US Patent: 5,540X
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| Notes in music
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Patentee:
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| William C. Phillips (exact or similar names) - Lunenburg C.H., VA |
| Manufacturer: |
| Not known to have been produced |
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Patent Dates:
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| Granted: |
Jun. 18, 1829 |
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Joel Havens
X-Patents
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Description: |
| Most of the patents prior to 1836 were lost in the Dec. 1836 fire. Only about 2,000 of the almost 10,000 documents were recovered. Little is known about this patent. There are no patent drawings available. This patent is in the database for reference only.
“For an improvement in the Mode of Representing the Notes in Music; William C. Phillips, Lunenberg, Virginia, June 18.
The patentee proposes to substitute for the dots which represent the notes upon the lines and spaces in music, the first seven letters of the alphabet, using capitals, small letters, italics, &c. to designate the value of the different notes. Letters of the same kind may be employed for the semibreve and the minum, with the addition of the
same appendage which now distinguishes the value of those notes, that is, a straight line descending from the letter when used as a minum.
That the notation would be simplified by the adoption of this plan, is, we think, obvious. But in this, as in the reformation of the alphabet, there are two questions at least which present themselves for consideration; can the reformation be introduced? and if it can, will the advantages transcend the disadvantages? Our beautiful and simple system of reckoning in federal money, will fully exhibit the difficulty of introducing new notations, or modes of reckoning. Nearly forty years have elapsed since all the fiscal accounts of the government, and of our merchants, have been kept in this money, and yet at the present day nine-tenths of our monied transactions are in the currencies of the respective states, although it is universally confessed to be an evil, and one, the cure of which would not be attended by any inconvenience.
A new notation in music, like a new alphabet, would have to encounter obstacles incomparably greater than that of our federal money. The written language of music is a universal one, and every musician must be able to read Handel and Mozart, or he may at once determine to "hang up his fiddle." Instead therefore of giving facilities to the learner by a new mode of writing, you absolutely compel him to undertake a double task.
The moral difficulties which interfere with the adoption of such a plan, are, in our opinion, as really insuperable as those physical ones which are the stumbling-blocks of the devisers of ever-moving machines.”
Journal of the Franklin Institute Vol. 6, Sept. 1829 pgs. 188-189
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