Piano stool

“ At any rate, she suddenly sprang up from her stool, as if tired of the discussion, and flitting across to the piano, seated herself at it, and played a two-step with vigour that caused it to reach the ears of the gentlemen, whom it effectually brought out of the dining-room. ”

“ The organ was no more disposed to give up its long sway, and be narrowed to its own particular sphere, than any other sovereign, when the limiting influences of modern times first began to make themselves felt. Like them, however, it was obliged to yield. Little by little the piano emancipated itself from the strict contrapuntal chain which bound it to the organ, until, in the sonatas of Mozart and Beethoven, it emerged into a new life. ”

“ An instrument in the hands of a careful man is all right. They can be stretched by the fingers or the Wales' bougie, thus: Patients should come to the office two or three times a week, the instrument (bougies) are introduced and allowed to remain within the bowel until the muscle resistance is overcome, and many times their withdrawal will soon be followed by a copious stool. ”

“ A switch is furnished so that when desired the stops and expression levers may be cut off and left to be operated by hand. The Hope-Jones Tracker Bar has no less than ten lines of holes--it is, of course, correspondingly wide.
We look for a great development in the direction of organs played by mechanical means.
The piano player has done a very great deal to popularize the pianoforte and in the same way it is believed that the automatic player will do a very great deal to popularize the organ. ”

“ Even the untrained will find some interest in the timbre of the notes and the qualities of sound emitted with the pulling of different stops. The lingering sounds and the novelty of playing an organ which is no longer a commonplace in the home, are great incentives to playing. Instruction on the organ, which has a smaller keyboard and slower manipulation than the piano, is pleasant and simple. For combined upper and lower extremity disabilities, the organ is an excellent instrument. Every hospital music department should own one. ”

“ But the feature of the stool was its unusual length, a full six feet, and I one day had to satisfy Alice's curiosity by telling her that this was for the purpose of providing a comfortable seat to anyone who might be turning over for the pianist! The real reason was that the stool was, for all practical purposes, a rack actuated by hidden machinery and fitted with a most ingenious arrangement of straps, the efficacy of which I looked forward to testing on Alice's tender self. ”

“ Mozart's organ and violin-playing created quite as much astonishment as his performances on the clavier:—
When I told Herr Stein that I should like to play upon his organ (in the Barfüsserkirche) , for that I had a passion for the organ, he was greatly astonished, and said: "What! a man like you, a clavier-player, willing to play on an instrument which has no douceur, no expression; which allows of neither piano nor forte, but goes on always the same!" "All that has nothing to do with it. To my mind, the organ is the king of all instruments." ”

“ It would, however, be an interesting subject to trace this development down to Chopin, Liszt, and the modern Titans of the piano, showing how gradually the mutual treatment of piano and organ disappeared and what was substituted in their place. It could, however, only be satisfactorily done by musical examples.
Meanwhile the orchestra blossomed into a new significance. To us moderns who read its history, or look back into the scores which antedate this time, it does not seem so much a period to be described, as that of progress, as that of a veritable new birth itself, a new creation. ”

“ The organ, as a keyed instrument, has all the main points of technique [Pg 38] in common with the piano. All the varied forms of scales, arpeggios, &c., together with the necessary independence of finger requisite to play in the legato style, should first be learned upon the piano, where, by the way, it can be more speedily acquired. Pupils who, having accomplished this, proceed to the study of the organ, can at once begin with the peculiarities and characteristic difficulties of the instrument, and as far as the pedal is concerned, will make far more rapid progress if fair manual players. ”

“ The piano can be adapted for use by patients with extremities in hanging casts, which can be supported by sling arrangements attached to the piano or the patient’s neck. It can even be used satisfactorily with a cumbersome airplane splint if a very low bench is substituted for the usual piano chair. The height of the bench can be arranged so that the key-board and hand are on the same level, and the challenge of this position will make the patient try all the harder to use his fingers. ”

“ For whatever reason, none of these contrivances have hitherto met with general acceptance, and "organ-pianos" are as yet merely curiosities. But an instrument of this kind is now on exhibition in Paris, which appears to be of practical value, and for which there is already a good demand. There is a brief description of this "organ-piano" in Nature, from which we take the following particulars: In this instrument the "organ" or prolonged sounds are produced by a succession of extremely rapid hammer-blows. ”

“ We do better now, but I look upon caseless organs, with their rows of painted pipes, as something horrid. A good piano always has a good case; we do not dream of buying, or the vendor of selling, a first-class instrument in a paltry one; and why a really well-built and good-toned organ is put into a plain deal varnished case, like a common cheap schoolroom piano, is a puzzle to me. ”

“ When equipped with pianola fixtures, it is the one instrument that gives the widest range of activities. Because the piano is difficult to move, playing is restricted to the room in which it is housed and there need be no concern about its interference with other patients if the practice room is sound-proofed, or is situated some distance from the other patients. The piano offers excellent opportunity for flexion of the fingers and thumb, extension, abduction and adduction of the wrist, as well as flexion and abduction of the shoulders and exercise of the neck and back. ”

“ Nowhere can we find more evident signs of this time of experiment, this gradually leaving old landmarks and seeking a new form of expression, than in the works of Bach himself.
In the "Well-Tempered Clavier" we find preludes and fugues impossible to properly interpret on any other instrument except the piano, placed side by side with those whose real significance can only be developed upon the organ. In a portion of the pieces written especially for the organ, we find, on the other hand, passages which to modern ears are only fit for and tolerable on the piano. ”

