS DE MUSIQUE CHEZ LES DIFFÉRENTS PEUPLES DU MONDE, MICHEL LÉVY FRÈRES, Paris, 663-665

      • A wide strip of paper is pierced, as with Wheatstone’s telegraphs, lengthwise for the shock and duration, and width-wise for the height and depth of the sounds. In addition, the paper strip has a special compartment for the strength of the current, or that of the sound.
      • On a metal layer on a cylinder, there are as many strips or small springs as the piano has notes. If we can now place the strip of paper between the cylinder and the small springs, these close the battery each time they fall on a hole in the paper and communicate accordingly with the metal cylinder, producing their respective sound, because each of these small springs communicates by a wire to an electromagnet. The duration of the sound is relative to the length of the hole, measuring how quickly the strip of paper moves.
      • As has already been said, there are on the side of the strip of paper similar springs for the “forte” and the “piano”, which by the intercalation of obstacles modify the force of the current, and, therefore, that of sound. Experience will demonstrate whether twelve gradations, as I adapted them to the first piano, are sufficient.
      • If we wonder where in music we call life, the soul, the exciting, the involving and the passionate, I will answer that it is in the technique, unless it is in the person even of the artist, who in a given case exercises an influence on the audience. But music itself, insofar as it is instrumental, is of mechanical origin and must be able to be rendered mechanically with all its life, all its charm, all its growth.
      • If we analyse the effect of music on the piano, we find it composed of only three elements: the strength of the sound, the pitch of the sound, the sequence (dynamics, melody, rhythm); as long as these elements can be rendered by the machine in the same infinite variety as by the artist himself, the machine will necessarily produce the same effect. If the artist has momentary inspiration on his side, the machine has the advantage of reproducing exactly the same effect as often as desired. The artist loses nothing, on the contrary, only secular work is taken from him. Just as the painter does not need to grind his colours himself, nor the author to print his book himself, so the intellectual productions of the artist can be tasted and admired by those to whom he cannot relate. present personally.
      • Writing notes, regarding the strength of the sounds and the sequence, will naturally become a completely different task; instead of marking, as hitherto, only three or four nuances of sound, it will be necessary to admit eighteen to twenty and mark almost each note; t accelerator” and “ritenuto” will be found much more often (665) and in barely perceptible gradations, which will not be able to be noticed directly by the listener, which will be for the composer perhaps more work difficult but all the more rewarding.
      • The task of preserving the spirit of the music would certainly be greatly eased for the artist by a piano which would render his creations in an autographical manner according to their strength of sound, their elevation of sound and their sequence, a problem which would be much easier to solve than that of the piano playing itself.

The editor of Instruments de Musique, Oscar Comettant, derisively commented on Hipp’s claims of being able to mechanically reproduce human inspiration:

“All this bears the sympathetic imprint of naivety and illusion. A machine will never render the spontaneous inspiration of the performer. But if it were otherwise, what a miracle! (Sigismund) Thalberg, from his home in Posillipo, giving, by annotation, and in his dressing gown, concerts to dilettanti gathered in the five parts of the world between lunch and dinner!” 4 Comettant, Oscar (1869) INSTRUMENTS DE MUSIQUE CHEZ LES DIFFÉRENTS PEUPLES DU MONDE, MICHEL LÉVY FRÈRES, Paris, 665

Exhibition of the Electric Piano with specially composed music for the instrument in the Feuille D’avis de Neuchatel December 9, 1868, 4.

Hipp’s electronic instrument –or more correctly, electro-mechanical piano-player–was sent to the Paris World Expo exhibition in 1878 but, according to the Polytechnisches Journal it took six weeks to travel to Paris, arriving just before the end of the exhibition and therefore failed to attract much publicity. Hipp made two further electric pianos, one for the music dealer ‘Heller in Bern’ which was displayed at the 1873 Vienna World’s Fair. On May 1st 1870 the Commerce and Industry Society in Neuchâtel (Switzerland) opened a competition to find the best musical composition for Hipp’s new instrument with three prizes:

1. For the best composition a prize of Fr. 400.
2. For the most successful transcription of an existing piece of music for the electric piano –  Fr. 150.
3. For the second best transcription a prize of Fr. 100.

With prizes awarded by a jury “made up of competent musicians and the inventor of the electric piano”. The outcome of the competition is not recorded 5 Instruction für die Composition der für das Electrische Clavier bestimmten Musikstücke. Rapport (379579) Sur Le Piano Électrique De M. Hipp A La Société Commerciale Et Industrielle De Neuchâtel, Neuchâtel 1869, 19-20

Electric Piano composition competition. Image: Revue et gazette musicale de Paris, 1869 

6Revue et gazette musicale de Paris, 1869, 84,15.

