Table of Contents
Recipe
French transcription (tc)
<id>p104v_4</id>
<head>Espinette jouant toute seule</head>
<ab>Fais un axe tout entourne de roues percees tout aultour<lb/>
en lespesseur et attaches des <m>plumes</m> co{mm}e pour cistre ou<lb/>
espinette & les dispose selon la chancon que tu vouldras<lb/>
faire dire y laissant <del>telle</del> distance convenable Et tourna{n}t<lb/>
laxe ou par toymesme ou par ressort dhorloge ton invention<lb/>
seffectuera</ab>
</div>
English Translation
<id>p104v_a4</id>
<head>Spinet playing by itself</head>
<ab>Make an axis surrounded with wheels, pierce all around in its thickness and attach some feathers [as you would do] for a timbrel or a spinet and arrange them according to the song you want it to play, leaving a suitable distance. And, turning the axis by yourself or using a clock spring, your invention will work.</ab>
</div>
Annotation Description
1. What is the main focus of your annotation?
Within the context of Ms. Fr. 640, the “Spinet playing by itself” recipe is unusual in a number of respects. For one, it is one of the few music-related recipes in the manuscript, the only other (that I could find) being a recipe for lute varnish (p098r_a1, see annotation Pope and Marris). The author-practioner’s other references to music and musical materials are brief and oblique: he mentions guitar makers in the entries on lavender spike oil varnish (p004r_1) and fish glue (p007r_a4), and he suggests harpsichord strings can be used for arranging and positioning animal specimens (p112v_1, p165v_a1). In addition, the spinet recipe represents one in a handful of instances in the manuscript of the concept/term of “invention.” Moreover, to many of us today, an instrument “playing by itself” represents a mechanical imitation of the normally human act of creating music with an acoustic instrument. In what ways does this sort of “imitation” relate, if at all significantly, to the author-practioner’s impulse to imitate nature writ large throughout the manuscript?
Through historical, text-based research, this annotation will explore the apparent peculiarities of the self-playing spinet recipe and seek to place it in its broader 16th century context. This will involve investigations into the history of keyboard-instrument building in 16th-century France and Toulouse, the history of self-playing instruments more specifically, 16th-century notions of invention and imitation, and the history of machines and automata (see preliminary bibliography below). Some object-based research may be possible as well, as the Metropolitan Museum of Art houses a collection of European keyboard instruments.
Despite the practical challenges that would inevitably arise, reconstruction would yield interesting insights into the spinet recipe. The recipe is vague and omits a great deal of necessary information, including measurements, materials used, and how the implement would actually be positioned on and affixed to the spinet. Reconstruction could help in exploring some such areas of ambiguity. Furthermore, practical reconstruction could help us to understand the author-practioner’s amount of firsthand knowledge concerning music and musical materials. The scant mentions of music in the manuscript seem to indicate little firsthand knowledge in this area, and yet, the direct, imperative tone of the recipe and the mentions of musical materials such as harpsichord strings elsewhere in the manuscript are suggestive of at least some level of personal involvement with musical instruments. By addressing the feasibility of the recipe, a practical investigation might clarify this level of personal involvement.
An authentic reconstruction would indeed be difficult, as the spinet is a rare historical instrument. However, I nevertheless wonder whether a partial/approximate reconstruction would still be beneficial. For instance, using a more conventional and readily available stringed-instrument such a piano or even a guitar would not, it seems to me, alter the plucking mechanism of the author-practioner’s implement all that much. Alternatively, a small, simple stringed instrument could be constructed.
2. What materials, tools, and techniques are part of your research?
- Given the ambiguity of the recipe, identifying materials/tools needed poses many challenges. After some thinking and discussing with members of the Making and Knowing team, I have decided to build a small, simple stringed instrument, upon which the axis/wheel mechanism described by the recipe will be placed. For the construction of the instrument and the mechanism described by the recipe, here is a list of materials I find to be reasonable:
- o Wooden materials: base board, wood trim, dowels, wooden disks
- o Strings
- § It seems that early modern harpsichords used iron or brass strings (Kottick, 77 & 79), so I believe modern steel guitar strings or something similar would be appropriate.
- o Feathers/Quills
- § I have not been able to find which specific types of quills would be used in harpsichords built in 16th century France, though it seems perhaps crow quills may have been the norm before the development of plastic plectra in the modern era (Kottick 443).
