Musicae practicae.

Books with Movable Devices in Music Dissemination: A Research Projec (Part II)

Abstract

The article describes and analyses six historical sources on music teaching published in France in the first thirty years of the nineteenth century: five volumes with paper-based content and mobile devices, plus a board game. The focus of all six sources is the Meloplaste, an interactive instrument for teaching to sing invented by Pierre Galin and perfected by Édouard Jue (who associates it with the use of two volvelle: the Sphère Harmonique and the Tableau des Modulations). Geslin, who was more attentive to popular and traditional chant and chanson, proposed a publication that was not very usable but curious, and invented a ‘parlour game’ useful for inventing catchy melodies. Pierre Galin is the Maestro who describe a personal teaching experience started with musically illiterate children in the French provinces and developed in Paris as a trainer of future music teachers. Jue and Geslin are two of the most innovative, though least known, Parisian students. The study of sources has led to the historical reconstruction of a particularly lively environment, focusing on learning, influenced by the theories of J.J. Rousseau and J.B. Fourier, as evidenced in the pages of the weekly magazine “La Réforme musicale: journal des doctrines de l'École Galin-Paris-Chevé”. Analytical sheets describing the characteristics and functioning of the devices have been prepared and provided with QR codes.