Obvious and familiar when used for notes
Musical Instruments

Obvious and familiar when used for notes

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The preceding post examined the first system put forward in the USA for writing music without the graphic complexity of conventional staff notation, published in 1785. It used letters numbers and a few common typographical symbols. The present post takes a look at a method with the same purpose, based solely on the numerical representation of notes. It was published in London in 1638, with a claim of having been devised ca. 20 years earlier.

William Braythwait presented it in a compendium of 27 sacred pieces he culled from a larger collection published by Georg Victorinus in Munich, in 1622 (1st ed. 1616), both titled Siren coelestis (Celestial Siren). The upper half of the earlier title page is reproduced on that of the compendium, which is advertised further as “the easiest method of teaching and learning music by far.” (All translations in this post are my own.)

Braythwait explained this method and the rationale behind it in a narrative adjunct to the music, adding further detail in 1639 (also changing the spelling of his name to Braithwaite). He represented the seven notes of a diatonic scale with the Arabic numerals 1‍–‍7 and the octave with diacritical marks. This was also a basic feature of an earlier Spanish tablature that first appeared in a text titled Libro de cifra nueva para tecla, harpa, y vihuela (Book of new numbers for keyboard, harp and vihuela) published by Venegas de Henestrosa, in Madrid, in 1557 (to be discussed further in a separate post).

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So simple as scarcely to perplex the youngest child
Musical Instruments

So simple as scarcely to perplex the youngest child

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Several discussions of musical performance practice on this blog are illustrated with snippets of staff notation, often as facsimiles taken from historical sources. When focused on instruments for which alternate forms of notation came into common use, the instrument-specific ones are employed preferentially, or both appear in parallel. This approach to writing about music and musical instruments has been commonplace for centuries.

When the graphic representation of music is itself the topic of discussion, it is obviously difficult to avoid reliance on staff notation or some widely understood alternative to it. Countless such systems have been put forward over the past centuries. The overwhelmingly greatest number of them attracted only fleeting attention, at best. However, a few have come into persisting use.

One of more widely encountered is the “ABC notation” used both in parallel with staff notation and as a replacement for it. It has standard and informal forms, with the shared barebones attribute of representing the notes in a melody by their single-letter names — A, B, C, D, etc. If the octave is also indicated, standard ABC does so with lowercase and uppercase letters for two adjacent octaves, adding a subscript or superscript index for an additional octave below and above each. Note lengths and rhythm are conveyed by numbers juxtaposed with the alphabetical pitch indicators.

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There and back again
Musical Instruments

There and back again

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When coming across new information of substantive relevance to a post that is already online, I usually edit that material into it without separate announcement. If its topic is explored further in a later post, retrospective attention is called there to the revision, with summary details and a link to the modified text. The present post does a bit of both and then proceeds into new territory. I’m bundling these tasks here because they are particularly interrelated and to wrap up loose ends as the blogging year draws to a close.

The preparation of the preceding post entailed a general search for zither-related patents issued to the German musical instrument manufacturer Peter Renk. Those relevant to that post are detailed in it. An additional two patents necessitated significant changes to another post that had been available for a longer while. It is headed The Keyboard Autoharp and Gusli, and has been reworked to reflect the new documents.

The initial version traced a path between a US patent issued in 1888 for a variant form of the autoharp with a piano-type keyboard, and a further variant of that design which became a mainstay of the traditional Russian orchestra early in the 20th century. It is also widely encountered there in solo use and a variety of smaller ensembles. The cited post illustrates that breadth with several video demonstrations, adding another here.

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Proximity and circumstance
Musical Instruments

Proximity and circumstance

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One of the documents considered in the preceding post is a US trademark for the word Autoharp that Carl F. Zimmermann applied for in December 1892. This was just as he was finalizing the sale of his business with that instrument to Alfred Dolge. I posited that he might have done so as part of their transition agreement, perhaps in last-minute response to an imagined question asked by Dolge: “Are you telling me that you never trademarked the instrument at the heart of the operation I’m about to buy!?”

There was some urgency in wrapping up such details since the World’s Columbian Exposition (aka Chicago World’s Fair) was set to open on 5 May 1893. This was less than four months after Dolge formally incorporated the “C. F. Zimmermann Company of Dolgeville, New York” (28 January 1893). It was also long past the allocation of space to the US musical instrument industry in the exposition’s Liberal Arts Building.

The Official Guide treats the displayed musical instruments in a cursory manner but in-depth coverage is provided by the independently produced Musical Instruments at the World’s Columbian Exposition, edited by Frank D. Abbott and published in 1895. It includes a lengthy narrative about Dolge’s presence there, and the numerous awards that were given both directly to him and to other exhibitors whose products included the piano felt and soundboards for which he was renowned. He operated two booths, with the one emblazoned “Alfred Dolge & Son” befittingly grandiose.

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Harmony and disharmony
Musical Instruments

Harmony and disharmony

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A recent post on this blog discussed how the accordion and concertina maker, Carl Friedrich Zimmermann, made his way in 1864 from the German town of Carlsfeld to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He did so to take over the operation of a music store from his brother, Charles Moritz Zimmermann. The post that followed it examined Carl’s activity there during the ensuing decades. The present one wraps this series up by considering events surrounding his retirement.

The 1870 United States Census records a household two doors away from that store, headed by Carl Zimmermann with his wife Sophia and ten children. His occupation was “Imp[orter of] Musical Instruments.” The 16-year-old Charles and the one year younger Alexander, both “Work in a Music Store.”

