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Phonoharp Company
The Phonoharp Company (1892–1928) was an American manufacturer of musical instruments based in Boston, Massachusetts. Among the instruments the company was known for was the autoharp, whose design they acquired from Alfred Dolge in 1910; they later merged with Oscar Schmidt (who would become the primary American producers of autoharps) in 1926. The company was also known for producing other instruments, namely the guitar zither, mandolin zither, celestaphone, and the ukelin. Among its employees who would go on to their own success was Henry Charles Marx, inventor of the Marxophone The Marxophone is a fretless zither played via a system of metal hammers. It features two octaves of double melody strings in the key of C major ( middle C to C''), and four sets of chord strings (C major, G major, F major, and D7). Sounding s .... References {{reflist Musical instrument manufacturing companies based in Boston Defunct companies based in Massachusetts Manufacturing compan ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Autoharp
An autoharp or chord zither is a string instrument belonging to the zither family. It uses a series of bars individually configured to mute all strings other than those needed for the intended chord. The term ''autoharp'' was once a trademark of the Oscar Schmidt company, but has become a generic designation for all such instruments, regardless of manufacturer. History Charles F. Zimmermann, a German immigrant in Philadelphia, was awarded a patent in 1882 for a “Harp” fitted with a mechanism that muted strings selectively during play. He called a zither-sized instrument using this mechanism an “autoharp.” Unlike later designs, the instrument shown in the patent was symmetrical, and the damping mechanism engaged with the strings laterally instead of from above. It is not known if Zimmermann ever produced such instruments commercially. Karl August Gütter of Markneukirchen, Germany, built a model that he called a ''Volkszither'', which was more clearly the prototype of the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Alfred Dolge
Alfred Dolge (December 22, 1848 – January 5, 1922) was a German-born industrialist, inventor, and author of two books. Originally an importer and manufacturer of piano materials he later founded his own factory, manufacturing felt products at Brockett's Bridge, Fulton County, New York, which in 1887 was renamed to Dolgeville. Biography Alfred Dolge was born December 22, 1848, in Chemnitz, Saxony. He attended public school in Leipzig until he was 17 when he entered his father's business, the A. Dolge and Co., Piano Manufacturers, as an apprentice. He pursued high school studies in a night school conducted by the Free Masons in Leipzig and received his diploma from them. He first came to the United States in 1865, when he was 17. He remained permanently in 1868 and worked in piano making and importing in New York City. In 1874 Dolge went to Brockett's Bridge, Fulton County, New York, prospecting for spruce wood to be used for piano sounding boards. He purchased the old Herkime ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Guitar Zither
The guitar zither (also chord zither, fretless zither, mandolin zither or harp zither) is a musical instrument consisting of a sound-box with two sets of unstopped strings. One set of strings is tuned to the diatonic, chromatic, or partially chromatic scale and the other set is tuned to make the various chords in the principal key of the melody strings. First patented May 29, 1894 by Friederich Menzenhauer Specification forming part of Letters Patent No. 520,651, dated May 29, 1894. Application filed April 20, 1893, Serial No.471,147. (No model.), United States Patent Office (1858-1937), the guitar zither came into use in the late 19th century and was widely mass-produced in the United States and in Germany by Menzenhauer and later by |
Mandolin Zither
The guitar zither (also chord zither, fretless zither, mandolin zither or harp zither) is a musical instrument consisting of a sound-box with two sets of unstopped strings. One set of strings is tuned to the diatonic, chromatic, or partially chromatic scale and the other set is tuned to make the various chords in the principal key of the melody strings. First patented May 29, 1894 by Friederich Menzenhauer Specification forming part of Letters Patent No. 520,651, dated May 29, 1894. Application filed April 20, 1893, Serial No.471,147. (No model.), United States Patent Office (1858-1937), the guitar zither came into use in the late 19th century and was widely mass-produced in the United States and in Germany by Menzenhauer and later by |
Celestaphone (instrument)
The celestaphone was a musical instrument of the zither family, which was played by pressing spring-levers to cause small hammers to strike the strings of the instrument. The term ''celestaphone'' was also used for a glass-plate xylophone designed by Charles C. Weidman of Ohio State University around the 1930s. Yet another ''celestaphone'' was an instrument created by Clair Omar Musser, a glockenspiel-like instrument he constructed over the mid-20th century from meteorites. Players The gospel musician Washington Phillips was thought to have played the dolceola on several of his recordings, but he actually played a compound instrument he fashioned out of two East Boston Phonoharp Company celestaphones, but with the hammer-keyboard removed. It consisted of two chord zithers, attached side by side, one of which had four chords, the other of which had five. He played them with his fingers, as other zither players do. Having nine chords to choose from, he also had fifteen courses of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ukelin
