Henry Ward Poole
Encyclopedia
Henry Ward Poole was an American surveyor, civil engineer, educator and writer on and inventor of systems of musical tuning. He was brother of the famous librarian William Frederick Poole
, and cousin of the celebrated humorist, journalist and politician Fitch Poole.
(renamed Peabody
1868), son of Ward Poole (1799–1864) and Elizabeth Wilder (1801–1864). He attended Leicester Academy, and Yale University
in 1841 and 1842..
He worked up to 1850 at Newburyport, Massachusetts
with organ
maker Joseph Alley and minister Henry James Hudson (b.1821-) developing a euharmonic, or enharmonic
organ which they patented and solicited by mail, and which was awarded a gold medal at the 1850 Exhibition of the Massachusetts Charitable Mechanic Association
. It was installed at Indiana Place Chapel, Boston, Massachusetts and remained in use for fifteen years. Poole patented a special keyboard to be used with his extended tuning system in 1868.
In 1851 and 1852 Poole assisted August A. Dalson under Pennsylvania
state geologist Henry D. Rogers, based in Pottsville
, on the state survey organized by Geological Society of Pennsylvania. He remained in Pottsville afterwards working as an engineer, surveyor and commercial property agent.
In 1856 he was engaged by the New York City based Mexican Pacific Coal and Iron Mines and Land Company to survey railway prospects between Veracruz
and Mexico City
. Following this he led an expedition through Guerrero exploring for iron and coal prospects, and returning to the United States publishing his topographical survey including four maps in 1858. He returned to Mexico in 1859 to teach modern languages at College of Mines, Mexico City, and acted as agent for the American Antiquarian Society
, where he had continued his own studies after Yale, purchasing Mexican artifacts and literature for their collection.
Poole died 22 October 1890 and is buried at Mexico City National Cemetery.
Poole appreciated "all musical ratio
s derived from the primes
3, 5, and 7" and more tentatively, 11, and he also asserted the melodic beauty of microtonal
commatic
shifts. He described a 7-limit
double diatonic just
scale to distinguish it from the usual diatonic scale
, which he called the triple diatonic, with common tone
s from tonic
, dominant
and subdominant
major triads
. The new scale replaced subdominant pitches with the "perfect seventh and ninth of the dominant harmony
" to correspond better with what he heard harmonically and melodically in all kinds of music. Poole proposed using five parallel chains of fifths
from 1/1, 5/4, 25/16, 7/4 and 35/16, which he distinguished by type
and case
. One octave
needed 100 different pitches
to play in 19 different keys
.
triple diatonic
(9/8) (10/9) (16/15) (9/8) (10/9) (9/8) (16/15)
C D e F G a b C
C D e (F7) G A b C
(9/8) (10/9) (21/20) (8/7) (9/8) (10/9) (16/15)
double diatonic
The 1849 organ was described being capable of playing eleven musical (major) keys from the ordinary keyboard in pure intonation by furnishing multiple pipes for each physical key, with foot pedals operating intermediate levers inserted into the tracker works to switch between pairs of pallet valves furnished for each note. The inventors described great benefits due the tuning - they even claim it stayed in tune better - and argued how these balanced its greater size (up to 8 feet wider) and reduction in loudness compared with instruments of similar cost and number of pipes. They estimated one having "two Diapasons, the Trumpet, the Oboe, the Dulciana, the Flute and the Clarabella, in perfect tune" to cost between $4000 and $5000, and one third more if a Great Organ was desired.
On the suggestion of Thomas Perronet Thompson
Poole developed a special keyboard to compel a "musician to know what he is doing", although A. U. Hayter, the King's Chapel organist, had complained about the care required by the existing plan. The new keyboard organized pitches in a similar fashion to an ordinary piano keyboard but also emphasized the different classes of pitches by using different shapes and colors of keytops. The 1/1 series was assigned to large white natural keys arranged rising in diagonal rows, the 5/4 series on raised black sharp keys between the white keys, the 7/4 series on square red keys followed by square yellow 63/32 and blue 45/32 keys behind the white keys (a 6/5 series could be added using buttons raised above the sharp keys if desired). Key motion was linear and used two guide pins. The staggered keyboard arrangement separated distant key signatures and aligned octaves and was transpositionally invariant but not generalized
, although the abbreviated pedalboard implied 3, 5, and 7 axes for 14 key-notes using three ranks of identical key levers.
