s of the production
of sound by electrical means, it struck me that the principle of
vibrating a tuning fork by the intermittent attraction of an
electro-magnet might be applied to the electrical production of music.

I imagined to myself a series of tuning forks of different pitches,
arranged to vibrate automatically in the manner shown by Helmholtz--each
fork interrupting, at every vibration, a voltaic current--and the
thought occurred, Why should not the depression of a key like that of a
piano direct the interrupted current from any one of these forks,
through a telegraph wire, to a series of electro-magnets operating the
strings of a piano or other musical instrument, in which case a person
might play the tuning fork piano in one place and the music be audible
from the electro-magnetic piano in a distant city.

The more I reflected upon this arrangement the more feasible did it seem
to me; indeed, I saw no reason why the depression of a number of keys at
the tuning fork end of the circuit should not be followed by the audible
production of a full chord from the piano in the distant city, each
tuning fork affecting at the receiving end that string of the piano with
which it was in unison. At this time the interest which I felt in
electricity led me to study the various systems of telegraphy in use in
this country and in America. I was much struck with the simplicity of
the Morse alphabet, and with the fact that it could be read by sound.
Instead of having the dots and dashes recorded on paper, the operators
were in the habit of observing the duration of the click of the
instruments, and in this way were enabled to distinguish by ear the
various signals.

It struck me that in a similar manner the duration of a musical note
might be made to represent the dot or dash of the telegraph code, so
that a person might operate one of the keys of the tuning fork piano
referred to above, and the duration of the sound proceeding from the
corresponding string of the distant piano be observed by an operator
stationed there. It seemed to me that in this way a number of distinct
telegraph messages might be sent simultaneously from the tuning fork
piano to the other end of the circuit by operators, each manipulating a
different key of the instrument. These messages would be read by
operators stationed at the distant piano, each receiving operator
listening for signals for a certain definite pitch, and ignoring all
others. In this