Henry Ward Poole (1825–1890) was an American surveyor, civil engineer, educator and writer on and inventor of systems of

musical tuning In music, there are two common meanings for tuning: * Tuning practice, the act of tuning an instrument or voice. * Tuning systems, the various systems of pitches used to tune an instrument, and their theoretical bases. Tuning practice Tun ...

. He was brother of the famous librarian

William Frederick Poole William Frederick Poole (24 December 1821, Salem, Massachusetts – 1 March 1894) was an American bibliographer and librarian. Biography He graduated from Yale University in 1849, where he assisted John Edmands, who was a student at the Brothe ...

, and cousin of the celebrated humorist, journalist and politician Fitch Poole.

Biography

Poole was born 13 September 1825 in

Salem, Massachusetts Salem ( ) is a historic coastal city in Essex County, Massachusetts, located on the North Shore of Greater Boston. Continuous settlement by Europeans began in 1626 with English colonists. Salem would become one of the most significant seaports tr ...

(renamed Peabody 1868), son of Ward Poole (1799–1864) and Elizabeth Wilder (1801–1864). He attended Leicester Academy, and

Yale University Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the wo ...

in 1841 and 1842. He worked up to 1850 at

Newburyport, Massachusetts Newburyport is a coastal city in Essex County, Massachusetts, United States, northeast of Boston. The population was 18,289 at the 2020 census. A historic seaport with vibrant tourism industry, Newburyport includes part of Plum Island. The mo ...

with organ maker Joseph Alley and minister Henry James Hudson (b. 1821-) developing a ''euharmonic'', or

enharmonic In modern musical notation and tuning, an enharmonic equivalent is a note, interval, or key signature that is equivalent to some other note, interval, or key signature but "spelled", or named differently. The enharmonic spelling of a written n ...

organ which they patented and solicited by mail, and which was awarded a gold medal at the 1850 Exhibition of the

Massachusetts Charitable Mechanic Association The Massachusetts Charitable Mechanic Association (est.1795) of Boston, Massachusetts, was "formed for the sole purposes of promoting the mechanic arts and extending the practice of benevolence." Founders included Paul Revere, Jonathan Hunnewell, ...

. It was installed at Indiana Place Chapel,Church of Disciples;

James Freeman Clarke James Freeman Clarke (April 4, 1810 – June 8, 1888) was an American minister, theologian and author. Biography Born in Hanover, New Hampshire, on April 4, 1810, James Freeman Clarke was the son of Samuel Clarke and Rebecca Parker Hull, though h ...

preached at this chapel (''The stranger's new guide through Boston'' (1869) A. Williams & Co., Boston) Boston, Massachusetts and remained in use for fifteen years. Poole patented a special keyboard to be used with his extended tuning system in 1868. In 1851 and 1852 Poole assisted August A. Dalson under

Pennsylvania Pennsylvania (; ( Pennsylvania Dutch: )), officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a state spanning the Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes regions of the United States. It borders Delaware to its southeast, ...

state geologist Henry D. Rogers, based in Pottsville, on the state survey organized by ''Geological Society of Pennsylvania''. He remained in Pottsville afterwards working as an engineer, surveyor and commercial property agent. In 1856 he was engaged by the New York City based Mexican Pacific Coal and Iron Mines and Land Company to survey railway prospects between

Veracruz Veracruz (), formally Veracruz de Ignacio de la Llave (), officially the Free and Sovereign State of Veracruz de Ignacio de la Llave ( es, Estado Libre y Soberano de Veracruz de Ignacio de la Llave), is one of the 31 states which, along with Me ...

and

Mexico City Mexico City ( es, link=no, Ciudad de México, ; abbr.: CDMX; Nahuatl: ''Altepetl Mexico'') is the capital and largest city of Mexico, and the most populous city in North America. One of the world's alpha cities, it is located in the Valley o ...