Poole outlined methods to increase the versatility of similarly arranged instruments, including a slightly tempered 78-tone scale, and a 106-tone scale with two cycles of 53 equal temperament
(a Bosanquet "multiple system").
On April 6, 1871 an enharmonic reed organ constructed by Joseph Alley using more uniformly shaped keys was demonstrated at a meeting of the Society of Arts in Boston by Edward C. Pickering, and played by Edwin H. Higley.
William Frederick Poole
William Frederick Poole was an American bibliographer and librarian.-Biography:He graduated from Yale University in 1849, where he assisted John Edmands, who was a student at the Brothers in Unity Library...
, and cousin of the celebrated humorist, journalist and politician Fitch Poole.
Biography
Poole was born 13 September 1825 in Salem, MassachusettsSalem, Massachusetts
Salem is a city in Essex County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 40,407 at the 2000 census. It and Lawrence are the county seats of Essex County...
(renamed Peabody
Peabody, Massachusetts
Peabody is a city in Essex County, Massachusetts, United States. The population is about 53,000. Peabody is located in Boston's North Shore suburban area.- History :...
1868), son of Ward Poole (1799–1864) and Elizabeth Wilder (1801–1864). He attended Leicester Academy, and Yale University
Yale University
Yale University is a private, Ivy League university located in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701 in the Colony of Connecticut, the university is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States...
in 1841 and 1842..
He worked up to 1850 at Newburyport, Massachusetts
Newburyport, Massachusetts
Newburyport is a small coastal city in Essex County, Massachusetts, United States, 35 miles northeast of Boston. The population was 21,189 at the 2000 census. A historic seaport with a vibrant tourism industry, Newburyport includes part of Plum Island...
with organ
Organ (music)
The organ , is a keyboard instrument of one or more divisions, each played with its own keyboard operated either with the hands or with the feet. The organ is a relatively old musical instrument in the Western musical tradition, dating from the time of Ctesibius of Alexandria who is credited with...
maker Joseph Alley and minister Henry James Hudson (b.1821-) developing a euharmonic, or enharmonic
Enharmonic
In modern musical notation and tuning, an enharmonic equivalent is a note , interval , or key signature which is equivalent to some other note, interval, or key signature, but "spelled", or named, differently...
organ which they patented and solicited by mail, and which was awarded a gold medal at the 1850 Exhibition of the Massachusetts Charitable Mechanic Association
Massachusetts Charitable Mechanic Association
The Massachusetts Charitable Mechanic Association of Boston, Massachusetts, was "formed for the sole purposes of promoting the mechanic arts and extending the practice of benevolence." Founding members included Paul Revere, Benjamin Russell, and others...
. It was installed at Indiana Place Chapel, Boston, Massachusetts and remained in use for fifteen years. Poole patented a special keyboard to be used with his extended tuning system in 1868.
In 1851 and 1852 Poole assisted August A. Dalson under Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania
The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is a U.S. state that is located in the Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. The state borders Delaware and Maryland to the south, West Virginia to the southwest, Ohio to the west, New York and Ontario, Canada, to the north, and New Jersey to...
state geologist Henry D. Rogers, based in Pottsville
Pottsville, Pennsylvania
Pottsville is the only city in and the county seat of Schuylkill County, Pennsylvania, United States. The population was 15,549 at the 2000 census. The city lies along the west bank of the Schuylkill River, north-west of Philadelphia...
, on the state survey organized by Geological Society of Pennsylvania. He remained in Pottsville afterwards working as an engineer, surveyor and commercial property agent.
