Page:Philosophical Review Volume 1.djvu/194

178 four they fell 15, 23, 25, and 28 cents apart. Taking the centre of gravity of the various estimates as the indicated pitch for each note, the following interval order resulted:

In nine of these intervals the errors are not over 15 cents, or the fourteenth of a tone; in two they are 24 cents, or the eighth of a tone; and one reaches 31 cents, or the sixth of a tone. It may be mentioned that this Harmonical reproduction was hardly as loud and clear as those of most of the songs of our collection.

These tests of the phonograph and of the ear give a basis for considerable confidence in the novel method employed in this investigation of primitive musical performance. The phonograph seems under favorable conditions to be able to reproduce a sequence of intervals with an accuracy which may be regarded as well-nigh perfect, and which one would call truly wonderful were not all wonder in connection with this instrument. Furthermore, the result of the above experiment with the intricate interval order of the Harmonical seems to indicate that a good musical ear can by this method of estimated divergences of the phonograph notes from those of an instrument of comparison gain an idea of a course of pitch presented in phonographic reproduction which will be correct to within small fractions of a tone. We may claim, therefore, for records of primitive performance made in this way from the phonograph, an accuracy sufficient for purposes of close study, and which is much greater than could be attained without its aid. In the Lehre von den Tonenpfindungen (4th ed., p. 435) Helmholtz quotes the observation of a friend, an "ausgezeichneter Musiker," in regard to the singing of the Dervishes in Cairo. That which at first was thought to be a false intonation, he finally convinced himself was the quarter tone (about 50 cents) of the Arabian scale. Although to notice in performance a musical habitude as delicate as this would demand an acute musical sense, in the detailed study it is possible to give a phonographic reproduction it would reveal itself at once even to an observer of ordinary powers. The only references we have found by previous students to the division of a semitone in Chinese music, so conspicuous in the intermediate pien-Koung of our songs, are the incidental remarks of Van Aalst already referred to.