The ukelin is a bowed psaltery with zither strings made popular in the 1920s. It is meant to be a combination of the violin and the Hawaiian ukulele. It lost popularity prior to the 1970s because the instrument was difficult to play and often returned to the manufacturer before it had been completely paid for. History The history of the ukelin is hard to trace, since there were several instruments resembling the ukelin that were produced in the 1920s. Paul F. Richter filed the first known ukelin patent in December 1924, it was granted in April 1926. The Phonoharp Company, which merged with Oscar Schmidt, Inc. the same year, began producing ukelins in 1926. However, an instrument greatly resembling the ukelin had had its patent filed in 1923, a year before Richter filed his; yet the patent, filed by John Large, was not granted until after Richter's patent had already been given. Another similar instrument had a patent filed by Walter Schmidt in 1925. Because of these patents file ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Henry Charles Marx
Henry Charles Marx (1875–1947) was the American inventor of numerous musical instruments, most notably the marxophone The Marxophone is a fretless zither played via a system of metal hammers. It features two octaves of double melody strings in the key of C major ( middle C to C''), and four sets of chord strings (C major, G major, F major, and D7). Sounding s ... and the marxolin. References {{DEFAULTSORT:Marx, Henry Charles Inventors of musical instruments American inventors 1875 births 1947 deaths ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Marxophone
The Marxophone is a fretless zither played via a system of metal hammers. It features two octaves of double melody strings in the key of C major ( middle C to C''), and four sets of chord strings (C major, G major, F major, and D7). Sounding somewhat like a mandolin, the Marxophone's timbre is also reminiscent of various types of hammered dulcimers. The player typically strums the chords with the left hand. The right hand plays the melody strings by depressing spring steel strips that hold small lead hammers over the strings. A brief stab on a metal strip bounces the hammer off a string pair to produce a single note. Holding the strip down makes the hammer bounce on the double strings, which produces a mandolin-like tremolo. The bounce rate is somewhat fixed, as it is based on the spring steel strip length, hammer weight, and string tension—but a player can increase the rate slightly by pressing higher on the strip, effectively moving its pivot point closer to the lead hamme ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Musical Instrument Manufacturing Companies Based In Boston , the ability to perceive music or to create music
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{{Music disambiguation ...
Musical is the adjective of music. Musical may also refer to: * Musical theatre, a performance art that combines songs, spoken dialogue, acting and dance * Musical film and television, a genre of film and television that incorporates into the narrative songs sung by the characters * MusicAL, an Albanian television channel * Musical isomorphism, the canonical isomorphism between the tangent and cotangent bundles See also * Lists of musicals * Music (other) * Musica (other) * Musicality Musicality (''music -al -ity'') is "sensitivity to, knowledge of, or talent for music" or "the quality or state of being musical", and is used to refer to specific if vaguely defined qualities in pieces and/or genres of music, such as melodiousnes ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Defunct Companies Based In Massachusetts
{{Disambiguation ...
Defunct (no longer in use or active) may refer to: * ''Defunct'' (video game), 2014 * Zombie process or defunct process, in Unix-like operating systems See also * * :Former entities * End-of-life product * Obsolescence Obsolescence is the state of being which occurs when an object, service, or practice is no longer maintained or required even though it may still be in good working order. It usually happens when something that is more efficient or less risky r ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Manufacturing Companies Based In Massachusetts
Manufacturing is the creation or production of goods with the help of equipment, labor, machines, tools, and chemical or biological processing or formulation. It is the essence of secondary sector of the economy. The term may refer to a range of human activity, from handicraft to high-tech, but it is most commonly applied to industrial design, in which raw materials from the primary sector are transformed into finished goods on a large scale. Such goods may be sold to other manufacturers for the production of other more complex products (such as aircraft, household appliances, furniture, sports equipment or automobiles), or distributed via the tertiary industry to end users and consumers (usually through wholesalers, who in turn sell to retailers, who then sell them to individual customers). Manufacturing engineering is the field of engineering that designs and optimizes the manufacturing process, or the steps through which raw materials are transformed into a final product. T ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
