Grantville Gazette-Volume XIII Read online

  Wind Instruments—Woodwinds

  The modern woodwind group covers flutes, piccolos, the oboe family, the bassoon, the clarinet family, and the saxophone family, of which only the flute would be directly related to instruments of 1632. Modern flutes and piccolos are typically made of metal, but are classed as woodwinds due to the fact that they were often made of wood well into the 1800s. Even today the bodies of piccolos are frequently totally or partially made of wood. Saxophones have always been hybrid metal and wood instruments, but are classed as woodwinds because they use a woodwind style mouthpiece with a reed and because the fingering system is like that of most woodwinds.

  Most of the woodwind family would be new to the down-timers, but they would embrace them with open arms, because they would fill musical niches of older, less musical sounding instruments, such as the shawm and the serpent. It wouldn't hurt that the modern designs would for the most part be easier to play as well.

  There are two technologies needed to make modern woodwinds a success. One is the Böhm key system developed by Theobald Böhm in the 1830s. It makes playing the instruments (metal or wood) easier, but it requires many many little tiny steel wire springs—preferably stainless steel—and very small screws. It simplifies the fingering, which allows for more notes and faster playing; and it allows for holes that are larger than a normal fingertip can cover. The other technology key is that during the last 350+ years, there has been a great deal of development in determining exactly how the bore of these instruments should be shaped and tapered. These relatively subtle changes allow instruments such as flutes to play much louder than the 1632 versions. Instrument crafters will mug each other to get to this information.

  Wind Instruments—Brass

  The big news here is valves. Down-time crafters could produce the horn forms already, including the trombone (sometimes known as a sackbut in this time). The concept of valves, however, will send down-time players and crafters into spirals of delight because of the flexibility they will provide the players. And when nickel is available for both nickel plating and for stainless steel, that will only make things better.

  Instrument bore shaping and tapering improvements will be just as big an issue for the down-time brass crafters as for the woodwind crafters. Modern trombones sound much better than the 1632 sackbuts. Trumpets will sound better as well. French horns may or may not sound much improved—the ideal bore of a horn was determined fairly early.

  Subtler technology improvements will come in the areas of improved mouthpiece designs, spit valves, and steel springs for all the valves. Working with up-time models will also teach the down-timers a few things about how to properly flare the instrument bells for the best sound. And the emphasis on standardization of models will also be felt.

  Percussion

  Modern percussion instruments were basically adopted wholesale from the Turks in the eighteenth century when military bands began to be formed. Everything Grantville has will be new to 1632, including the pedal tuning mechanism for tympani, but none of it will be beyond the abilities of the down-time craftsmen. They will need some big pieces of cowhide for some of those drumheads, though.

  Electronic instruments

  These instruments are all subject to the limitation/requirement that reliable electrical power supplies of the correct voltage are available. That means for the first few years their performance venues would be pretty limited. It's also likely that most of them won't be reproducible by down-time craftsmen; at least not until the down-time electronics industry reaches a particular level that will begin making certain types of parts available. That may take a while; i.e., years, maybe generations for some of them. This would include electric pianos, synthesizers, MIDI instruments, and using computers to generate music.

  Electric Guitar

  I will speak to this one directly, since so much popular music utilizes it. Yes, electric guitars could be reproduced by down-timer craftsmen. Amplifier speakers are possible with down-time technology, although the magnets might be electromagnets rather than the modern types currently in use. The big problem with reproducing the electronic guitar technology is that it will be at least 1637, more like 1638-9, before tubes for amplifier power heads are available in commercial quantities. Combine that with the requirement for reliable power, and it will be hard to see these as much of a force on the musical scene for quite a while.

  The Building Blocks of Music

  In this next section we will try to cover at a very high level some of the things that make music work. From time to time distinctions will be drawn between "street" music and "art" music. Street music would be the music of the common man, what he would hear in the homes and taverns of his town. Art music would be the music of the courts of the nobility and upper church prelates. Church music could find itself in either camp, depending on the style and who it was produced for. Most of the simple hymns could be classified as street music, especially since the words were often set to the tunes of popular songs.

  Modes and tonality

  Mode is a word that can have different meanings in music land, depending on whether you're talking about ancient Greeks or medieval music, or melody vs. rhythm. Most musicians would probably think of the medieval/Renaissance melody context if the word is mentioned. But to talk about modes, I first have to deal with some building block concepts.

  Think of a piano keyboard. Find middle C on the keyboard. Now, move to the right up the keyboard to the next key that's a C tone. Counting all the white and black keys between middle C and the next C you have thirteen keys—eight white, five black. However, only eight of those keys (including both C tones) will be used in making what is frequently called a scale. From C to C is a tonal interval called an octave, based on the eight tones of the scale.

