{"id":5455,"date":"2018-10-05T18:22:46","date_gmt":"2018-10-05T08:22:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/emotemuse.com\/g\/?p=5455"},"modified":"2018-10-05T18:22:46","modified_gmt":"2018-10-05T08:22:46","slug":"some-curious-devices","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wedgebillmusic.com\/?p=5455","title":{"rendered":"Some curious devices"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\n\tIn the late nineteenth-century, some quite curious mechanical inventions were created to deal with the body with relation to pianists and conductors.<br \/>\n\t&nbsp;&nbsp;<br \/>\n\tThe following is an account of a presentation by T. L. Southgate on <span font-style:=\"\" italic=\"\" style=\"\">The Physiology of Pianoforte Piano<\/span>. The paper presented was written by W. Macdonald Smith.&nbsp; This account appeared in the <span font-style:=\"\" italic=\"\" style=\"\">Musical Times<\/span>, February 1888.\n<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<div 40px=\"\" margin-left:=\"\" style=\"\">\n\t\tMr Southgate exhibited and showed in action the machines which Mr. Smith had invented.&nbsp; The first apparatus is termed the Wrist Strengthener.&nbsp; The hand is required to grasp a roll, the wrist resting on a fixed block; this roll has to be moved rapidly up and down.&nbsp; If the work is done with sufficient force and rapidity it causes a wheel to revolve and raises a small weight.<\/p>\n<p>\t\tNumber two is the Whistle Baton.&nbsp; This resembles a conductor&#39;s stick, but its top consists of a hollow cylinder in which works a little piston.&nbsp; The student, grasping the stick firmly, beats 4-4 time in the ordinary manner.&nbsp; If this is done with sufficient strength and rapidity the piston is driven violently up to the top of the cylinder and causes a whistle to sound.<\/p>\n<p>\t\tNumber three is a box from which projects a key of the usual type.&nbsp; if depressed with sufficient rapidity or lifted quickly enough a bell is sounded.<\/p>\n<p>\t\tNumber four is designated the Scissors Extender.&nbsp; This is a brass pillar supporting at the top a bell; on a projecting arm is pivoted an arrangement resembling a pair of scissors and consisting of two slender bent wires having grooves at the bottom in which to insert the tips of two fingers.&nbsp; If the fingers are suddenly parted with sufficient force it causes a small ball to fly up and strike the bell.&nbsp; All these exercises can be regulated in difficulty as desired by the student, and it was stated that as little as ten minutes a day practice with them would be of more use than hours of dreary scale and five-finger work.\n\t<\/p><\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>\n\tCuriously, Smith would later disregard such apparatus in favour of other exercises.<\/p>\n<p>\tCited in: Scholes, Percy (1947) <span font-style:=\"\" italic=\"\" style=\"\"><em>The Mirror of Music: 1844-1944<\/em>.&nbsp; <\/span>London: Novello, p. 332.\n<\/p>\n<div 40px=\"\" margin-left:=\"\" style=\"\">\n\t&nbsp;\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In the late nineteenth-century, some quite curious mechanical inventions were created to deal with the body with relation to pianists and conductors. &nbsp;&nbsp; The following is an account of a presentation by T. L. Southgate on The Physiology of Pianoforte Piano. The paper presented was written by W. Macdonald Smith.&nbsp; This account appeared in the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[47],"tags":[1444,1443],"class_list":["post-5455","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-instruments","tag-inventions","tag-piano-technique"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wedgebillmusic.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5455","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wedgebillmusic.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wedgebillmusic.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wedgebillmusic.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wedgebillmusic.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5455"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/wedgebillmusic.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5455\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5456,"href":"https:\/\/wedgebillmusic.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5455\/revisions\/5456"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wedgebillmusic.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5455"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wedgebillmusic.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5455"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wedgebillmusic.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5455"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}