Page:Pratt - The history of music (1907).djvu/80

 being purely diatonic with Bb added. In later examples the large number of pipes simply meant duplication of the tones for loudness or variety. The pipes were made to sound by depressing keys or levers not unlike those used to-day for chime-ringing, and they were so far apart and had so much 'dip' and resistance that they required a stroke from the hand or fist—the player being called an 'organ-beater.' Variety of tone was somehow secured in the better specimens by the use of 'stops,' whose quality might be soft and sweet or harsh and stentorian. The organ was used solely to support Gregorian melodies, one tone at a time. There was no independent organ music till the 15th century.

While the organ was becoming a piece of church furniture, popular music had recourse to various portable instruments. All the northern peoples had poet-singers, known as bards or scalds, whose minstrelsy was often of decided social importance. The habit of song spread more or less among all classes, probably always involving the use of instruments.

The most characteristic bardic instrument was the harp, which is traceable in very early times in Germany, Scandinavia, France and Britain. These old European harps were triangular, varying in size within the limits of portability, and had from 5 to 15 or more strings. We know nothing of methods of tuning or of the exact method of playing.

Another striking form was the 'crwth' or 'chrotta' (later known as the 'rota' or 'rotte'), whose origin is obscure. It is likely that it was first a rectangular lyre, sounded by plucking, but early it appears as a rectangular viol, sounded with a bow. It was specially common among the British Kelts. In one variety openings were provided through the body near the top, so that the hand could reach the strings from behind. The number of strings, either of gut or metal, varied from three to several. The earliest literary reference to it is by Fortunatus of Poitiers (d. 609). This instrument or its descendants finally coalesced with the Oriental viols into the family of which the violin is the finest representative. [The fact that such instruments as this had strings gave rise to the name fidula (from the Latin fides, string), whence came such variants as videle, fidel, vielle and finally viola, etc.]

A curious derivative of the foregoing was the organistrum or 'hurdy-gurdy'—a rota sounded by a small wheel beneath the strings. As this instrument was held horizontally upon the lap, the stopping of the strings was managed by dampers pressed down, and these in later times were often controlled by a sort of keyboard. The number of strings was usually small, but the keys or dampers were often many, giving a wide range. This form still survives in Europe, notably in Savoy.

The earliest appearance of indigenous European instruments, like the horn, the schalmey or 'shawm,' the bagpipe and the glockenspiel or 'bell-piano,' was in the period before us, but none of these had immediate importance.