What about a rock on a long lute string? Vincenzo and his sons (Michelangelo and Galileo Galilei) are said to have been dangling a lute string from the Leaning Tower of Pisa to test the tensile strength of lute strings, when Galileo discovered the principle of the pendulum. After his death, a proposal was found in bhis papers to use the pendulum principle marking time in music 200 years before Maezel (who stole the idea for his metronome).
----- Original Message ----- From: "Herbert Ward" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <lute@cs.dartmouth.edu> Sent: Friday, November 03, 2006 11:54 AM Subject: [LUTE] Historical metronomes. > > A rock on a string makes a fine metronome. > The tempo does not depend on the rock's weight. > Nor does it change as the oscillations gradually > die down. It depends only on the string length: > MM 36 26 inches > MM 81 6 inches > > So, historical scores could have indicated tempo > with a length, say "quarter note = 12 inches". > > However, using Google, I find no reference to a rock > and string being used historically as a metronome. > > Perhaps their musicality was so innate that the > idea would never occur to them? > > > > To get on or off this list see list information at > http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html >
