The World's Earliest Music. Hermann Smith
succession, and not the union of notes as a compound sound or “chord.”
Pipes with but two holes are common in pastoral use now, and in early times doubtless preceded those with three and four holes; and, however slow the changes, progress could not be absent. In Lady Maket’s pipes we see evidence of a great change, a tetrachord with an added tone, and this supplied by another pipe. Who can tell how many centuries of civilization such progress indicates?
An interesting speculation centres upon the means by which the sounds were produced. Were the pipes lip blown at one end, or reed blown; and, if the latter, by what reed? One of the hautboy kind, or one of the clarionet type such as the arghool? The first is called a double, and the other a single reed. Fig. 6 is an illustration of the arghool reed, full size, as used at this day in the arghool; it is called a beating reed; the reed tongue is made by cutting a slip at the side and lifting it a little, and, as it is bound by string at one end, the tip tilts, allowing passage for the wind through the aperture that the cutting has left beneath, upon the edges of which it beats in vibrating.
| Fig. 6. The Arghool Reed. Full Size. |
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Fig. 7. The Hautboy Reed. Full Size. |
Fig. 7 shews a full size reed of the hautboy type, and above it, as looking down upon the tip of the reed, is seen the oval form it assumes after it has been moistened for playing. The two parallel lines indicate its appearance when dry. The make up of the reed is modern, but the size is of the old pattern as used by Italian peasants to the present day, spoken of as the pastoral hautboy.
Some readers not familiar with the instrument will be glad of this illustration showing the difference between double and single reeds. In the double reed, which consists of two slips of reed bound together, the vibrations take place only at the tips, and are caused by rapid changes from oval to parallel due to suction by the current of air driven down between them. It should be understood that in both the single reed and the double reed the action is the same in kind, and the vibrations or sounds result from the stream of air being checked in its progress by closure of the aperture by force of suction alternating with opening of the same by the resilient power or spring in the form and material of the reed—in other words vibration is due to shocks of arrested motion in extremely rapid recurrence—the number of repetitions of arrest per second constituting what we call the pitch of the notes or sounds.
Using either the hautboy reed, or the arghool reed, with these flutes, a scale of notes of some sort may be elicited. The narrowness of the bore causes so much difficulty in the obtaining consecutive notes by lip blowing, that I the least favour the supposition that the pipes were designed for such a method. The hautboy reed is almost always associated with a conical pipe; but there are instances, in which it is used in connection with a cylinder of diameter quite as small as that of these pipes. We have no intimations that the Egyptians of that period (1100 B.C.) were familiar with the hautboy reed.
In any experiments with the hautboy reed the management of the reed by the muscles of the lips should be prohibited, as being a practice unknown to the ancients. My definite conclusions are that these pipes are true specimens of the di-aulos at its earliest stage; that the slimness betokens a particular ceremonial purpose; that the pipes were designed for use with reeds of the arghool type; and that the distances between the holes indicate that the tones proper to the instrument are those of the four foot octave.
For the better command in the holding of the pipes the natural lay of the fingers is with the second joints covering the holes, the tips of the fingers not being used for the purpose until later times. Peasants in the wilder parts of Europe and Asia retain the ancient custom.
All the holes are oval in shape. The divisions of the four holed pipe are from top hole to fourth 10–⅝ in., to the second 1–⅜ in., to the third 1–⅜ in., to the fourth 1–¼ in., to the end 3 in.; these together making 17–⅝ in. The division of the three holed pipe are from the top to the first hole 13–½ in., to the second hole 1–⅜ in., to the third hole 1–⅜ in., to the end 1–½ in.; making 17–6/8 in. The stalk knots of the reed are in each pipe at 6–⅝ in. distant from the upper end, and a knot is again found at the the extreme lower end of the four holed pipe, causing the opening to be partially occluded. This contraction would have a flattening effect and consequently the three holed (which is free from such a knot) is the longer of the two, evidently cut with the view to coincide in pitch with the other. Obviously also each hole from the top is larger than the one previous; this arises from the fact that, as stated, the pipes are not truly cylindrical, but narrow toward the bottom, and so they may require the holes to be enlarged to sharpen the notes; equivalent this to cutting the holes higher.
To the musician investigating these matters it is of interest to observe that the two upper holes of the three-holed pipe coincide in their position with the two lowest holes of the four-holed pipe and consequently do not extend the compass of the notes, they merely pair the other pipe, yet if the reed of either differs, then, in flatness or sharpness the interval would show variation, and such an effect might be a designed one, giving a choice to the player. The lowest hole of the three-holed pipe extends the sounds that limit the tetrachord by one tone, and this method by extension reappears in aftertime in the Greek systems as an added tone also.
It is doubtful whether we are to consider that the open extreme end of a pipe is intended to produce a sound which is to be taken into the musical scale, even the least civilised people seeming to regard the note given as outside the designed series and not to be used; but it is easy to conceive how a pentatonic scale might have been developed by bringing it into use.
Another point to be noticed as affecting the pitch is that the distance between the fourth and the third holes is an eighth less than exists between other holes, and it may be that it was so intended to compensate for flatness, or to make a slight difference of interval.
The oval holes are not singular; I have several beautiful Japanese pipes with this feature in their construction. The coinciding holes of the two pipes may not have been intended to be identical in pitch or may have been used together to produce a quivering or voix céleste effect, through the partial shading of one by the fingers, and thus intended to give new resources to the skilful player. This is probable, because we find that at the present day the people of eastern climes are partial to this effect. The Egyptian zummarah, consisting of two unison pipes tied together is played to produce it. It is quite easy to obtain the waving of pitch to a large extent, by using two reeds that differ in stiffness.
That the sounds given by the flute holes originally located by the spread of the fingers should prove to be distant from each other approximately by the interval we call a tone, is a mere coincidence as of numerical relation, the more or less extent being ultimately adjusted by experience.
Another consideration I must tell you of because in my studies of old customs in instruments it has been impressed upon me too strongly to be neglected, and that is the old world tendency that prevails to make flat fourths. In the section on Chinese instruments this feature will be noticed though I do not think any other writer has mentioned it, and I believe the duplicates of certain fourths are only apparently such and are intended for the making of fourths of slightly different pitch, and that there is a practice of using one of these for the ascent and the other for the descent in the scale. I believe it to be a natural racial tendency to make flat fourths and that by provision of another note with a difference, they do a tuning based upon fourths accommodate the obtaining of the true octave.
One of those pipes gives a complete tetrachord, a perfect fourth, the other extends it by a minor third, interveningly the flat fourth and the augmented fourth may be found within the scale of the two pipes combined. Not the Greek tetrachord but one of more primitive arrangement, before laws had been formulated for the relative degrees of tone and hemitones. There is also a leap interval of a tone and a half, which characterises the earliest of lyre scales, and may be the link connecting the evolution of the Greek scale from the Egyptian. Indeed in Asia and Arabia similar usages still persist, and to the peoples’ ears give