- o Tuning pins/pegs
- o Nails
- o Wood glue
- o Tools: hammer, drill
- Availability
- o The wooden items, wood glue: hardware stores such as Lowe’s or Home Depot
- o Tuning pins/pegs and guitar strings: local music stores should have these
- o Feathers/quills: I noticed there are goose quills in the lab inventory. There is also a feather shop in NYC: http://www.featherplace.com/feather-types.html
- o Tools: do we have access in the lab or elsewhere on campus?
- Safety: The materials themselves listed here should not pose any serious safety concerns, but care will have to be taken in the use of tools.
3. Manuscript research
- o Mentions to music/musical instruments: p098r_a1, p004r_1, p007r_a4, p112v_1, & p165v_a1
- o Mentions to watchmakers/watch-mechanisms: p082r_a4
4. Historical research (see working bibliography below)
- o Secondary sources on the history of automata in the 16th century and earlier
- o Secondary sources on the history of keyboard instrument building in the 16th century
- o Secondary sources on the history of mechanical instruments
- o Early modern writings on mechanical instrument building (Kircher and Mersenne)
5. Object research
- Through examining pictures of the automatic spinets constructed by the Biderman family of Augsburg, seemingly the most well-known constructors of automatic spinets in the 16th and 17th centuries, it appears that automatic keyboard instruments contemporaneous with Ms. Fr. 640 in fact operated on a very different mechanism. Instead of using quills that actually pluck the strings themselves (though perhaps my inference here is completely off?), the Biderman family’s spinets in fact used a cylinder/barrel studded with metal pins (a common mechanism of early modern clocks and automata) that actually operated the keys of the instrument, which in turn acted upon the strings as a spinet normally would. I may need to consult someone with more expertise to resolve this matter. Perhaps early music specialists in the music department here at Columbia could help me with this.
Working Bibliography
Bedini, Silvio A. “The Role of Automata in the History of Technology.” Technology and Culture 5, no. 1 (1964): 24–42. doi:10.2307/3101120.
Boalch, Donald H. (Donald Howard). Makers of the Harpsichord and Clavichord 1440-1840. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995.
Bowers, Q. David. Encyclopedia of Automatic Musical Instruments. Vestal, N.Y.: Vestal Press, 1972.
Cipolla, Carlo M. Clocks and Culture, 1300-1700. New York: Norton, 1977.
Crane, Frederick. “Athanasius Kircher, Musurgia Universalis (Rome, 1650) : The Section on Musical Instruments.” Theses and Dissertations, January 1, 1956. http://ir.uiowa.edu/etd/5071.
Dear, Peter. Mersenne and the Learning of the Schools. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1988.
Evelyn, John. Elysium Britannicum, or The Royal Gardens. Philadelphia, Pa: University of Pennsylvania Press, c2001.
Gozza, Paolo. Number to Sound [Electronic Resource] : The Musical Way to the Scientific Revolution. Dordrecht: Imprint: Springer, 2000.
Haspels, Jan Jaap. Automatic Musical Instruments : Their Mechanics and Their Music, 1580 - 1820 = Automatische Muziekinstrumenten : Hun Mechaniek En Muziek, 1580 - 1820. Koedijk, [Netherlands]: Nirota, Muziekdruk C.V., c1987.
Kottick, Edward L. A History of the Harpsichord. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2016.
Mersenne, Marin. Harmonie Universelle: The Books on Instruments. The Hague: M. Nijhoff, 1957.
Ord-Hume, Arthur W. J. G. Pianola : The History of the Self-Playing Piano. Boston: George Allen & Unwin, 1984.
Price, Derek J. de Solla. “Automata and the Origins of Mechanism and Mechanistic Philosophy.” Technology and Culture 5, no. 1 (1964): 9–23. doi:10.2307/3101119.
Riskin, Jessica. The Restless Clock : A History of the Centuries-Long Argument over What Makes Living Things Tick. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2016.
Truitt, E. R. Medieval Robots. University of Pennsylvania Press, 2015. https://muse-jhu-edu.ezproxy.cul.columbia.edu/book/39875.