In 1856 he was engaged by the New York City based Mexican Pacific Coal and Iron Mines and Land Company to survey railway prospects between Veracruz
Veracruz, Veracruz
Veracruz, officially known as Heroica Veracruz, is a major port city and municipality on the Gulf of Mexico in the Mexican state of Veracruz. The city is located in the central part of the state. It is located along Federal Highway 140 from the state capital Xalapa, and is the state's most...
and Mexico City
Mexico City
Mexico City is the Federal District , capital of Mexico and seat of the federal powers of the Mexican Union. It is a federal entity within Mexico which is not part of any one of the 31 Mexican states but belongs to the federation as a whole...
. Following this he led an expedition through Guerrero exploring for iron and coal prospects, and returning to the United States publishing his topographical survey including four maps in 1858. He returned to Mexico in 1859 to teach modern languages at College of Mines, Mexico City, and acted as agent for the American Antiquarian Society
American Antiquarian Society
The American Antiquarian Society , located in Worcester, Massachusetts, is both a learned society and national research library of pre-twentieth century American History and culture. Its main building, known also as Antiquarian Hall, is a U.S. National Historic Landmark...
, where he had continued his own studies after Yale, purchasing Mexican artifacts and literature for their collection.
Poole died 22 October 1890 and is buried at Mexico City National Cemetery.
- His brother William Frederick left Yale the same year due finances.
- Joseph Alley (March 4, 1804-), originally from Kennebunk, MaineKennebunk, MaineKennebunk is a town in York County, Maine, United States. The population was 1,075 people at the 2000 census. Including Kennebunkport , the population totals 14,196 people...
, worked at Brown's wharf, Newburyport, and included mention of the euharmonic organ in Newburyport directories around 1860. ("Organ-Building in New England" (1834) The New England Magazine, Vol. 6, March) - Poole served on the Committee of Judges on musical instruments at the exhibition but didn't contribute to the recommendation of this prize. The Sixth Exhibition of the Mass. Charitable Mechanics Association, (1850) Boston. p. 134
- Church of Disciples; James Freeman ClarkeJames Freeman ClarkeJames Freeman Clarke , an American theologian and author.-Biography:Born in Hanover, New Hampshire, James Freeman Clarke attended the Boston Latin School, graduated from Harvard College in 1829, and Harvard Divinity School in 1833...
preached at this chapel (The stranger's new guide through Boston (1869) A. Williams & Co., Boston)
Musical inventions
Ratio
In mathematics, a ratio is a relationship between two numbers of the same kind , usually expressed as "a to b" or a:b, sometimes expressed arithmetically as a dimensionless quotient of the two which explicitly indicates how many times the first number contains the second In mathematics, a ratio is...
s derived from the primes
Prime number
A prime number is a natural number greater than 1 that has no positive divisors other than 1 and itself. A natural number greater than 1 that is not a prime number is called a composite number. For example 5 is prime, as only 1 and 5 divide it, whereas 6 is composite, since it has the divisors 2...
3, 5, and 7" and more tentatively, 11, and he also asserted the melodic beauty of microtonal
Microtonal music
Microtonal music is music using microtones—intervals of less than an equally spaced semitone. Microtonal music can also refer to music which uses intervals not found in the Western system of 12 equal intervals to the octave.-Terminology:...
commatic
Comma (music)
In music theory, a comma is a minute interval, the difference resulting from tuning one note two different ways. The word "comma" used without qualification refers to the syntonic comma, which can be defined, for instance, as the difference between an F tuned using the D-based Pythagorean tuning...
shifts. He described a 7-limit
Limit (music)
In music theory, limit or harmonic limit is a way of characterizing the harmony found in a piece or genre of music, or the harmonies that can be made using a particular scale. The term was introduced by Harry Partch, who used it to give an upper bound on the complexity of harmony; hence the name...
double diatonic just
Just intonation
In music, just intonation is any musical tuning in which the frequencies of notes are related by ratios of small whole numbers. Any interval tuned in this way is called a just interval. The two notes in any just interval are members of the same harmonic series...
scale to distinguish it from the usual diatonic scale
Diatonic scale
In music theory, a diatonic scale is a seven note, octave-repeating musical scale comprising five whole steps and two half steps for each octave, in which the two half steps are separated from each other by either two or three whole steps...
