Instrument, Keyboard

Description

A piano-violin prototype (.1) and horsehair bow (.2). The piano-violin is housed in a red stained wooden box with a hinged lid, which is notched on one side to allow a wire from inside to tie onto the pegs and scroll of the violin attached to the exterior of the box. The box is dovetail jointed. When open, there is a brass wire attached to the right half of the lid. Around the lip, where the lid rests when closed, is a strip of half red and white cotton ribbon. Within the box are 25 galvanized steel keys attached to a wooden divider. Most keys are painted black from the end to about half-way up, while others are painted entirely black. The keys are labeled with paper letters stating the note each key plays and the corresponding tone. Underneath the keys is a metal wire which is attached to the interior peg on one end and the exterior peg on the other. Underneath the wire is a wooden divider. Neither divider is stained, but the insides and bottom of the box are stained and washed. The bow (.2) is a slightly s-curved piece of wood with a rectangular cross-section. The top end of the bow has four teeth which the horsehair is woven through. The horsehair is tied at each end and secured to the bow by waxed thread at the top below the teeth and at the turning point of the bow.

Notes

In a February 11, 1869 journal entry, Brother Elisha D. Blakeman wrote (in the third person), "Elisha D. Blakeman invented and applied a set of keys to a monochord. A monochord is a musical, or sounding box over which is strained tight a single cord or wire. (Webster.) The combination is entirely new to the inventory, and is acknowledged by his numerous friends to be a great improvement." p.56/231. For over a century, Shaker music was composed, learned, and performed without the aid of musical instruments. Brother Elisha built several prototypes for a "monochord," a musical instrument of his own invention that he would patent in 1872 as a "piano-violin." Blakeman's intention was to use the instrument to teach music and to perform Shaker songs in concerts designed to draw converts to the Shaker faith. When the Shaker ministry refused to allow him to use his instrument as a missionary tool, Blakeman withdrew from the Society. This piano-violin, the only existing prototype, is played with a horsehair bow and by depressing one of the 25 metal keys spaced at appropriate intervals along the melody string to create the full and half tones of the scale. A second string, now missing, was not struck by the keys but droned a single base note as it was bowed along with the melody string. Within a few years of the introduction of the piano-violin, most Shakers were learning to play pianos, organs, and a variety of orchestral instruments.