Johann Scheibler Explained
Johann Heinrich Scheibler (11 November 1777 – 20 January 1837) was a silk manufacturer from Crefeld, Prussia, without a scientific background, who went on to make contributions to the science of acoustics as a self taught musicologist.[1] He made a "tonometer" (German: Tonmesser) from 56 tuning forks as an instrument for accurately measuring pitch by counting beating, described in 1834.[2] [3] [4] "A wooden board...together with a small wooden mallet with which the forks are to be struck, and a good metronome, constitute Scheibler's tuning apparatus."[5]
If the frequency of a tuning fork is known, then a higher fork's frequency may be determined by using a metronome to determine the frequency of the beating: F1+beating=F2. Joseph Sauveur (1653–1716) used this method to determine the relative frequencies of organ pipes and improve the earlier calculations of Marin Mersenne based on Mersenne's laws.[6]
His writings include:
- Der physikalische und musikalische Tonmesser, welcher… [The Physical and Musical Tonometer]; G. D. Bädeker, Essen, 1834.
- Ueber mathematische Stimmung, Temperaturen und Orgelstimmung nach Vibrations-Differenzen oder Stößen [On the mathematics of tuning: temperature and organ-tuning after alterations of vibration], Krefeld, 1837.
See also
References
- Book: Anecdotal history of the science of sound to the beginning of the 20th century . Dayton Clarence Miller . The Macmillan Company . 1935 . 55 . 9780598976031 .
- Book: Sounds of our times: two hundred years of acoustics . Robert Thomas Beyer . Springer . 1999 . 978-0-387-98435-3 . 32 .
- https://books.google.com/books?id=xqU9AQAAIAAJ&pg=PA299 Journal of the Society of Arts, Vol 28
- "Tuning Forks", AmericanHistory.SI.edu.
- Loehr, Johann Joseph and August Heinrich Wehrhan (1853). An Essay on the Theory and Practice of Tuning in General, and on Schiebler's Invention of Tuning Pianofortes and Organs by the Metronome in Particular, p.45-6. London: Robert Cocks.
- Beyer (1999), p.10.