, which he called the triple diatonic, with common tone
Common tone
In music a common tone is a pitch class that is a member of, or common to, a musical scale and a transposition of that scale, as in modulation...
s from tonic
Tonic (music)
In music, the tonic is the first scale degree of the diatonic scale and the tonal center or final resolution tone. The triad formed on the tonic note, the tonic chord, is thus the most significant chord...
, dominant
Dominant (music)
In music, the dominant is the fifth scale degree of the diatonic scale, called "dominant" because it is next in importance to the tonic,and a dominant chord is any chord built upon that pitch, using the notes of the same diatonic scale...
and subdominant
Subdominant
In music, the subdominant is the technical name for the fourth tonal degree of the diatonic scale. It is so called because it is the same distance "below" the tonic as the dominant is above the tonic - in other words, the tonic is the dominant of the subdominant. It is also the note immediately...
major triads
Major chord
In music theory, a major chord is a chord having a root, a major third, and a perfect fifth. When a chord has these three notes alone, it is called a major triad...
. The new scale replaced subdominant pitches with the "perfect seventh and ninth of the dominant harmony
Harmony
In music, harmony is the use of simultaneous pitches , or chords. The study of harmony involves chords and their construction and chord progressions and the principles of connection that govern them. Harmony is often said to refer to the "vertical" aspect of music, as distinguished from melodic...
" to correspond better with what he heard harmonically and melodically in all kinds of music. Poole proposed using five parallel chains of fifths
Circle of fifths
In music theory, the circle of fifths shows the relationships among the 12 tones of the chromatic scale, their corresponding key signatures, and the associated major and minor keys...
from 1/1, 5/4, 25/16, 7/4 and 35/16, which he distinguished by type
Typeface
In typography, a typeface is the artistic representation or interpretation of characters; it is the way the type looks. Each type is designed and there are thousands of different typefaces in existence, with new ones being developed constantly....
and case
Letter case
In orthography and typography, letter case is the distinction between the larger majuscule and smaller minuscule letters...
. One octave
Octave
In music, an octave is the interval between one musical pitch and another with half or double its frequency. The octave relationship is a natural phenomenon that has been referred to as the "basic miracle of music", the use of which is "common in most musical systems"...
needed 100 different pitches
Pitch (music)
Pitch is an auditory perceptual property that allows the ordering of sounds on a frequency-related scale.Pitches are compared as "higher" and "lower" in the sense associated with musical melodies,...
to play in 19 different keys
Key (music)
In music theory, the term key is used in many different and sometimes contradictory ways. A common use is to speak of music as being "in" a specific key, such as in the key of C major or in the key of F-sharp. Sometimes the terms "major" or "minor" are appended, as in the key of A minor or in the...
.
triple diatonic
(9/8) (10/9) (16/15) (9/8) (10/9) (9/8) (16/15)
C D e F G a b C
C D e (F7) G A b C
(9/8) (10/9) (21/20) (8/7) (9/8) (10/9) (16/15)
double diatonic
The 1849 organ was described being capable of playing eleven musical (major) keys from the ordinary keyboard in pure intonation by furnishing multiple pipes for each physical key, with foot pedals operating intermediate levers inserted into the tracker works to switch between pairs of pallet valves furnished for each note. The inventors described great benefits due the tuning - they even claim it stayed in tune better - and argued how these balanced its greater size (up to 8 feet wider) and reduction in loudness compared with instruments of similar cost and number of pipes. They estimated one having "two Diapasons, the Trumpet, the Oboe, the Dulciana, the Flute and the Clarabella, in perfect tune" to cost between $4000 and $5000, and one third more if a Great Organ was desired.
