Piano Harmonica
The J. B. Cramer & Co. firm was known for its reed organs and harmoniums. However, this innovative instrument uses a grand piano action to strike metal tongues to produce sound, instead of the strings found inside of a piano.
Walnut case held together with large screws, rectangular when viewed from above, without legs or stand, enclosing a keyboard (compass 61 keys, ivory naturals, ebony accidentals) that controls a simple English grand piano action whose felted hammers, extending forward toward the player, strike thin steel tongues; these tongues are graduated in length and width and are screwed at the back end to a metal bar that extends beneath a removable wood panel; panel, bar, and tongues can be removed as one unit, and are mounted above the piano action in a raised portion of the case, covered by a hinged lid and fronted with a cloth-backed fret-work panel; the keyboard is covered by a fallborad holding a hinged music rack, below which is the nameboard; no damper mechanism or resonators. (Laurence Libin 4 Oct. 77)
Walnut case held together with large screws, rectangular when viewed from above, without legs or stand, enclosing a keyboard (compass 61 keys, ivory naturals, ebony accidentals) that controls a simple English grand piano action whose felted hammers, extending forward toward the player, strike thin steel tongues; these tongues are graduated in length and width and are screwed at the back end to a metal bar that extends beneath a removable wood panel; panel, bar, and tongues can be removed as one unit, and are mounted above the piano action in a raised portion of the case, covered by a hinged lid and fronted with a cloth-backed fret-work panel; the keyboard is covered by a fallborad holding a hinged music rack, below which is the nameboard; no damper mechanism or resonators. (Laurence Libin 4 Oct. 77)
Artwork Details
- Title: Piano Harmonica
- Maker: J. B. Cramer & Co.
- Date: ca. 1870–96
- Geography: London, England, United Kingdom
- Culture: British
- Medium: Wood, various materials
- Dimensions: L. (perpendicular to keyboard) 44.6 cm. (not including lid); 45.5 cm (w. lid); W. (parallel to keyboard) 91.1 (not including lid), 93.9 (w. lid); D. 22.2 (w. lid), 20.6 (without lid)
- Classification: Idiophone-Struck-bar-metal
- Credit Line: The Crosby Brown Collection of Musical Instruments, 1889
- Object Number: 89.4.1201
- Curatorial Department: Musical Instruments
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