JF Ptak Science Books  Quick Post –Overall Post 5122 (Part of the History of Lines series)

John McKendrick had a long scientific career, with a  lot of very widely-spaced interests on which he wrote well and often.  What caught my eye on this piece (“The Analysis of Phonograph Records”, in Nature, a Weekly Illustrated Journal of Science, volume 56 no. 1444, 1 July 1897, pp 209-213 in the issue of pp 193-216)–I mean, aside form its wonderful content–was a bit of found poetry in one of the paper’s illustrations.  McKendrick’s—professor of physiology at Glasgow—effort here is one of the early attempt studying graphic records of soundwaves specifically prepared on phonographic cylinders, looking for variations in the graphics of pitch and the meaning they convey. Fascinating results.  

EUPHONIUM (1897)

Euphonium,

Part of a word Constantinople, a vowel,

Piccolo

Cornet

Sound of explosion or a quick-firing onboard the Benbow.

Noise in a boiler makers group.

Flute.

Flute.

Military band.