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!!!!ca -500 BC __ Æolian harp * ''Comment'' : « The harp was suspended above David's bed (Lam. R. 2:22), facing the windows (Jer.Ber. 1:1)". The open window above his bed faced north. The north wind would come through this window and pluck at the harp strings ^[similar to wind chimes^] so that the harp played by itself (Shocher Tov 22). When David heard that sound, he would awaken and study Torah (Lam. R. 2:22). Then all his disciples would occupy themselves in Torah diligently, warding off sleep until dawn. » ''(In "Middrash Rabbah", Michael Miller, Midrash Ha-Mevo'ar Institute (Eds), Stiftung Irene Bolleg-Herzheimer, Basel, Feldheim Publishers, 2002 ; and also some references in : Bible, Ancient Testament, Books of Samuel)'' * ''Comment'' : « St. Dunstan’s harp upon the wall Fast by a pin did hang a, Without man’s help, with lie and all, And by itself did twang. » (not identified, quoted in John Foxe, (1583), "The acts and monuments of John Foxe", Vol. II, p. 103, Edited By Stephen Reed Catley. London : R.B. Seeley and W. Burnside, sold by L. & G. Seeley, 1837) * ''Comment'' : « Winter — Jan. 28, 1852 — No music from the telegraph harp on the causeway, where the wind is strong, but in the Cut this cold day I hear memorable strains. What must the birds and beasts think where it passes through the woods, who heard only the squeaking of the trees before ? I should think that these strains would get into their music at last. Will not the mockingbird be heard one day inserting this strain in his medley ! It intoxicates me. Orpheus is still alive. All poetry and mythology revive. The spirits of all bards sweep the strings. I hear the clearest silver, lyre-like tones, Tyrtœan tones. I think of Menander and the rest. It is the most glorious music I ever heard. All those bards revive and flourish again in that five minutes in the Deep Cut. The breeeze came through an oak still wearing its dry leaves. The very fine clear tones seemed to come from the very core and pith of this telegraph-pole. I know not but it is my own chords that tremble so divinely. There are barytones and high sharp tones, etc. Some come sweepingly from further along the wire. The latent music of the earth had found here a vent. Music Æolian. There were two strings, in fact, on each side. I do not know but this will make me read the Greek poets. Thus, as ever, the finest uses of things are accidental. Mr. Morse did not invent this music. ^[...^] There are some whose ears help so that my things have a rare significance when I read to them. It is almost too good a hearing, so that for the time I regard my own writing from too favorable a point of view. ^[...^] » ''(Henry David Thoreau, 1852)'' * ''Attached references'' : {small}Hermes (Mercury), ''Homeric Hymn'' (ca -522 BC) ; St. Dunstan (909-988), quoted in John Foxe, (1583) ; ''Shishi Odoshi'' (ししおどし, 鹿威し) (deer scarer) - ''Fuurin'' (風鈴 - ふうりん - huurin) (wind bell) - ''Sōzu'' (そうず, 添水) (water fountain) (ca 1300) ; King David’s harp, In Midrash ; John Foxe (1517-1587), ''Dunstan ‘s harp'' (909-988) (1583) ; Giambattista Della Porta (1535-1615), ''Magiae Naturalis'' (1558) ; ''Suikinkutsu'' (水琴窟) (Water koto cave) (ca 1600) ; Ji Cheng (1582- ca 1642), ''Shakkei (借景) & ikedori'' (Borrowed scenery) (1634) ; Athanasius Kircher (1601-1680), ''Musurgia Universalis'' (1650), ''Phonurgia Nova'' (1673) ; ''Carillons'' (1652) ; Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834), ''The Æolian Harp'' (1796) ; Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822), ''Ode to the West Wind'' (1819) ; Hector Berlioz (1803-1869), ''The Æolian Harp'' (Lélio ou le retour à la vie - H 55, op. 14b) (1832) ; Frédéric Chopin (1810-1849), ''Etude in A flat major for piano'' (1836) ; Rodolphe Radau (1835-1911), ''L’Acoustique ou les Phénomènes du Son'' (1867) ; Sergei Mikhailovich Lyapunov (1859-1924), ''12 Transcendental Etudes Op.11 No.9'' (1905) ; Lord Rayleigh (1842-1919), ''Æolian Tones'' (1915) ; Henry Cowell (1897-1965), ''Æolian Harp for piano'' (1923) ; La Monte Young (1935-), ''The Second Dream of the High-Tension Line Stepdown Transformer (The Four Dreams of China)'' (1962) ; Jan Garbarek (1947-), ''Dis'' (1976) ; Alan Lamb (1944-), ''Primal Image'' (1995) ; Douglas Kahn (?-), ''Aelectrosonic'' (2009).{/small} * ''Sources :'' {small}H. D. Thoreau (1852). ''Journal''. Vol. 3, pp. 219-220, New York : Houghton Mifflin; cited by Allen S. Weiss, In “Varieties of Audio Mimesis : Musical Evocation of Landscape”, coll. « Audio Issues » Vol. 3, New York / Berlin : Errant Bodies Press, 2008 ; P. Szendy. (1996). ''De la Harpe Éolienne à la "toile" : fragments d'une généalogie portative''. In ‘Lire’ l'Ircam (n° spécial des Cahiers de l'Ircam),1996, pp. 40-72; also In ‘Tr@verses’ n° 1, juillet 1996 ; S. Bonner. (1968). ''The History and Organology of the Aeolian Harp''. Cambridge, Duxford : Bois de Boulogne ; J. Mansfield. (1970). ''The Design and Construction of an Aeolian Harp''. Cambridge, Duxford : Bois de Boulogne ; J.E. Harrison. (1927). ''Myths of Greece and Rome''. p. 50, London : Ernest Benn, 1927 ; T. L. Hankins & R. J. Silverman. (1995). ''The Æolian Harp and the Romantic Quest of Nature''. In 'Instruments and the Imagination'. pp. 86-112. Second printing 1999. Princeton (NJ) : Princeton University Press, 1995.{/small} {br}{br}
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