Vergil, Polydore. Beginnings and Discoveries : Polydore Vergil’s De Inventoribus Rerum ; an Unabridged Translation and Edition with Introduction, Notes and Glossary. Nieuwkoop: De Graaf Publishers, 1997.
Voskuhl, Adelheid. Androids in the Enlightenment: Mechanics, Artisans, and Cultures of the Self. University of Chicago Press, 2013. http://chicago.universitypressscholarship.com.ezproxy.cul.columbia.edu/view/10.7208/chicago/9780226034331.001.0001/upso-9780226034027.
Weekly Activity Log
11/21-11/28
- I met with Dr. Camilla Cavicchi, an expert on 16th century instruments, to get her thoughts on the recipe. She also believes that the mechanism would operate by actually plucking the strings, and she called my attention to similarities with the hurdy gurdy or "organistrum", which is another early instrument that vibrates its strings using a rotating axis and a "wheel" applied with rosin. Donna, Naomi, Sau-yi and myself visited the MakerSpace and talked to Scott there about safety and how to move forward with reconstruction. On my own, in preparation for reconstruction, I continued to look through the manuscript in order to find out what types of materials might have been used in this recipe (particularly wood and glue) as well as secondary sources to look for materials used in 16th-century spinet making.
Reconstruction
Name: Benjamin Hiebert
Date and Time: 11/29, evening
Location: my apartment
Subject: planning the reconstruction
- Having decided that my project would mostly utilize wood as a material, I contacted Scott (the assistant at the MakerSpace) to inquire as to which materials I should bring for the reconstruction. He suggested I bring strings (I opted for guitar strings) and a wooden dowel and informed me that he could provide the other wood, tools, nails, and other standard shop materials that might be useful. So, I went out and bought a poplar wooden dowel from Lowe's and some steel guitar strings from Guitar Center.
- Back at home, I began to brainstorm for the next day's work in the MakerSpace and put some of my plans and thoughts down on paper. Using the A.P's diagram and instructions in the manuscript as a starting point, what follows was based largely on my on intuitions and reasoning about the efficacy of the A.P.'s recipe and the challenges that I foresaw in the workshop:
- I intuited that the axis would have to be placed at an angle in relation to the strings (see the diagrams I drew in the images below). This is because, in my imagining, if the axis were placed perpendicularly in relation to the strings, it wouldn't pluck the strings at all. And on the other hand, if the axis were placed parallel to the strings, it could only pluck one string, which would mean that your song would consist of only one note.
- In the interest of saving time in the workshop, I decided that the stringed instrument I would build would only contain three strings. Moreover, though in reality a spinet's strings are often placed very close together, I decided that my instrument's strings should be placed reasonably far apart (I decided on a 1" gap between strings). This decision resulted from my intuition that spacing the strings apart would increase the chances of creating a successful working mechanism, as a smaller and more intricate instrument would require a level precision in measurement and craft that I doubted I could perform to given my limited skill and experience.
- I attempted to compile a list of the parts that my reconstruction would require and measurements for each. In this process, however, I realized almost immediately that deciding on measurements purely theoretically (that is, without actually having materials in front of me to examine and feel and compare) might very well lead to a plan that was unworkable in reality. Nevertheless, believing I should have some sort of preliminary scheme, I developed the following rather arbitrary and incomplete list.
| Materials/Pieces |
Hypothetical Measurements |
| 1 x baseboard |
1'x1' |
| 1 x dowel |
1/2" in diameter |
| 2 x end blocks |
2"x3"x0.5" |
| 3 x wooden "wheels" |
2.5" in diameter, 0.5" in thickness |
| 2 x bridge/saddle pieces |
5"x0.5"x"0.5" |
| 1 x crank handle (could even just be a nail hammered into the dowel axis?) |
N/A |
| 3 x strings |
N/A |
| nails/screws/other means of affixing strings to the baseboard? |
N/A |
| plectra/quills |
N/A |
| glue |
N/A |
Name: Benjamin Hiebert
Date and Time: 11/29, 11:30am-2:30pm
Location: MakerSpace
Subject: reconstruction pt. 1 - the stringed instrument
- we began with a 14"x14"x3/4" piece of wood for the baseboard/stringboard, because it was already cut and available for use. The edges were rather rough and uneven, so on Scott's recommendation, I planed down one of the edges so I would have an even surface for reference. Then, to locate where the strings would be placed on the baseboard, I used a square ruler to mark the endpoints for 3 strings, 1 foot long each and spaced 1 inch from each other.
