FOMRHI Quarterly
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Ekna Dal Cortivo Quarterly No. 55 April 1989 FOMRHI Quarterly BULLETIN 55 2 Bulletin Supplement 8 Plans! Museum of Instruments, Royal College of Music, London 9 Check List! Instruments by named makers! Jeremy Montagu Collection 11 Membership List Separate Cover COMMUNICATIONS 904 New Grove DoMI! E.S. no. 13! N and O entries E, Segerman 16 905 FoMRHI and conservation / restoration R. Chiverton 18 906 A response to Cary's Comm. 900 on conservation and accreditation J. Montagu 19 907 University of Edinburgh Collection ... progress report 1983 A. Meyers 21 903 Response to Comm. 389 J. Swayne 22 909 Plastic, ivory, gold and South Africa A.Powell 23 910 GPS Agencies artificial ivory W, R, Stevens 24 911 Instrument drawings R. Chiverton 25 912 High tech in instrument making S. Bezinger & J. Evald 28 913 The flutes of Robert and Willem Wijne M. C. J. Bouterse 29 914 Observations on the wear of two keyboards separated by 200 years R. K. Lee 37 915 Ho percussion in more part [polyphonic] dance music B. Neumann 41 916 Rhetoric for the voice and instruments E. Segerman 43 917 The Birmingham wire gauge and its musical sisters R. Gug 45 FELLOWSHIP OF MAKERS AND RESEARCHERS OF HISTORICAL INSTRUMENTS Hon. Sec. J, Montagu, c/o Faculty of Music, St. Aldate's, Oxford OX1 1DB, U.K. *>•> bull.55, p.2 FELLOWSHIP of NAURS and BSSEAICHEIS of HISTORICAL HSTRITMEHTS Bulletin 55 April, IMP I have been getting a few complaints about not receiving Q.54 from those of you who renewed your subscriptions after the January Quarterly was printed and sent off to all who had by then renewed. This I am afraid was due to Eph not having had the time to get the back stock of Qs down to Barbara, and for this we apologise. However, we dont apologise very much because if you had sent In your renewals in time (ie soon after the October Q arrived with the renewal form, and anyway before Jan.1st), then you'd have got the Q with everyone else! The ones we really do apologise to for this delay are the new members, and to them we apologise most sincerely. Bear with us please; Eph Is now trying to run NRI more or less single-handed, and since for all three of us (Eph, Barbara, and me) FoMHRI has to fit down the cracks of time between the Jobs we're really meant to be doing, this Is particularly difficult for Eph until he can get reorganised. PRIST SIZE: Several comments asked me please to go back to proportional spa cing, so I have. I like it better, too. I hate the wide space round the 1 and the 1 of the other sizes. FURTHER TO: ComuuMP: Marsha Taylor writes: In response to Bruce Haynes' communication #889 "...In Death I sing", Oct. 1988, I too can only whole-heartedly support his concern for the preservation of African elephants and others, especially in light of the film, Gorillas in the Mist which focused on the slaughter of apes for their hands to be used as ashtrays. To date in my production of oboes I have not offered turnings either authentic because of the stated situation or artificial because I haven't found a suitable substitute, including Vigopas or homemade resin experiments. I am intrigued with celluloid which I see used on cutlery handles from the turn of the Century England at flea markets. I wonder about its flamability. I ask the FOMRHI membership if anyone might know of present-day manufacture of celluloid possibly somewhere in Great Britain. In response to Bruce Haynes' plea for action on the elephant situation, 1 suggest we as individuals write to the African Consulates in our respective cities in protest and as an organization possibly discuss starting a fund to help refurbish lost African funds under the auspices of FOMRHI. See also Artificial Ivory below. Bull.-4, p.4, The Permuted Index: Charles Stroom wrote to me: Dear Jeremy, I have just received Fomrhi 0-54 with the index as appendix. To make a small correction to your explanation: the author names are included in the list of keywords (which I have selected), just as the other keywords, and that is why they appear in the middle of the Permuted Index, as you have correctly noted. However all key words are printed in an alphabetically sorted order, thus not immediately after the author name. As I said, the list of keywords is the list of words forming the middle word and this list can be modified easily enough to accommodate changes or additions. The Permuted Index is generated fresh from the Chro nological Index, which is the only index I have to type in. bull.55, p. 3 I entirely agree with Eph Segerman's