On the suggestion of Thomas Perronet Thompson
Thomas Perronet Thompson
Thomas Perronet Thompson was a British Parliamentarian, a Governor of Sierra Leone and a radical reformer.Thompson was born in Kingston upon Hull in 1783. He was son of Thomas Thompson, a merchant of Hull and his wife, Philothea Perronet Briggs...
Poole developed a special keyboard to compel a "musician to know what he is doing", although A. U. Hayter, the King's Chapel organist, had complained about the care required by the existing plan. The new keyboard organized pitches in a similar fashion to an ordinary piano keyboard but also emphasized the different classes of pitches by using different shapes and colors of keytops. The 1/1 series was assigned to large white natural keys arranged rising in diagonal rows, the 5/4 series on raised black sharp keys between the white keys, the 7/4 series on square red keys followed by square yellow 63/32 and blue 45/32 keys behind the white keys (a 6/5 series could be added using buttons raised above the sharp keys if desired). Key motion was linear and used two guide pins. The staggered keyboard arrangement separated distant key signatures and aligned octaves and was transpositionally invariant but not generalized
Generalized keyboard
Generalized keyboards are musical keyboards with regular, tile-like arrangements usually with rectangular or hexagonal keys, and were developed for performing music in different tunings...
, although the abbreviated pedalboard implied 3, 5, and 7 axes for 14 key-notes using three ranks of identical key levers.
53 equal temperament
In music, 53 equal temperament, called 53-TET, 53-EDO, or 53-ET, is the tempered scale derived by dividing the octave into 53 equal steps . Each step represents a frequency ratio of 21/53, or 22.6415 cents , an interval sometimes called the Holdrian comma.- History :Theoretical interest in this...
(a Bosanquet "multiple system").
On April 6, 1871 an enharmonic reed organ constructed by Joseph Alley using more uniformly shaped keys was demonstrated at a meeting of the Society of Arts in Boston by Edward C. Pickering, and played by Edwin H. Higley.
Publications
- "On the true natural diatonic scale of music, and its adoption in the euharmonic organ". (1848) Worcester
- "On Perfect Intonation and the Euharmonic Organ". (1850) New Englander and Yale review (May)
- Topographical map of the Mine Hill and Schuylkill-Haven Rail Road with its branches and extension to Ashland; (1854)
- "On Perfect Harmony in Music". (1867) The Americal Journal of Science and Arts (July) p. 1
- "On the Musical Ratios, and our Pleasure in Harmonious Sounds". (1868) American Journal of Science, vol. xliv, no. 135 (May) p19
- just intonation and za. (1913) Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary. C. & G. Merriam Co., Springfield.
Patents
- US 6,565 Alley & Poole. Organ action. 03.07.1849
- US 73,753. H. W. Poole. Improved Enharmonic key-board for Organs, &c. 28.01.1868
Related Collections
- Henry Ward Poole collection of Mexican Documents, 1610-1857. Record Nr. b3414909. New York Public Library, Humanities - Manuscripts and Archives.
- Mexican Pamphlets. 233f.101-140, and 274b.18. Bodleian Library, London.
- Correspondence, 1857. misc. mss. American Antiquarian Society, Worcester, Mss. Dept.
- Correspondence from Henry W. Poole, 18 October 1856. J. Peter Lesley Papers, 1826-1898. B L56. American Philosophical Society, Philadelphia
- Tripod cylinder (pottery vessel ad.200-500) 79.55. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Everett Fund.
- Henry James Hudson Collection. SC1998.39 M2A 6,4. Sibley Library, Eastman School of Music. Rochester, NY
See also
- Microtonal musicMicrotonal musicMicrotonal music is music using microtones—intervals of less than an equally spaced semitone. Microtonal music can also refer to music which uses intervals not found in the Western system of 12 equal intervals to the octave.-Terminology:...
- Generalized keyboardGeneralized keyboardGeneralized keyboards are musical keyboards with regular, tile-like arrangements usually with rectangular or hexagonal keys, and were developed for performing music in different tunings...