MEGAPSALTERION

IVOR DARREG

Recently I have received a good many inquiries about my tape made a few years ago, where I feature a composition called Megapsalterion. People want to know how it was made, and whether it had anything to do with a harpsichord. Not really, although "megapsalterion" would be a perfectly correct and appropriate name for a harpsichord, and I have no objections or misgivings whatever if someone wishes to use that word for that purpose.

Other persons got it mixed up with my 7-octave keyboard instrument of 1940, now no longer existing except for tape recordings, the Amplifying Clavichord--the only connection there was that I used the frame of my amplifying clavichord when the keyboard was removed for rebuilding, and when I had restrung it but had not woven the muting-felt strips between the strings to serve as a clavichord's automatic dampers. Thus I had a Giant Psaltery or plucked-string instrument, with 158 strings, in a large 34-foot livingroom with natural reverberation, so I improvised on it and recorded it on tape in stereo.

The favorable reactions lately to new copies of that tape indicate that somebody might be able to build a Megapsalterion for themselves, or have this done by some craftspersons they might be able to engage.

Accordingly, I am willing to make information available or be a consultant if someone is serious enough about it. And copies of this and related tapes will continue to be available.

At my advanced age I cannot drop all the many things I have to do and enter on such projects myself. But why not let others do it? No problem.

Another topic that has come up lately is a composition called "MEGAPSALTERION" that I recorded about 1972 after stripping down the Amplifying Clavichord mentioned above and then making some changes, cleaning the frame, and putting on 158 new strings, but hearing a very novel effect from them -- they reverberated even though there was no soundingboard and I had not put the strips of muting-felt in, so the entire length of all strings was free to vibrate--and moreover, to respond sympathetically to any other strings on that huge frame, of their own choosing.

I decided to interrupt the rebuilding of the clavichord and the making and fitting of the tangents on the key-levers and the re-installation of the keys until I could conduct some experiments which Fate was allowing me. No muffling felt strips; no keyboard; and the new pickups hadn't even been wound. So I did not tune it as a clavichord yet since it was not a clavichord at all at the moment: it was a Giant Psaltery--or a Hammer-dulcimer if you wanted to play it that way--or the world's biggest steel guitar, perhaps. (I sure croggled the Purists and the Snobs and the Musical Establishment Bigwigs when I defined the clavichord as "a steel guitar with a keyboard"--they got Real Mad) -- now what was this intermediate, rebuilding stage of this 8-foot frame with 158 new strings on it? I needed some kind of international technical name that would be acceptable in different languages. Greek derivation is the usual method of concocting international terms of this kind. So Giant Psaltery = Megapsalterion.

megajalterion

Next question: How should I tune the thing? Leave it random and haphazard as was the fashion in avant-garde circles at the time? No, that would not elicit much sympathetic vibration nor resonance. It had to be more orderly: Not the final pitches it must have as a clavichord either -- the strings had to be lower in pitch because of all the extra length required for the felt strips and Automatic Damping Function. Time for a little thought. --How about a Harmonic Series? Put consecutive strings in unison to allow for their graduated lengths and decide on some starting-note.

The choice after sleeping on it was Subcontra F, 22 hertz, the F just below the lowest A on the standard piano keyboard. Then the harmonics, 44, 66, 88, a few strings to each, all the way up to the 23rd harmonic of 506 hertz, since the strings for the topmost notes had quite a percentage of their length involved in the muting and beyond-the-bridges area (just as has to be done in pianos and harpsichords).

It stayed that way for a little while -- a fortnight or so. How to play it? Remember it wasn't amplified in that condition -- it rested on a table and two microphones for stereo were placed at diagonally-opposite corners of the frame so it could be recorded.

Wait for quiet enough time of day, get out various kinds of plectra, try the fingers; then little wooden hammers and rubber mallets and so on. Then a long heavy steel rod about 16 inches and another rod even longer -- lay the rod like a bar for a steel guitar across many strings to get a harmonic series, or part of a series which can be on any note you like, no need to stay with the low F.