- for the tuning pegs, we realized we could drill holes into the baseboard and use cut pieces of dowel for the pegs. So, I sawed our dowel in to 2-inch pieces. Donna had the idea of using nails for handles in order to give one leverage when turning the pegs. I split the first peg when I tried nailing into it, so Scott suggested that I drill a pilot hole first before nailing to prevent split. This worked. We also drilled a small hole into the pegs for threading the strings through.
- I proceeded to mark the spots on the baseboard where the tuning pegs would be inserted. Realizing that they would need to be staggered rather than placed directly adjacent to one another to allow each of the pegs to be turned without interfering with one another, I spaced them apart by 1.5 inches down the baseboard.
- Next I drilled holes measuring just under 1/2" into into the baseboard in which to insert the pegs. They were rather snug when we first tried to insert them, so Donna helped me sand them out a bit.
- Next, on the opposite end of the baseboard, I hammered the guitar strings directly into the baseboard through the brass rings (called the "ball end") that come on the ends of modern manufactured guitar strings.
- I then threaded the strings through the tuning pegs we constructed and tightened them up until they produced a clear sound.
- At this point, I wasn't sure what the bridge/saddle would look like, or even if one would be necessary. I had a bit of spare dowel, however, and I discovered that this actually made for a decent floating bridge under the strings. This gave the strings greater uniformity in height and a slightly more defined, less buzzy sound.
- The tone produced by the instrument is clear and bright but relatively muted, given that it's built on a solid plank rather than a hollow resonating body. It's also difficult to tune accurately because the tuning pegs we constructed are rather crude and clumsy, and the "ball end" rings on the other end of the the strings are prone to slipping up and down the nails, altering the tension and thus the pitch.
Name: Benjamin Hiebert
Date and Time: 12/1, 11:30am-1:00pm
Location: MakerSpace
Subject: reconstruction pt. 2 - the dowel axle and the "wheels"
- to construct the "wheels", I selected a wooden board with a thickness of 3/4 inch, figuring that this thickness would be suitable given the 1 inch spaces in between the strings
- I used a drill attachment with a diameter of about 2 inches to cut out the three wheels. Next, I used the drill press to drill holes with a diameter of just under 1/2 inch for the dowel/axle to pass through. Unfortunately I drilled these off center (Scott informed me that, for large holes, you can drill more precisely by starting with a small bit and moving up to a larger one). Thus, to rectify this, I filed and sanded the wheels down until the holes were roughly centered and the wheels were roughly the same size
- I then threaded the three wheels onto a dowel to see how they would fit. They were pretty snug and took quite a bit of forceful twisting to get them on.
Name: Benjamin Hiebert
Date and Time: 12/11, 4:00pm-12:00am
Location: MakerSpace and my apartment
Subject: reconstruction pt. 3 - end blocks, the plectra, positioning, and piecing everything together
- I first decided where to "pierce" the wheels for the tune I wished the mechanism to play (I had since removed the wheels from the dowel). I picked a simple tune/pattern of five notes. To measure out the piercing points, I struggled for a while as to how I would do this accurately on a curved surface. Taking stock of the materials I had on hand at home, I eventually surmised that I could achieve this by using lined paper: I wrapped the paper around the perimeter of each wheel, lining up the paper's straight edge with the "corner" of the wheel's edge, and placed marks every three lines (i.e. 3/4 of an inch). Then in the workshop, I placed the wheels on a flat surface and used a block to extend my marks into a line across the entire width of the perimeter of each wheel. I then made marks at the halfway point of these lines on the positions where I wished to place each plectrum. Having "programmed" the wheels with the simple tune I had selected, I made sure to label each wheel #1-3 to ensure that I would place them in the correct order and orient them correctly on the dowel.
- I then "pierced" the wheels in the positions I had marked by placing the wheels in a clamp and hammering a flathead screwdriver into the wheel with a mallet. This was a somewhat imprecise practice. I realized that I did not have a good method for ensuring consistency of depth or angle of the piercings, so I simply did my best.