The 1880 US Census records Carl Zimmermann as a “Dealer in Musical Ins[truments]” and Charles as a “Clerk in a Store.” The family now resided above their music store at 238 North Second Street, seen in the following photograph.

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Inspirational events
Musical Instruments

Inspirational events

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The International Exhibition of Arts and Manufactures was held in Philadelphia in 1876, celebrating the centennial anniversary of the US Declaration of Independence. It was a massive undertaking and the Main Hall alone had more floor space than any other building then in the world. The accompanying documentation was prodigious, ranging from formal reports and directories, to independently prepared narratives.

The host city made an extensive, if not to say disproportionate, contribution to the US utilization of that space. A particularly detailed description of the event, Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Historical Register of the Centennial Exposition, 1876, (online here) says this about it:

A peculiar feature of this important portion of the Exhibition is the noticeable frequency with which one meets exhibits from Philadelphia houses…fully two-thirds of the best American exhibits are the result of the well-known energy and enterprise of Philadelphians…and whatever may explain the circumstance, there is no doubt that much energy is displayed.

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The Manufactory at #238 North Second Street
Musical Instruments

The Manufactory at #238 North Second Street

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An earlier post discussed an undated autobiography that Carl Friedrich (Charles Frederick) Zimmermann wrote after his emigration from Germany to the USA. Details indicate that he authored it during the 1870s and pinpoint his relocation to 1864. This date is corroborated by official documents, with 238 North Second Street in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, as his initial base of operations. Contemporary descriptions of his activity there shed further light on the shift of his focus from accordions and concertinas to the autoharp. The autobiography says the following about that location.

I now heeded my brother’s call to America with my wife and six children, leaving two behind with my parents-in-law. A service maid in my 48th year, I took over my brother’s music store — in a sorry state at the time — while he left me four months after my arrival and traveled to Germany.

That music store can be traced back to the 1851 edition of McElroy’s Philadelphia City Directory, where it is listed as the firm of “SCHMIDT & ZIMMERMAN, impor[ters of] musical inst[ruments]” located at 408 North Second Street. The partners were Richard T. Schmidt and Charles Moritz Zimmermann, later to become known as piano and drum manufacturers respectively. Their alliance was apparently short lived, with each appearing at a different location in the following year’s edition of the same directory; Schmidt as a music teacher and Zimmermann operating a music store.

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Herbert John Haddan
Musical Instruments

Herbert John Haddan

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The post before last made side-by-side comparisons of patents for “zither-like” musical instruments issued in Europe and the USA during the 1880s, attempting to clarify the priority of a few key innovations. The present text extends that discussion into the following decade from a slightly different perspective. It is centered on the role played by an unsung participant whose name provides the title above.

Herbert John Haddan (1838–1911) was a well reputed British patent agent who served inventors in many fields. His involvement with musical instruments began no later than 1877, when he obtained a British patent on behalf of an American violin designer, doing so again in 1879 for one located in Germany. He went on to represent instrument makers on both sides of a growing transatlantic competition in the development of chord bar devices of the type now primarily associated with the autoharp. There were signals, throughout, of his having understood the musical instrument industry beyond the legalities of obtaining patents.

Before delving into specifics, a few general observations about the patenting process may be helpful. They are issued by national authorities and acquiring one in a given country confers no protection in any other. An inventor wanting international coverage needs a separate patent in each country where protection is sought. Legislation and procedures vary from country to country and time to time, as does the scope of a patent.

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C. F. Zimmermann’s autobiography
Musical Instruments

C. F. Zimmermann’s autobiography

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The name Carl Friedrich (Charles Frederick) Zimmermann figures prominently in the early histories of the accordion and concertina, as well as of mechanized zithers. When discussed in the first context, his “Carlsfelder Concertina” is a frequent centerpiece, together with the importance of his factory in Carlsfeld to the local economy. It is usually noted in passing that he later shifted his attention to the autoharp. When that instrument is the main focus, mention is sometimes made of his having started out as an accordion maker, but his significance in that field is rarely discussed further.

Writers approaching Zimmermann from either perspective have relied on an autobiography found in the personal archives of his corporate successor in the US, Rudolf Dolge. Alvin Doyle Moore brought it to light by including passages translated from the original German in his seminal article from 1963, “The Autoharp: Its Origin and Development from a Popular to a Folk Instrument,” published in the New York Folklore Quarterly (vol. 19, no. 4, pp. 261–74; reprinted in 1967 by Harry Taussig in the Folk Style Autoharp). Becky Blackley paraphrased the autobiography more extensively in The Autoharp Book, from 1983.

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The Two Gentlemen of Vogtland
Musical Instruments

The Two Gentlemen of Vogtland

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This post revisits documents that have been discussed previously in several venues. It adds lesser known material in a summarized chronology of the innovative activity of the instrument makers named below. The intention is to clarify residual uncertainty about the priority of their respective contributions to the development of mechanized chord zithers.

Carl Friedrich Zimmermann was born in 1817 in Morgonröthe, Germany, a village in the district of Vogtland. It is 20 km on a straight line from Markneukirchen — an epicenter of the German musical instrument industry, also in Vogtland — where the five years younger Karl August Gütter lived and worked. Zimmermann was a renowned accordion and concertina maker who emigrated to the USA in 1864, where he continued his involvement with that craft.

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