Science and Music.
Interesting Lecture By Mr. W. E. Sanderson, Mus. Bac.
Mr. Wilfred E. Sanderson, the well known organist of the Doncaster Parish Church, read a most interesting paper before the members of the local Scientific Society, at the Guild Hall on Wednesday evening.

It was entitled “The Relation of Science to Music.” There was a large attendance, the audience comprising many members of the Doncaster Operatic Society.

Mr. F. O. Kirby (president) was in the chair, and welcomed Mr. Sanderson, remarking he was sure they would have a most interesting paper.

Mr. Sanderson said the science of sound, and the science of musical sounds, might be treated as two separate things. He would endeavour to interest them in the question of science in its relation to the production of sound through the medium of instruments of a mechanical nature, and the most wonderful of all instruments, the human voice.

Musical sounds possessed three different qualities
1. Loudness
2. Pitch
3. Quality of timbre
The first depended upon the amount of energy expended, the second upon the number of vibrations that the sounding body made in a given time, the third upon overtones or harmonics.

Mr. Sanderson then passed to the more generally interesting consideration of the application to musical instruments of the principles of sound production, with a short study of two or three household instruments, dealing firstly with a stringed instrument, secondly with the organ, and lastly with the human voice.

He showed that most of our more important modern musical instruments are allied to their mode of sound production to one of those he had mentioned, viz. strings or organ pipes.

Instruments more or less corresponding to our modern fiddle had, he said, been in use from early times, and their origin had been the subject of much speculation. The Violin, as we had it now, was supposed to have been invented in the 16th century.

As to the organ, the first idea of a wind instrument was doubtless suggested to man by the passing breezes as they struck against the open ends of broken reeds, and the fact that reeds of different lengths emitted sounds varying in pitch may have further suggested that if placed in a particular order they would produce an agreeable succession of sounds.

Organs were in common use in the Spanish churches (450 A.D.), though for many centuries later they were regarded as profane instruments by the Romish and Greek priests. In the 7th century Pope Vitalian at Rome introduced the organ to assist congregational singing, and its use then soon spread to France and England. By the end of the 9th century several organs existed in English churches, the pipes being made of copper or brass.

Dealing at some length with the tubular pneumatic action of organs, Mr. Sanderson described the effects of the modern development of Barker’s invention. He also explained that the harmonic pipes, and the sound production in organ pipes.

The Voice

Coming next to the human voice he said the history or origin of speech of the singing voice was practically beyond our ken. The conditions necessary to the existence of speech arose with articulation, and it was intelligence that had converted the vocal instrument into the speaking and singing instrument.

Correct intonation depended upon the innate musical ear. Respiration had a great deal to do with voice production, and the vocal instrument was unlike any other instrument, but it most nearly approached a reed instrument. The vocal cords of a man were about seven-twelfths of an inch in length, and those of a boy, before his voice broke, or of a woman about five-twelfths of an inch in length.

The difference in length of vocal cords accounted for the difference in pitch of the singing and speaking voice of the two sexes. It was not so between tenor and bass, or contralto and soprano; vocal cords might be as long in tenor as in bass, which showed what an important part the resonator played in the timbre or quality of the voice as well.

Musical notes were comprised between 27 and 4,000 vibrations per second. The ear was the guiding sense for correct modulation of the loudness and pitch of the voice, and the sese of hearing was the primary incitation to the voice. This accounted for the fact that children who had learnt to speak, and suffered in early voice with ear disease, lost the use of their vocal instrument.

The intellect could very considerably influence the distribution of the tone of voice, and it was here when the voice trainer found his real work. The art of voice production made a tremendous call upon the mental powers of the student; in fact, it was not too much to say that given equal natural conditions in two men the one who could bring the greater mental effort to bear upon the work would considerably outshine the other.

The Pharynx, the soft palate, the hard palate, the nasal organs, and the sinuses of the head acted very certainly as resonators, and as well trained singers felt vibration in these parts very distinctly. In cases where all these resonating chambers exactly fulfilled their mission, we had the perfect voice.

We have very few really born great singers. Most students in singing lacked one or more of the qualities or the power to put them to use. He doubted whether many in the room that night realised the numerous conditions that must necessarily go to make the perfect singing voice, in addition to the resonating parts he had just spoken of, there were, to name a few :-
1. Perfect control of breath.
2. The exact correct approximation of the vocal cords.
3. Phonation (correct emission of vocal sounds).

He was now talking of voice production pure and simple, which was an essential and preliminary study to the art of singing. By singing was meant, of course, the application of the produced voice to the interpretation of songs and all word applied music.

It was not his province in that paper to speak of the things that go to make the singer, such as temperament, atmosphere, presence, expression, etc. Enough had been said to show the futility of attempting to improve the voice by studies in singing when the study of voice production had not been dealt with or touched upon. Yet if they were to ask him if it was necessary that a student in voice production should understand all the anatomical and scientific aspects of the voice he should unhesitatingly say “No”; in fact, the less he or she knew the better.

Concluding, Mr. Sanderson dealt with the importance of the training of the brain influences in singing and explained nasal resonances, nasal tone, and the action of the soft palate, also head sinuses.

At the conclusion of the paper a number of questions were asked and replied to by Mr. Sanderson, and the thanks of the audience were voiced to him by the President, by Mr. Greenslade and others, the hope being expressed that this although the first time would be by no means the last upon which he would entertain the Society.