MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS - online book
The History And Development Of Musical Instruments From The Earliest Times.
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MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS. 6t |
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horn band each musician is restricted to a single tone; and similar combinations of performers—only, of course, much more rude—have been witnessed by travellers among some tribes in Africa and America.
Rather more complete than the above specimens are some, of the whistles and small pipes which have been found in graves of the Indians |
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of Chiriqui in central A raerica. The pipe or whistle which is represented in the accompanying engravingap- |
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pears, to judge from the somewhat obscure description transmitted to us, to possess about half a dozen tones. It is of pottery, painted in red and black on a cream-coloured ground, and in length about five inches. Among the instruments of this kind from central America the most complete have four finger-holes. By means of three the following four sounds (including the sound which is produced when none of the holes are closed) can be |
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closed, has the effect of lowering the pitch a semitone. By a particular process two or three lower notes are obtainable.
The pipe of the Aztecs, which is called by the Mexican Spaniards pito, somewhat resembled our flageolet: the material was a reddish pottery, and it was provided with four finger-holes. Although among about half a dozen specimens which the writer has examined some are considerably larger than others they all have, singularly enough, the same pitch of |
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