“ On this are built four compartments, shaped like pieces of pie. In one of these is placed a bath-tub and stand, in another a folding-bed and wardrobe, in a third is a kitchen range and cupboard, and in the fourth a bookcase and piano. Must I explain the mystery? On rising you fold away your bed and spin the circle for your tub. And then in turn your stove appears. At last, when you have whirled your dishes to retirement, the piano comes in sight. It is as easy as spinning the caster for the oil and vinegar. A whirling Susan on the supper table is not more nimble. ”

“ I hear my own piano playing only in fancy, not in reality. I cannot hear the playing of anybody [Pg 173] else, not even the performance of a full orchestra in opera or in concert. I do not think that it is possible for me to improve. I have no pain in the ear, and the physicians agree that my disease is none of the familiar diseases of the ear, but something else, perhaps a paralysis of the nerves and the labyrinth. ”

“ At first, in a careless, thoughtless fashion, it had thrown a dead pig against it, then the corpse of a woman weighted with her dead babe; and now, having cast these away as unprofitable tools, it brought up, at great labour—a cottage piano. A piano is perhaps the heaviest and most cumbrous piece of furniture that the flood could have selected, and, on the whole, the best adapted to serve its purpose, as the deceased pig was the least. ”

“ But your interest will be in the tune rather than in the sound. You can’t limit the piano to the tunes that can be played upon it. You don’t treat a violin that way, nor an organ. And of course you can register a piano almost as fully as an organ with the “stops” that are in the ends of your fingers. ”

“ In the chapter "Baby's Early Care," the first stools were described in detail, and there we learned that the dark, tarry, meconium stools are quickly changed within a week to the normal canary-yellow stool, having the odor of sour milk.
The bottle-fed babies' stools differ somewhat in appearance; they are thicker and a lighter color, but should always be homogeneous if the food is well digested. They do not have nearly the number of bowel movements each day that the breast-fed baby does. If a bottle-fed baby's bowels move once a day and he seems perfectly well otherwise, we are satisfied. ”

“ Whenever a fat man comes to see me, he always sits on the smallest stool in the room. I have many fat friends, and many stools, but invariably the fattest man gravitates to the smallest stool.
The stools I like best for the drawing-room are the fine old ones, covered with needlework or brocade, but there are many simpler ones of plain wood with cane insets that are very good for other rooms. Then there are the long banquettes, or benches, which are so nice in drawing-rooms and hallways and nicest of all in a ballroom. Indeed, a ballroom needs no other movable furniture ”

“ By different processes the touch of the organ was made as delicate as that of the piano.
For some years the Swiss organ-makers have been inventing new facilities which make the organist a sort of magician. The manifold resources of the marvellous instrument are at his command, obedient to his slightest wish.
These resources are prodigious. The compass of the organ far surpasses that of all the instruments of the orchestra. The violin notes alone reach the same height, but with little carrying power. ”

“ Much of it applies with almost greater force to the organ than to the piano. Extemporising on the organ will frequently become an aimless, barless, rhythmless wandering among the keys to which no change of stops can give any interest. So much oratorio music is now sung in churches and in other places, where on account of the expense or from other reasons, an orchestra is unattainable, that the organ is often called upon, to supply the place of a full band. ”

“ Thus a stone at the neck of the bladder, if its stimulus is not very great, only induces the pain of strangury at the glans penis. If its stimulus be greater, it then induces pain at the neck of the bladder. The concretions of bile, which are protruded into the neck of the gall-bladder, when the disease is not very great, produce pain at the other extremity of the bile-duct, which enters the duodenum immediately under the pit of the stomach; but, when the disease is great from the largeness of the bile-stone, the pain is felt in the region of the liver at the neck of the gall-bladder. ”

“ Like the respiration, the alimentation ought to be watched by the singer. As much as possible during the process of digestion no violent or prolonged singing-exercise should be undertaken. Digestive troubles are often the cause of deterioration of the voice, either because the swelling and distension of the stomach by gas trammels the play of the diaphragm, and consequently that of the lungs, or because intestinal troubles bring on constipation or diarrhœa. ”

“ Even a large piano which has seen its best days does not seem to be altogether a cumberer of the ground where another equally bulky piece of furniture would be unendurable. But unless some member of the family has decided musical ability, the best use of a piano or organ in a home is to sustain the uncertain voices in singing. Home singing is almost a necessity even where no one sings very well. ”

“ For Constipation.—Take a small dose of salts or hunyadi water so as to have one semi-solid stool daily. If necessary remove any feces that may even then be retained, by injections of soap suds or warm water containing oil. Discontinue injections as soon as a daily full stool can be had without it.
Habits.—Full-blooded people should not use upholstered chairs as the heat of the body relaxes the tissues of the rectum. A cane seated chair is best or an air cushion with a hollow center. It is best to rest in bed, if possible, after stool for the rest relieves the congestion and soreness. ”

“ Too tight external sphincter (rectum) muscle, stricture, tumors, etc. Bending of the womb on the bowel.
Defective Worm-like Bowel Movement.—Irregular habits of living head the list causing this defective action. Everyone should promptly attend to Nature's call. Some people wait until the desire for stool has all gone, and in that way the "habit" of the bowels is gradually lost. Everyone should go to stool at a certain regular time each day, and at any other time when Nature calls. ”

“ In the early Sixteenth Century joint stools were used in every room. In the bedrooms they served the purposes of small tables and chairs as well. There are ever so many fine old walnut stools and the lower stools used for bed-steps to be bought in London shops that make a specialty of old English furniture, and reproductions of them may be bought in the better American shops. I often wonder why we do not see more bedside stools. They are so convenient, even though the bed be only moderately high from the floor. Many of mine are only six inches high, about the height of a fat floor cushion. ”