  Now, between any two adjacent keys, whether white to black or white to white, is an interval called a half step. So, from C (white) to C# (black) is a half step. From C (white) to D (white) is a whole step. From E (white) to F (white) is a half step, because there is no black key in between them. Same story from B (white) to C (white).

  Okay, now for the interesting part. A mode refers to an octave scale built on a pattern of whole and half steps. Different modes have different patterns. And pretty much all of the modes can be found just by playing octaves on white keys on the piano.

  For example, from middle C to the next C up represents the Ionian mode. The pattern is:

  C-whole-D-whole-E-half-F-whole-G-whole-A-whole-B-half-C

  Or

  1-whole-2-whole-3-half-4-whole-5-whole-6-whole-7-half-8

  This Ionian mode also happens to be the major scale used in most music since not long after the 1630s.

  If you do A to A on white keys only, you get the Aeolian mode, also known as the minor scale, and the half steps fall between 2/3 and 5/6.

  If you do D to D on white keys only, you get the Dorian mode, where the half steps fall between 2/3 and 6/7. And so on.

  There are several other modes, but you get the point. Composers, of course, can use a mode beginning on any tone. Strictly speaking, the mode is dependent on the pattern of whole and half steps, not the tone on which it begins.

  The main point to grasp is that if you have different interval patterns in the melodic scale, these are also the notes you use in producing the harmony, especially in this period of time when the bulk of the church and art music is polyphonic—each "voice" line is its own melody. So, if I use a scale starting on G, I will have different harmonic chords available in Dorian mode than I will have in Lydian mode than I will have in Phrygian mode than I will have in. . . . You get the idea. The composer's choice of mode makes a big difference in the sound of the composition. Think of the difference between major and minor keys today, then think of having six to ten more choices.

  There was a definite evolutionary process in the area of modes and tonalities. The drive to the established major/minor tonality "palette" was well under way during the 1500s, and was pretty definitely over in
the late 1600s. Older 1632 musicians, although familiar with the major/minor concepts, would probably consider them somewhat "newfangled." Up-time music won't be totally strange to them from that standpoint at least.

  There will be plenty of other issues for them to have collective apoplexy over.

  Keys

  This is actually a continuation of the discussion begun in the modes and tonalities section. Remember that modes were actually octave scales with differing patterns of whole steps and half steps. The Ionian mode has the half steps between 3/4 and 7/8, which is the pattern used in major keys. The Aeolian mode has the half steps between 2/3 and 5/6, which is the pattern used in minor keys. Between the time of J.S. Bach and about 1900, almost all Western European (I include North America in this category) music was written in either major or minor keys. Since 1900, a pretty high percentage of "serious" music uses other tonalities, but almost all of the popular music, including Broadway, is written in it. In modern musical usage, most music is written in either major keys or minor keys.

  That part's pretty clear, I hope. But what are these sharp and flat things that keep showing up in music? The sharp symbol looks the same as the pound sign—a #. The flat symbol looks kind of like a lower case "b" with a pointy bottom. (The standard Microsoft symbols directory doesn't seem to contain it.) The purpose of a sharp is to raise a note's tone one-half step from its normal tone. A flat is to lower a note's tone one-half step from its normal tone.

  This implies that note names can actually be used to represent three different tones on the piano, which is exactly the case. For example, let's take G. If a G note is indicated, it is the white key G on the piano. But if a sharp symbol is placed in front of the note, that turns the note into G-sharp, which would require the pianist to not hit the white G key, but to hit the black key immediately to the right of the G key. Similarly, if a flat symbol is placed in front of the note, that turns it into G-flat, which requires the pianist to hit the black key immediately to the left of the G key.

  Okay, so what do the sharps and flats have to do with keys and scales? Remember that major and minor are defined by the patterns of whole and half steps. There is only one major key that can be played on white keys only, using only the natural tones, and that is C major. But what if we want to use a key starting on G? Using all white keys starting on G, you don't get the half steps in the right place to have a major key. So, to get the major key step pattern, instead of playing a natural F, you have to play an F-sharp. Same problem if we want to start the scale on F. To get a major key step pattern, instead of a natural B, you have to play a B-flat. And so it goes. Unless you start on a C, you will have to have sharps or flats. And some of the keys have a lot: B major, for example, has five sharps, and G-flat major has six flats.

  It is common musical practice that for a given key, the sharps or flats for that key will be placed at the beginning of each line of music in the piece. It makes it easier to print and easier to read. Of course, the musician has to keep in mind what key he or she is in, or it starts to sound a little strange. Seriously, if you've played or sung for very long, it becomes second nature to you.