. Following this he led an expedition through

Guerrero Guerrero is one of the 32 states that comprise the 32 Federal Entities of Mexico. It is divided in 81 municipalities and its capital city is Chilpancingo and its largest city is Acapulcocopied from article, GuerreroAs of 2020, Guerrero the pop ...

exploring for iron and coal prospects, and returning to the United States publishing his topographical survey including four maps in 1858. He returned to Mexico in 1859 to teach modern languages at College of Mines, Mexico City, and acted as agent for the

American Antiquarian Society The American Antiquarian Society (AAS), located in Worcester, Massachusetts, is both a learned society and a national research library of pre-twentieth-century American history and culture. Founded in 1812, it is the oldest historical society in ...

, where he had continued his own studies after Yale, purchasing Mexican artifacts and literature for their collection. Poole died 22 October 1890 and is buried a
Mexico City National Cemetery

Musical inventions

Poole appreciated "all musical

ratio In mathematics, a ratio shows how many times one number contains another. For example, if there are eight oranges and six lemons in a bowl of fruit, then the ratio of oranges to lemons is eight to six (that is, 8:6, which is equivalent to the ...

s derived from the

primes A prime number (or a prime) is a natural number greater than 1 that is not a product of two smaller natural numbers. A natural number greater than 1 that is not prime is called a composite number. For example, 5 is prime because the only ways ...

3, 5, and 7" and more tentatively, 11, and he also asserted the melodic beauty of

microtonal Microtonal music or microtonality is the use in music of microtones— intervals smaller than a semitone, also called "microintervals". It may also be extended to include any music using intervals not found in the customary Western tuning of t ...

commatic shifts. He described a 7-

limit Limit or Limits may refer to: Arts and media * ''Limit'' (manga), a manga by Keiko Suenobu * ''Limit'' (film), a South Korean film * Limit (music), a way to characterize harmony * "Limit" (song), a 2016 single by Luna Sea * "Limits", a 2019 ...

''double diatonic''

just Just or JUST may refer to: __NOTOC__ People * Just (surname) * Just (given name) Arts and entertainment * ''Just'', a 1998 album by Dave Lindholm * "Just" (song), a song by Radiohead * "Just", a song from the album ''Lost and Found'' by Mudvayne ...

scale to distinguish it from the usual

diatonic scale In music theory, a diatonic scale is any heptatonic scale that includes five whole steps (whole tones) and two half steps (semitones) in each octave, in which the two half steps are separated from each other by either two or three whole steps, ...

, which he called the '' triple diatonic'', with common tones from tonic, dominant and

subdominant In music, the subdominant is the fourth tonal degree () of the diatonic scale. It is so called because it is the same distance ''below'' the tonic as the dominant is ''above'' the tonicin other words, the tonic is the dominant of the subdomina ...

major triads. The new scale replaced subdominant pitches with the "perfect seventh and ninth of the dominant

harmony In music, harmony is the process by which individual sounds are joined together or composed into whole units or compositions. Often, the term harmony refers to simultaneously occurring frequencies, pitches ( tones, notes), or chords. However ...

" to correspond better with what he heard harmonically and melodically in all kinds of music. Poole proposed using five parallel chains of fifths from 1/1, 5/4, 25/16, 7/4 and 35/16, which he distinguished by type and case. One

octave In music, an octave ( la, octavus: eighth) or perfect octave (sometimes called the diapason) is the interval between one musical pitch and another with double its frequency. The octave relationship is a natural phenomenon that has been refer ...

needed 100 different pitches to play in 19 different keys. ''triple diatonic'' (9/8) (10/9) (16/15) (9/8) (10/9) (9/8) (16/15) C D e F G a b C C D e (F7) G A b C (9/8) (10/9) (21/20) (8/7) (9/8) (10/9) (16/15) ''double diatonic'' The 1849 organ was described being capable of playing eleven musical (major) keys from the ordinary keyboard in ''pure intonation'' by furnishing multiple pipes for each physical key, with foot pedals operating intermediate levers inserted into the tracker works to switch between pairs of pallet valves furnished for each note. The inventors described great benefits due to the tuning - they even claim it stayed in tune better - and argued how these balanced its greater size (up to 8 feet wider) and reduction in loudness compared with instruments of similar cost and number of pipes. They estimated one having "two Diapasons, the Trumpet, the Oboe, the Dulciana, the Flute and the Clarabella, in perfect tune" to cost between $4000 and $5000, and one third more if a Great Organ was desired. On the suggestion of

