Rubbing cat belly with horsehair

Keyboard instrument can be classified into several groups.  First group is represented by piano, celesta and carillon which adapt a sound generation principle of hitting the sound source by hammers. In a harpsichord and a virginal, quill is used to pluck the strings.  Clavichord strings are pushed by metal tangents and organ pipes are blown by air pressure.  In playing any of these instruments, musical expression is concentrated in the moment of first break.  In the piano or harpsichord, sound simply decays after the first break.  Organ players can sustain the sound as long as the key is kept being pressed.  However, no musical expressions can be made after the sound is released.  In contrary, the Geigenwerk has a potential to modify the sound in its dynamics and pitch after the string starts vibration.

Between 1488 and 1489, Leonardo da Vinci had drawn a number of sketches for musical instruments with a keyboard and mechanically driven bows.  Leonardo called these instruments as viola-organista.  Three different types of bow driving mechanisms are described, such as a rotating circular wheel, an endlessly running belt and a reciprocally moving bow.  Although sketches were found, there is no evidence of existence of actual instruments of any types of above mentioned mechanically driven bows in the period of Leonardo's life.  After about 100 years, 1575, Hans Hyden of Nuremberg made a circular wheel type instrument, but this instrument is not preserved and only an illustration can be seen in a book, Syntagma musicum by Michael Praetorius.  Only one existing historically made this type of instrument is the one made by Fray Raymundo Truchado, a Spanish monk in 1625.  This instrument is preserved at the Mahillon collection of the Musée Instrumental in Brussels.

Two questions came across to me: 1. why this instrument is not used today?  2. would it be at all possible to make a keyboard instrument which can produce dynamic expressions and adjusting tone pitch with sustaining tones?  To me, making the instrument by myself was the only possible way to try to find the answers to these questions.  I have visited Brussels and closely examined the Truchado’s instrument.  The instrument was not in a good condition and I could hardly image the original quality of sound and workmanship.  Design of my first instrument was not based on historical works.  However, as seen in the Truchado’s instrument, I used parchment on the friction wheels.  This material is also used in the friction wheel of hurdy-gurdy.  After assembling the instrument, I was very much excited to make the first note.  However, the result was disappointing.  Strings are slipped on the friction wheel and did not respond quickly to the keyboard action.  I realized that the strings were made with modern technology and the surface finish was extremely smooth, thus no or minimal friction was applied between the friction wheel and the strings.  In one of the Japanese plucking instrument, Shamisen, about 20 micron thin cat skin is used to protect the surface of resonance box, which is also made with cat skin,  from having scratch with the plectrum.  I cut this thin cat skin in small pieces and glued on the strings where the friction wheel comes in contact.  It significantly improved the sharp start-up of the sound.  However, some tones were still slippery.   Then, I have replaced the parchment with horsehair and it helped a quantum changes in consistent start-up of sound. 

However, in general, this instrument was not player-friendly, at all.  Driving the friction wheel with a treadle can give enough trouble for the player to concentrate in music, yet finger tips are required extremely sensitive touch to produce proper quality of sound.  While performing a series of experiments to improve the instrument, a professional keyboard player, specialized in Renaissance and baroque music, came to my atelier and started playing the prototype instrument.  After about an hour, he started producing real quality sound of music from that instrument.  I was inspired with his playing and was very much encouraged to design a new instrument.  The instrument in this exhibition was designed with all positive experimental results carried out on the first instrument, which was used as a test platform. 

I have already started designing the next instrument, expecting to make it as the definitive design.

Akio Obuchi

February 2, 2003