Musicians - Henry Ward Poole

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	Musicians - Henry Ward Poole

Henry Ward Poole (1825-1890)

Biography

Poole was born 13 September, 1825 in Salem, Massachusetts (renamed Peabody 1868). He attended Yale University 1841-1842, and Harvard University.

He worked up to 1850 at Newburyport, Massachusetts with organ maker Joseph Alley and minister Henry James Hudson (b.1821-) developing a euharmonic (enharmonic) organ which they patented and solicited by mail. One was installed at Indiana Place Chapel, Boston, Massachusetts (constructed 1848-1851). Poole patented a special keyboard to be used with his extended tuning system in 1868.

Poole worked under Pennsylvania state geologist Henry Rogers (with Horace Moses, J. T. Hodge, J. Peter Lesley) authorized by Geological Society of Pennsylvania ca. 1851, and later as commercial property agent and surveyor in coal mining hub Pottsville. He was engaged by the Mexican Pacific Coal and Iron Mines and Land Company 1856-1857 surveying railway prospects between Veracruz and Mexico City (overseen from 1858 by Andrew Talcott), and later returned teaching modern languages at College of Mines, Mexico City.

Poole was a contributor to the and active collector of Mexican literature and archaology. He subscribed to Isaac Israel Hayes' 1860-1861 polar expedition through Boston committees, and spoke at hearing at State House, Boston March, 1868, concerning resistance renaming South Danvers, MA to Peabody after George Peabody. He was son of Ward Poole (1799-1864) and Elizabeth Wilder (1801-1864), brother of famous librarian William Frederick Poole, and cousin of celebrated humorist (journalist, politician) . He died 22 October, 1890 and is buried at .

# His brother left Yale the same year due finances. # Alley was originally from Maine, ("Organ-Building in New England" (1834) The New England Magazine, Vol. 6, March) # Church of Disciples; James Freeman Clarke preached at this chapel (The stranger's new guide through Boston (1869) A. Williams & Co., Boston) # The College of Mines was founded 1792 by Fausto Eluyar y Suvisa.

Musical inventions

Poole appreciated "all musical ratios derived from the primes 3, 5, and 7" (and more tentatively, 11 - he also asserted a melodic beauty in microtonal, commatic shifts). He described a 7-limit double diatonic just scale to distinguish it from the usual diatonic scale, or (triple diatonic as he called it) with common tones from tonic, dominant and subdominant major triads. The new scale replaced subdominant pitches with the "perfect seventh and ninth of the dominant harmony" to correspond better with what he heard harmonically and melodically in all kinds of music. Poole proprosed 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 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 (see other instruments using similar means ). The inventors described great benefits due 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 (ie. 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). Foot pedals operated intermediate levers inserted into the tracker works used selecting between pairs of pallet valves for each note.

On the suggestion of Thomas Perronet Thompson Poole developed a special keyboard (to compel a "musician to know what he is doing") that organized pitches similar to an ordinary piano keyboard but also emphasized the different classes of pitches by their shape and color. 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 78-tone , and a 106-tone multiple system (2 cycles of 53 equal temperament).

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