A similar instrument was then developed by Hermann Spiess who worked with Hipp on the original instrument at Hipp’s workshop in Neuchâtel. Spiess produced an instrument for  F. Kaufmann und Sohn in Dresden which was on public display from 1872 playing ‘large and small pieces to the visitors’. In 1868 Hipp and Spiess entered into a vitriolic argument in the letters pages of Le Mondes – Spiess claiming that his instrument was superior and unrelated to Hipp’s invention and Hipp accusing Spiess of industrial espionage, counterfeiting and patent theft. Spiess went on to apply the paper role mechanism as a playing device for the organ at St Sulpice in Paris. 7(I868)Hipp, M and Spiess, H.(1868) CORRESPONDANCE DES MONDES, LES MONDES. SIXIÈME ANNÉE Septembre – Décembre, Paris, 62-3, 264-5.

Electromagnetic hammer control from Hipp’s Piano électrique. Image: Electrotechnische Zeitschrift 1811.

Walczyk suggested that Hipp also experimented  with electronically controlled dynamos to produce electro-acoustically generated sound, presumably the same tone-wheel method deployed later by Cahill in his Telharmonium of  1897 – this however, is unlikely because there would have been no way of amplifying or hearing the electronic sound. It is more likely that the instrument was based on the activation of metal tines in a magnetic field akin to Elisha Gray’s Musical Telegraph of 1874.

“Going back to the first electrical instruments, the conception of the electromechanic piano is due to Hipps (whose first name is unknown). This instrument was essentially composed of a keyboard which would activate some electrical magnets.These in their own right would activate some dynamos (small electrical current generators), the devices actually responsible for sound production. They were the same dynamos which, almost a century later, would be used in Cahill’s Telharmonium” 8 Walczyk, Kevin. M (1997)  Electroacoustic Music A brief historical outline and recorded anthology, Western Oregon University, Keveli Music, 36-45.  

If this is the case, Iit is possible that Hipp extended the mechanism of the Hipp Chronoscope – an electronic clock designed to measure micro-events based around an escape mechanism regulated by a high frequency vibrating metal tine (rather than a pendulum). By simply changing the voltage supply to the metal tines via a keyboard, Hipp would have been able to create a scaled set of frequencies:

“We all know that some piano tuners are prodigiously accurate, and we can presume that similar paragons staffed the tuning fork manufactures of 19th century Europe. However, any physics course will show you that tuning forks have an easier potential for high accuracy of frequencies than many other devices. This potential is found in the audible phenomenon of beats, in which two tuning forks which are very slightly different will produce a signal of varying loudness. The frequency of this varying loudness is the difference in frequency of the two forks, thus permitting easy adjustment of the erring fork.” 9  Haupt, Edward J. (1999) The Controversy between G. E. Müller and Wilhelm Wundt over the proper measurement of reaction time, Montclair State University.

Military balistic experiments using the Hipp Chronoscope
Military ballistic experiments using the Hipp Chronoscope

____________________________

References

  • 1
    Polytechnisches Journal. Herausgegeben von Dr. Emil Maximilian Dingler. Hundertdreiundachtzigster Band. Jahrgang 1867.
  • 2
    Anon (1875) The electric pianino, Dingler’s Polytechnisches Journal, Herausgegeben von Johann Zeman in Augsburg und Dr. Ferd. Fischer in Hannover, Zweihundertundachtzehnter Band. Jahrgang 1875, volume 218,  457-458.
  • 3
    Comettant, Oscar (1869) INSTRUMENTS DE MUSIQUE CHEZ LES DIFFÉRENTS PEUPLES DU MONDE, MICHEL LÉVY FRÈRES, Paris, 663-665
  • 4
    Comettant, Oscar (1869) INSTRUMENTS DE MUSIQUE CHEZ LES DIFFÉRENTS PEUPLES DU MONDE, MICHEL LÉVY FRÈRES, Paris, 665
  • 5
    Instruction für die Composition der für das Electrische Clavier bestimmten Musikstücke. Rapport (379579) Sur Le Piano Électrique De M. Hipp A La Société Commerciale Et Industrielle De Neuchâtel, Neuchâtel 1869, 19-20
  • 6
    Revue et gazette musicale de Paris, 1869, 84,15.
  • 7
    (I868)Hipp, M and Spiess, H.(1868) CORRESPONDANCE DES MONDES, LES MONDES. SIXIÈME ANNÉE Septembre – Décembre, Paris, 62-3, 264-5.
  • 8
    Walczyk, Kevin. M (1997)  Electroacoustic Music A brief historical outline and recorded anthology, Western Oregon University, Keveli Music, 36-45. 
  • 9
     Haupt, Edward J. (1999) The Controversy between G. E. Müller and Wilhelm Wundt over the proper measurement of reaction time, Montclair State University.