  Everything said so far also applies to minor keys, except that the half-steps are in different places in the scale.

  Harmony

  Most Western European music is based on what's known as tertiary harmony. As you can tell by the name, it has something to do with thirds. To explain that, let's go back to the piano keyboard. We talked about octaves and steps. The musical term usually used to describe those is "interval." An interval is a measurement of distance between one tone and another.

  So, let's start with middle C again. From middle C to the adjacent black key (which is called either C-sharp or D-flat, depending on what key we're in) is a half step, which is a minor second interval. Moving from low to high/left to right, from C to D is a whole step, which is a major second interval. From C to E is two whole steps, which is a major third interval. From C to F is two and one-half steps, which is a perfect fourth interval. From C to G is three and one-half steps, which is a perfect fifth interval. From C to A is four and one-half steps, which is a major sixth interval. From C to B is five and one-half steps, which is a major seventh interval. And from C to C is six steps, which is a perfect octave. You can continue past that point (ninth, tenth, etc.), but for our purposes we'll stay within the octave.

  First question is probably why the octave, fifth and fourth are perfect, while the others are major or minor? The answer goes way back into early music history, to the time when the church was the sole repository of musical learning. Gregorian chant is monophonic—only one melody, everyone singing the same thing. For a long time the church wouldn't accept the concept of multiple lines of music. Finally, they accepted the concept of a second line, but they still insisted there could not be dissonance of any kind, so they sang the second line on the same notes, only an octave higher. And lo, they blessed it, and it was perfect.

  So more time passed, and some musician wanted to make the music richer. He probably was listening to some of that low class street music, liked what he heard, and wanted to sneak it into the church music. The next interval that they allowed was the fifth. They didn't understand why it sounded good to them—the understanding of acoustics was pretty limited back then. They didn't realize that the fifth interval is one of the major harmonics of a tone, and that by singing at the fifth they were singing at one of the acoustically harmonious points. It just sounded good. And lo, they blessed it, and it was perfect.

  Pretty soon someone realized that a fifth is just a fourth turned upside down (or vice-versa). From low C to G is three and one-half steps, but from that G to the higher C above it is only two and one-half steps, which is a fourth. And lo, they blessed it, and it was perfect.

  It's psychology interacting with acoustics. It sounds good.

  Yes, you can sharp or flat a fourth or fifth, but you don't call it major or minor. If you sharp it, it's augmented, if you flat it, it's diminished. I supposed technically you can augment or diminish an octave, but in six years of formal training in music theory I never heard it.

  Back to harmony. The next interval inserted into the harmonic mix was the major third, but when you put a major third in the middle of a fifth—C-E-G, for example—you get a structure called a triad, which is the first real musical chord. From C to E is a major third, from E to G is a minor third—hence the tertiary harmony label that we mentioned at the beginning.

  Most music that people enjoy listening to today is built on tertiary harmony—maybe with some added tones, but still recognizably built on thirds.

  As you might imagine, there are quite a few rules on how to build chords, and which chords must precede or follow other chords, which is a level of detail we're not going to dive into for this discussion.

  Last thing I will mention is to go back to the fifth interval. If I'm in the key of C, using the C scale as the foundation for my harmonies, the fifth tone of the scale is G. Musically, that is referred to as the dominant. It goes back to the psychology/acoustics thing again . . . it is the strongest harmonic to C, the root of the scale. It took on a special place in the minds of the early musicians, hence the dominant name. Likewise, a chord that is built on the fifth of the scale is referred to as the dominant chord in that key. In C, the dominant chord would be G-B-D, maybe with an added seventh or ninth.

  Tempering/Temperament/Temperatur

  Okay, this is going to be way simplified. For a more thorough but still reasonably brief discussion of the issues, see the Acoustics and Temperament articles in the Harvard Dictionary of Music.

  This issue has to do with the physics of sound generation. In nature, there is no such thing as a pure tone. All natural tone generating objects, whether animate or inanimate, resonate when they generate tones. They generate complex wave-forms consisting of the primary tone and then the secondary harmonics or partials that are associated with it. The only way I know to get a pure naked tone without harmonic
s is to use a sine-wave generator, although modern tuning forks come close.

  This generation of harmonics is not an issue as long as we are producing monophonic music. However, as soon as we move to polyphonic or homophonic music (more than one note sounding at the same time), we have a problem. (See the musical lexicon section.)

  The human ear is capable of discerning some pretty subtle distinctions in tonality. When two different tones are generated, we instinctively want them to be consonant, to sound good, so we want the higher-pitched tone to match into one of the partials of the lower-pitched tone. The closer the match, the more consonant/less dissonant the harmony, the more "perfect" it becomes.