Typotone and Triple Æolina

Images from The Alan G. Bates Harmonica Collection (1)

Typotone and Triple Æolina

Typotone (Tuning Device) by Pinsonnat, Amiens, France, ca. 1830

NMM 8206. Typotone (tuning device) by Pinsonnat, Amiens, France, ca. 1830. Mother-of-pearl plate; gold reed; two gold rivets. The maker's name and serial number (64) are inscribed on the front of the plate; the gold reed is hallmarked with the letter, P, inside a diamond. Original case. Length: 29.7 mm; width: 16.6 mm; height: 2.8 mm. Alan G. Bates Collection, 20002.

The Typotone, patented by Pinsonnat of Amiens on January 17, 1829, was approved for use by the Conservatoire de Musique, Paris, as a tuning device constructed to sound the pitch, A=441 vps. A freely vibrating reed, made of hallmarked gold, is attached to an opening in the center of a tiny, mother-of-pearl plate, about the size of a postage stamp. Deep grooves cut into the long sides of the mother-of-pearl plate enable a player to hold the device securely between the teeth. Merely breathing over the free reed sets it into vibration, freeing the player's hands to tune a violin or viola. The original, leather covered box also survives, with TYPOTONE stamped in gold across its red cover.

Lit.:  Margaret Downie Banks, "From the Four Winds . . . A Rare Triple Ćolina and a Typotone Both Added to the Alan G. Bates Collection," National Music Museum Newsletter 30, No. 3 (August 2003), pp. 4-5. Reprinted in The Trumpet Call (A Publication of Harmonica Collectors International) 5, Issue 3 (September 2003): 4-5.

Triple Æolina by Charles W. Wheatstone, London, ca. 1830

NMM 10434. Triple Æolina by Charles W. Wheatstone, London, ca. 1830. Original case. An article in The Harmonicon (London, 1829) describes Wheatstone's triple Æolina and documents the maker's use of argentum (nickel silver), a "new metallic alloy" of nickel, copper, and zinc, several years before the first commercial production of nickel silver in England in 1833. Length: 98 mm; width: 48 mm; height: 4 mm. Purchase funds gift of Alan G. Bates, 2003.

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Sir Charles W. Wheatstone (1802-1875), the nineteenth-century British acoustician and electrical engineer who is best remembered in scientific circles for his life-long research concerning the electric telegraph, also contributed substantively to the development of electro-magnetic clocks, typewriters, Morse code transmitters, stereoscopes, and an artificial voice device. However, it was his experimentation with freely vibrating "springs" (thin strips of metal)—first seen on the continent with Friederich Ludwig Buschmann's introduction of the Mundaeoline, a free-reed, chromatic tuning device developed in Germany in 1821—that forever linked Wheatstone's name with the history and development of free-reed instruments in Great Britain.

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In 1828, while preparing his patent for the nascent concertina, Wheatstone introduced his own version of the German Mundaeoline—the Æolina—a thin, pocket-sized predecessor of the harmonica that measured less than 4" x 2" x 1/4". Fittingly named in honor of Aiolos, the divine Greek administrator of the four winds, the Æolina consisted of a series of thin strips of the new metal alloy argentum (nickel silver), fitted into parallel rows of rectangular openings in an argentum plate, set into vibration "by a gentle breath alone." Left: How to play the Æolina, from Instructions for The Æolina: with a Selection of Popular Melodies Arranged Expressly for this Instrument, Second Revised American Edition (New York: Bourne: 1830), frontispiece.

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The earlier, German-style Æolians, characterized by the English in 1829 as "universally popular on the Continent," were available in a variety of sizes, according to The German Æolian Tutor (London: 1830). These included a tiny, 4-note version; a curved "trumpet Æolian"; a two-octave chromatic model; a three-chord "Pandean Æolian," reminiscent of the NMM's rare Æolina by Lewis Zwahlen, New York, ca. 1831; and a large, "eight-chord Pandean Æolian" mounted on a handle.

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Wheatstone's Signature Stamp

Stamped sideways on the left and center reed plates: C. WHEATSTONE; stamped sideways on the right reed plate:  C. WHEATSTONE 20 CONDUIT ST.

Wheatstone stamped his name on each reed plate in the NMM's triple Æolina. Wheatstone & Co., a business association among Wheatstone, his father, and his younger brother, was located at 20 Conduit Street (between New Bond Street and Regent Street) by 1829 and remained there until 1897.

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Wheatstone produced only two- and three-chord Æolinas, of which fewer than a half-dozen are known to survive. The NMM's rare, three-chord model features nickel-silver reed plates, each with eight exposed reeds of equal length, tuned to the chords of A, E, and D (tonic, dominant, and subdominant). This Æolina is pitched slightly flatter than A=440. The reed plates are held together by a frame consisting of four strips of ivory fastened with delicate nickel-silver rivets. The instrument's original case, lined with cream-colored silk, survives almost as it looked when new, sporting a bright red, leather, flip-top cover with a delicate acorn and oak-leaf design stamped in gold around the outside edge.

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Lit.:  Margaret Downie Banks, "From the Four Winds . . . A Rare Triple Æolina and a Typotone Both Added to the Alan G. Bates Collection," National Music Museum Newsletter 30, No. 3 (August 2003), pp. 4-5. Reprinted in The Trumpet Call (A Publication of Harmonica Collectors International) 5, Issue 3 (September 2003): 4-5.