comments: it would be very useful indeed, if the tide would include the important keywords of die Communication. You may have noticed that, in the Permuted Index, each entry is limited to one line only, if a line is too long to fit, it will be truncated automatically, so long tides are no problem, not for me at least. The other disadvantage (not covering the Bulletin) is due to die author's lim ited amount of time. Anyhow, I invite anybody to let me know of any mistake, omission or modification to be included. Berthold Neumann's Comm. herewith: To amplify one of his points towards the bottom of his second page, the drum does indeed act as a drone, and when I was playing with Muslca Reservata I used not only to tune the heads of the big tabor (a very deep drum with a low sound, based on a Provencal tambour- in), but also the snare. Jon Swayne's Comm. herewith: I've told him that some people are farming and coppicing box in this country. We were told during the recent Clarinet Week end here that someone from the Early Music Shop goes down to Chequers every couple of years and buys box from the Prime Minister, and also that several other stately homes have plantations of box. If anyone can produce addresses and also if anyone knows of plantations of other useful hardwoods in this country, and in any other country where we have members, do please let me know. This is a more important environmental issue even than the elephants, for if the rain forests of hardwoods go, it won't Just be the elephants that face extinction. ARTIFICIAL IVORY: Jon Swayne: I have recently come across another source. This material is casein based (reputedly, goatsmilk). It's available only in flat sheets, figured or non- figured. Price 184Ff/Kg. I have obtained a sheet to try, which measures 500 x 400 * 12.5ram (demi-pouce?), weight about 3kg. French users I have spoken to report that it is much better to work than Vigopas or the GPS Agencies material; the swarf smells a bit like horn, rather than the strong, fumey smell of plastic, and does not stick to itself in a feathery mass by electrostatic attraction; it does not have the same alarming tendency to shatter. It is not available in rod form, and the pattern on the figured version might be too strong for some purposes, though that may only be so on my sample. A set of hole-cutting saws would be an economic way to convert the material for use as ferrules. I will supply a small sample to any member who sends a SAE, otherwise the source is Jean SAUZEDDE, Chevalier, St.Remy sur Durole, F-63550, France. Jon sent me a tiny sample of the figured type. The figuring is rather like a piece of figured maple on a fiddle back, not in concentric circles like ivory usually is, but I suppose as Ivory might be if it were quarter sawn. It has a good firm polished surface and would certainly be excellent for keyboards. It feels smooth on the lip. One reason for the last remark is that I found the original GPS material, which was on show at the Horticultural Hall two years ago, very unpleasantly sticky on the lip, and this Is important for recorder makers, who use 'ivory' for beaks, and for anyone making 'ivory' flutes, and presumably for keyboards as well, since it might also feel sticky under the finger. I have had a couple of letters from Mr .Stevens of GPS Agencies, the longer of which (written after he'd seen Q.54) appears as a Comm. herewith. His add ress is in the List of Members herewith, too. He sent me a sample of their latest variety. This, as far as I can Judge from the partly polished surface, is not at all sticky, and, like Jon's sample, would work well for mouthpieces or keyboards. I've passed the GPS sample on to Lewis Jones for him and his colleagues at the London College of Furniture to experiment with. Lewis has promised me a report on it for the next Q, because I gave It to him just as bull.55, p. 4 their vacation had started, so there was no chance to work with it before this Q went to print. This isn't a subject that's going to go away, and more reports of Ivory substitutes will be welcome, particularly from people who have used more than one variety and who can therefore provide comparative reports on the working qualities and on the feel in use. You might aso bear in mind that GPS Agencies produce imitation tortoise- shell, useful for keyboards and string instruments, and also imitation horn which one would have thought was in ample supply from the nearest abbatolr, but I suppose that now that more and more farmers dehorn their cattle, horn may also become scarcer.