The
compass was limited to fundamental notes, and from the cylindrical
tube and reed was an octave lower in pitch than the length would show.
In all these instruments provision was made in the holes and keys for
transposition of the hands according to the player's habit of placing
the right or left hand above the other. The unused hole was stopped
with wax. There is a fine and complete set of four cromornes in the
museum of the Conservatoire at Brussels.
We must also place among double-reed instruments the various bagpipes,
cornemuses, and musettes, which are shawm or oboe instruments with
reservoirs of air, and furnished with drones inclosing single reeds. I
shall have more to say about the drone in the third lecture. In
restricting our attention to the Highland bagpipe, with which we are
more or less familiar, it is surprising to find the peculiar scale of
the chaunter, or finger pipe, in an old Arabic scale, still prevailing
in Syria and Egypt. Dr. A.J. Ellis' lecture on "The Musical Scales of
Various Nations," read before the Society of Arts, and printed in the
_Journal_ of the Society, March 27, 1885, No. 1688, vol. xxxiii., and
in an appendix, October 30, 1885, in the same volume, should be
consulted by any one who wishes to know more about this curious
similarity.
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