- I constructed the end blocks that would hold the rotating axle in place by taking a long piece of wood and sawing it into two pieces. I used a miter saw to make sure that the ends were square, since this would be crucial for the proper aligning of the axle. The two blocks ended up with with dimensions around something like 2.75"x1.5"x .75"
- I used a ruler to mark the halfway point on the largest face of the end blocks and drew a line bisecting this face. Then, by visual approximation, I marked a point on this line that would give the wheels a clearance of about .5" over the strings
- I then drilled into this point using a .5" bit, using a clamp and the drill press to ensure that the hole would be square. Again, however, I drilled slightly off the mark. This made me worry that my two end blocks would be unaligned, which could throw off the entire mechanism. But, I realized that I could correct for this by simply aligning the two blocks on top of one another, making sure that they were flush with each other, and just drilling through them both. This ensured that both holes were perfectly aligned. I drilled straight through the block on top but made sure only to drill halfway or so through the second one, because this second one would need to stop the dowel from slipping around.
- Next I used a straight edge to make marks at the bases of each block, front and back, that were aligned with the center of the holes I made. This ensured that the blocks could be positioned properly along the line that I would draw on the baseboard to orient the entire mechanism (see next bullet).
- At this point I cut the dowel into what looked like a suitable length for the axle. I then drilled a small pilot hole and then placed a nail through one of the ends of the dowel so there would be a handle with which to rotate the axle. Then I threaded the dowel through the end block I had drilled all the way through. It was pretty snug, so I ended up sanding the hole in the end block and the dowel a bit too, since the dowel would need to be able to rotate freely in the end block.
- I decided that the axle/wheel implement should be positioned at something close to a 45 degree angle in relation to the strings. So, I used a straight edge to draw a line on the baseboard by visually approximating something close a 45 degree angle.
- Here I realized that I would have to do some extra marking to line the implement up properly with the line I had drawn. This is because the width of the tuning pegs I had constructed had offset the strings from the lines I had originally drawn on the baseboard. So, I took a block with squared edges, placed it on the baseboard, lined it up with the current position of each of the strings in turn, and redrew lines on the baseboard to reflect their new positions as they would intersect with the diagonal line that would be used to orient the axle implement.
- I used a piece of paper with a straight edge to mark the points where each of the strings would intersect with the center of the diagonal axle/implement. I then used this as a reference for positioning the wheels on the dowel. Once in position, I marked these positions on the dowel just in case they should move around.
- I used the same piece of paper to mark the distance between the edge of the other end block (the one with the hole drilled halfway through) and the nearest wheel in proper position. I then used these measurements in turn to mark the position of this end block on the base board, making sure to orient the end block correctly on the line by aligning it with the marks I had made at the base of of the block. I did this for the other end block as well.
- Next game gluing. I chose to attach the plectra first, then to glue the wheels to the dowel, and finally to glue the end blocks to the base board.
- I realized that I had not accounted for a good way to determine the appropriate length of the plectra (cut from the plastic of guitar picks). It proved difficult to measure the distance between the curved surface of the wheels and the string height. So I ended up taking a small squared block of wood, placing it flush with one of the strings and one of the wheels, and I traced the outlines of both onto the block. This gave me a good visual representation of the distance between the string and the base of the wheels, and I used this distance to cut the plectra to a suitable length, making sure that the tip of the plectra extended just beyond this length of this distance. I cut the plectra so they had a defined, pointed tip, thinking that this would provide the best contact with the strings.
- Then I positioned the cut plectra into the pierced holes and applied some wood glue around them to give them some hold.
- Next, I positioned the wheels precisely according to the markings I had made on the dowel earlier, and I made sure that the wheels and their piercings/plectra/markings were aligned with each other as well. I then applied some wood glue to the area of contact between the dowel and the wheels as well.
- Finally, I arranged the entire apparatus on the base board, aligning the end blocks with the marking I had made earlier, and glued it to the base board. I set a heavy book over it and let it dry over night.
- The next day, I discovered that I had in fact cut the plectra just a bit too long, so I cut them back just a bit so they would pass over the strings a bit more easily as they plucked. I also realized by this point that I had neglected to consider that the dowel would float around without some sort of piece between the nail handle and the adjacent end block. But the mechanism works just fine nevertheless if you simply make sure the dowel is press all the way to the furthest end block as you rotate it.
Photos/Video
