Publisher's Synopsis
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1896 edition. Excerpt: ... of four-foot pitch. There are twenty-five pedals. The maker's inscription is "Johann David Gerstenberg, Orgelbauer zu Geringswald, hat uns gemacht, 1760." Ultimately the double stopping became the normal, and the open notes produced by the farthest tangents backwards were F, G, A, B flat, C, D, E flat, the seventh Gregorian tone transposed, and a possible heritage from the old transposition scales (the Heptas) of the Greeks. t In this arrangement the D and A were free, or single tangent notes, without other stopping on those strings, the other strings having a double stopping in order to obtain the notes required to complete the chromatic scale. To do this F sharp was fretted upon F, shortening the strings by so much as is required to make the semitone; G sharp upon G, B natural upon B flat, C sharp upon C, and E natural upon E flat. The choice of the scale notes so as to Lave A and D free depended upon the tuning, thus: the tuner would take four fifths up, F--C, C--G, Q--D, D--A (tuning down the G an octave to bring the notes conveniently near), and two fifths down or fourths up, F--B flat--E flat; thus securing the seven notes in a diatonic system without the leading semitone. Then the scale was made chromatic by stopping or fretting with additional tangents as already described. The tuner might have taken six upward fifths so as to get E and B natural open, and this was, it is said, in the eighteenth century done; J but a groundwork with this intention was not thought of when the Church Modes prevailed. The A and D were prominent notes in the first and second modes, and the B flat and E flat had more importance, especially the B flat, as notes of transposition than the corresponding natural notes. Other scalings in the old...
