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Note of a Case of Early Appreciation of Musical Pitch
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 15 September 2014
Extract
A boy has recently come under my observation in whom the appreciation of pitch is developed at so early an age and with so remarkable a degree of accuracy as to justify a record being made of the case.
His name is John Baptist Toner. He was born on 11th June 1891, so that he is now a little more than four and a half years of age. He is a fine healthy-looking boy. His parents, who are young, are both musical. The mother sings and has a keen appreciation of music. The father plays on both the piano and the organ, has all his life taken much interest in music, and has studied the theory of the art. So far as can be discovered, neither the grandparents, nor any member of collateral branches of the family, were distinguished by musical ability.
Since he was two years of age, the boy has had access to a piano, and he seems to find pleasure in fingering the keys. During the last week of 1895, his father first taught him the names of the notes on the piano, and he says that his little boy picked up this information with astonishing rapidity. He acquired the names of the white keys in two or three minutes, in his first lesson, and the names of the black keys were acquired on the following day in an equally short period of time. Since that date, he has not forgotten the names of the notes, and when any note is sounded, by striking a key on the piano, he invariably can tell the name of the note, simply after hearing the sound, and without seeing the key struck.
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- Copyright © Royal Society of Edinburgh 1897
References
page 41 note * The middle c of the pianoforto is c′, or Ut3, in French notation.
page 43 note * See an article on Amusic (musikalische aphasie) by Edgren, J. G. (Stockholm), in Deutsche Zeitschrift für Nervenheilkunde, 1895Google Scholar. The following quotation is of interest: “Bei einer grossen Anzahl von Kindern entstehen die Tonbilder vor den Wortbildern, und viele singen, ehe sie sprechen. Bei einigen organisiren sich die Tonbilder mit erstaunlicher Leichtigkeit. Reyer berichtet über ein 9 Monate altes Kind, das die auf dem Klavier angeschlagenen Noten genau wiederholte. Stumpf's Kind sang die scala exact im Alter von 14 Monaten. Der Sohn eines componisten, Dvořák aus Prag, sang, als er ein Jahr alt war, den Fantinitzamarsch mit seiner Amme. In Alter von 1½ Jahr sang er die Melodien seines Vaters, welche dieser auf dem Klavier begleitete.”