Opportunity here and now to get critical: too many just-intonation fans who build some instrument that is capable of only ONE SINGLE HARMONIC SERIES and they proceed to bore everyone else to tears and do quite a bit of harm to the cause of Just Intonation. The builder of such an instrument has the patience to endure one set of notes and that only forever, but your potential listeners and newcomers do not! Provide several harmonic series by any of various means before you turn them off.

Please don't lock yourself into a limited series of notes! This is happening all too often now, as newcomers learn of new tunings, pick just one such, at just one pitch, and then find themselves trapped.

The long sliding bar mentioned above is necessary if you are going to avoid this unpleasant outcome.

Before finishing off the experiment and putting in the muting-felt strips and resuming the making and fitting of tangents on the keys of the clavichord, I did another experiment: various kinds of strikers and beaters on the steel frame) then exciting the longest strings longitudinally, which meant a very high pitch from those long strings. They excited sympathetic vibrations in all the other strings that were related to them, reverberating back and forth. A most unusual effect, captured in the tape recordings, fortunately.

Once it was verified that the tape did record these unique effects, the instrument was reverted to the clavichord scheme and construction proceeded. Alas! That dreadful forced move on short notice and having to put the clavichord, half-rebuilt, in storage, then losing it.

--Not because anything was wrong with the Amplifying Clavichord Idea or the music that can be played on one. Not because anything is wrong with the NEGAPSALTERION idea either. Simply a matter of having no floor space and not being able to get any again later.

Surely you will be wondering, though, Why bring up this 1969-to-1973 affair in my 1990 Report?

1) Because, unbeknownst to me, there has been some circulation of ideas and information from my early publications resulting just now in brand-new inquiries and interest in these instrumerts and the sounds they could make. 2) Because there were no good means of communication and networking among interested persons widely separated in distant cities, 20 years ago; but there are now. 3) Because after all the decades of research and development that I have put in, and my advanced age, it would be a shame to let it perish in silence, when so many other peoplo could use it. 4) Because of the astounding recent developments in synthesis, sampling, amplification, and recording, which make it possible for many persons to enjoy these effects without having to do it the Old Hard Uay. Alternatives now exist, but you have to know, Alternatives to WHAT? and Why Bother? and why are these ideas worth the trouble of investigating them? Some groups and institutions and reseachers would have the means and the floor space and opportunities to build and use an amplifying clavichord such as described above, and will want the information. 5) The Megapsalterion just described, would interest even more persons, because it would be much easier to build and cost less.

One way of using a Megapsalterion that comes to mind is: a recording studio could have it as a "prop" to attract customers. Either in the waiting-room to try things out before sessions, or in the studio proper to record many novel effects; or why not BOTH?

Before quitting the subject, the name Megapsalterion may have been misunderstood by some readers of my publications a while back: for this name could have been applied to an amplifying harpsichord or some improvement upon such. That would be a perfectly appropriate and correct use of the name, so no objections on my part, so long as it is clear here in this Report what I meant. Anyway, some people seem to have supposed that it meant I had engaged in building amplifying harpsichords. No, I didn't have the time nor resources. I used the name Megapsalterion for two things: 1) the intermediate stage in rebuilding the amplifying clavichord when it was temporarily Something Else very different and excitingly so; 2) the Compositions recorded on it while in that tuning and condition therefore the tape recordings thus produced.

The results obtained back then with the Megapsalterion led me to design and construct the Megalyra Group of instruments.

More information on those is available in my other publications. Also, copies of Megapsalterion and Megalyra instrument tapes are available. I am co-operating with the Interval Foundation of San Diego, California and with other groups and individuals elsewhere, about these various instruments and ideas.

Mailing address: Ivor Darreg, 3612 Polk Avenue, San Diego CA 92104 and the phone is (619) 284-7075.

If I can get agents or collaborators or other interested parties to take over the Megapsalterion, Negalyra-Group, Amplifying Clavichord. Amplifying Harpsichord, and other projects, I will put out a list or pamphlet so that you can reach them directly.