Thomas Perronet Thompson Thomas Perronet Thompson (1783–1869) was a British Parliamentarian, a governor of Sierra Leone and a radical reformer. He became prominent in 1830s and 1840s as a leading activist in the Anti-Corn Law League. He specialized in the grass-root ...

Poole developed a special keyboard to compel a "musician to know what he is doing", although A. U. Hayter, the King's Chapel organist, had complained about the care required by the existing plan. The new keyboard organized pitches in a similar fashion to an ordinary piano keyboard but also emphasized the different classes of pitches by using different shapes and colors of keytops. The 1/1 series was assigned to large white ''natural'' keys arranged rising in diagonal rows, the 5/4 series on raised black ''sharp'' keys between the white keys, the 7/4 series on square red keys followed by square yellow 63/32 and blue 45/32 keys behind the white keys (a 6/5 series could be added using buttons raised above the ''sharp'' keys if desired). Key motion was linear and used two guide pins. The staggered keyboard arrangement separated distant key signatures and aligned octaves and was transpositionally invariant but not generalized, although the abbreviated pedalboard implied 3, 5, and 7 axes for 14 key-notes using three ranks of identical key levers. Poole outlined methods to increase the versatility of similarly arranged instruments, including a slightly tempered 78-tone scale, and a 106-tone scale with two cycles of

53 equal temperament In music, 53 equal temperament, called 53 TET, 53 EDO, or 53 ET, is the tempered scale derived by dividing the octave into 53 equal steps (equal frequency ratios). Each step represents a frequency ratio of 2, or 22.6415 ...

(a Bosanquet "multiple system"). On April 6, 1871 an enharmonic reed organ constructed by Joseph Alley using more uniformly shaped keys was demonstrated at a meeting of the Society of Arts in Boston by

Edward C. Pickering Edward Charles Pickering (July 19, 1846 – February 3, 1919) was an American astronomer and physicist and the older brother of William Henry Pickering. Along with Hermann Carl Vogel, Carl Vogel, Pickering discovered the first spectroscopic binary ...

, and played by Edwin H. Higley.

Publications

* "On the true natural diatonic scale of music, and its adoption in the euharmonic organ". (1848) Worcester * "On Perfect Intonation and the Euharmonic Organ". (1850) New Englander and Yale review (May)
Topographical map of the Mine Hill and Schuylkill-Haven Rail Road with its branches and extension to Ashland
(1854)

(1867) The American Journal of Science and Arts (July) p. 1
"On the Musical Ratios, and our Pleasure in Harmonious Sounds"
(1868) American Journal of Science, vol. xliv, no. 135 (May) p19

an
''za''
(1913) Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary. C. & G. Merriam Co., Springfield.

Patents

* US 6,565 Alley & Poole. Organ action. 03.07.1849 * US 73,753. H. W. Poole. Improved Enharmonic key-board for Organs, &c. 28.01.1868

Related Collections

* Henry Ward Poole collection of Mexican Documents, 1610–1857. Record Nr
b3414909
New York Public Library, Humanities - Manuscripts and Archives. * Mexican Pamphlets

Bodleian Library, London. * Correspondence, 1857
misc. mss
American Antiquarian Society, Worcester, Mss. Dept. * Correspondence from Henry W. Poole, 18 October 1856. J. Peter Lesley Papers, 1826–1898
B L56
American Philosophical Society, Philadelphia * Tripod cylinder (pottery vessel ad.200-500
79.55
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Everett Fund. * Henry James Hudson Collection.
SC1998.39
M2A 6,4. Sibley Library, Eastman School of Music. Rochester, NY

Biography

Musical inventions

Publications

Patents

Related Collections

Notes

Further reading