In Praise of the Quarter-Inch Phone Jack

I am blessed/cursed with a mind that tend to see things a bit differently. A good friend of mine who is a famous rock journalist (Hi Alan!) says that he can always count on me for an alternative, usually contrarian viewpoint. One of the ways my contrarian-ism manifests itself is with a fascination with things that many others find trivial or dull, musicologically speaking.

Like the ¼ inch phone jack:

The humble 1/4 inch phone jack; often seen, never thought about.

Connecting cables using the ¼ inch phone jack are ubiquitous; if you have ever seen any type of electrified music performed live, you've seen one. If you've plugged an electric guitar/electric bass, electric keyboard or anything else into an amplifier, you've used a quarter-inch phone jack cable. Pretty much every music store I've ever been in, except for those that specialise in antique instruments, sell them. Even if an electric guitar player is playing wirelessly, the transmitter still is connected to the guitar, and the receiver is connected to the amplifier, by ¼ inch jacks.

The design and nomenclature of the ¼ inch phone is mostly self-explanatory; “quarter inch” is the diameter (roughly) of the business end of the male connector and the hole it fits into. The term “¼ inch” is typically used the to differentiate the quarter-inch phone jack from other similar connectors of different sizes, such as the mini phone plug. “Phone” refers to the fact that these connectors were originally designed to connect phone calls on old-fashioned manual telephone switchboards. The term “jack” is a little bit more obscure; one of the early types of electrical switches was the bladed throw switch, in which a hinged metal blade with a handle at the end would complete an electrical circuit when pushed into a metal receiving clip. If you have seen old Frankenstein movies, you have seen the good doctor use these at the dramatic moment when he brings his monster to life (although in this case, they are double throw switches with a single handle). The old name for these switches was “jack-knife switch”, since the pivoting blade resembled the blade on a jack-knife. From there, temporary electrical connectors of any sort became known as “jacks”. The proper old-school name for the ¼ inch phone jack is TS (Tip, Sleeve) connector; the tip of the jack is the contact point for the hot (positive) lead, while the sleeve and casing is the (negative) ground. Stereo quarter inch phone jacks – typically used for stereo headphones – are known as TRS (Tip, Ring, Sleeve) connectors; a ring on the shaft of the jack between the tip and the sleeve is the contact for the second hot lead, allowing a stereo connection.

Phone jacks were invented in the late 19^th century and changed little since then. The most commonly known variety of ¼ inch phone jack is the one designed and marketed by the Switchcraft company in 1946 (shown above). Considering how ubiquitous they are as musical connectors today, it’s strange to consider that phone jacks were just one of many options available for connecting nascent electronic musical devices to amplifiers. The 1929 Stromberg-Voisinet Electro guitar and its associated variants (the first amplified instruments with a pickup to be marketed) used so-called “banana plug” connectors – which are smaller and somewhat less robust than phone plugs, as well as being generally un-banana like – in which each end of the connecting cable ended in two individual plugs, one for hot and one for ground. Lloyd Loar’s ViViTone instruments of the mid 1930s also use these connectors. The wood-bodied prototype of the Rickenbacker frying pan – the first electric guitar – used a screw-down bare-wire connector, of the type that radio hobbyists often employed. However, the aluminium-bodied production version of the Rickenbacker frying pan used quarter inch phone jacks up to connect the instrument to the amplifier. And with very few exceptions (Russian electric guitars made during the Soviet era used a five wire jack similar to a modern 7 pin MIDI connector – possibly to assure non-compatibility with western instruments), every electric guitar, everywhere, since that time has done the same.

Yet there is no particular reason that this should be – there are lots of ways of connecting electronic wires to electronic devices and few modern electronic devices use the same connectors they did in the 1930s. Yet for instrument-to-amplifier connections, the quarter inch phone jack has reigned supreme since 1932. If it seems not strange to you that it is possible to plug an electric guitar from 1932 into an amplifier made over 80 years later, consider the difficulties you would have in trying to charge your mobile phone with any other charger other than that provided by the manufacturer, in spite of the fact that all phone-chargers essentially function in the same way; Apple, for example, seems to make non-inter-functionality of its iPhone accessories inherent in the design. And speaking of power supplies, even mains-power (plug-into-the-wall type for my American readers) has changed greatly over the past 80 years in both the United States and United Kingdom. The US has gone from a two-pin socket (which back in the day would allow certain types of two-pin plugs to be connected in such a way as to reverse the electric device's polarity – which sometimes had dangerous results) to the modern three-pin grounded-type. Although uncommon now, you can still sometimes see the obsolete two-pin type in older houses. Up until the late 1960s, the UK had several competing electrical connection systems; it was common for electrical appliances to actually be sold without the wall plugs – after you purchased your device, you would then have to install the correct plug for use in your house. (A slight digression here, I have seen some of these older-type sockets in homes built in the 1920s and 30s, and for some reason, the sockets are located at waist height, rather than near the floor. The light switches in these houses were also mounted at the same height, which seems rather low to modern eyes.)

And the ¼ inch phone jack wasn’t just the standard for connecting instruments to amplifiers; synthesizers of the 1960s and 70s which used a patch bay-type system to enable signal circuitry (modern modular analog synthesizers use the same system), use these quarter-inch cables in a manner very reminiscent of their original function: directing signals in a telephone switchboard. However, it's not clear if their 1960s and 70s use was due to the telephone switchboard connection or the quarter-inch jack's by-then ubiquity in electric music.

Now I understand my obsession with quarter-inch phone jack cables may be a little strange. As an undergraduate I composed an art-music piece for six amplified quarter-inch phone jack cables; the musicians played the cables by touching the live tips of the phone jacks, producing the buzzing 50 cycle hum (which would be 60 cycle hum in the US) that’s familiar to any musician who was plugged something into an amplifier. By judiciously selecting the amplifiers used for the performance by the quality of their earthing ("grounding" in the US), it was possible to create a quite varied sound-world.

So why, has the quarter-inch phone jack remained the go-to connector for electric musical instruments for over 80 years? There are actually two ways to answer that question. The first is with reasons; phone jacks were easily available, they were robust, and they did the job in a simple and elegant fashion. There was no need to invent something else. The second reason is… no reason at all; they probably remain the standard, not because of a conscious decision made by a person or organisation, but the lack of a decision to change to something else – since it worked, no one thought about it, so there was no reason to change it. Although common and unpretentious, the quarter-inch phone jack still bears thinking about; it’s hard to overstate how vital ¼ inch phone jacks are as tools of the contemporary musician.

If electricity is the blood that drives modern music, quarter-inch phone jack cables are the veins that keep that music flowing.

In Praise of Peripheral Experience

I had dinner the other night with an old friend who was one of my lecturers at Napier University. I did my undergraduate degree there in composition (first class honours – thanks for asking). I was very lucky to study composition under Kenneth Dempster. Not only is he an excellent composer, he's an excellent teacher of composition – a rare combination. My experience at Napier was transformative; not only was I composing pieces from day one, there were many many opportunities for having the pieces performed. The program integrated student composers and student musicians in a way I have never heard of any place else doing. I was able to write pieces that ranged from string quartets to musique concrète. In my fourth year, I was able to put on an entire concert of my work, and for a final project was able to stage an opera I wrote with a 18 piece orchestra. I stopped composing when I graduated, both from a lack of time and a lack of outlets for the finished products.

At dinner my friend asked me if I felt my time at Napier as a composer was wasted, since now I am focused on organology. I told him no, quite the opposite. My experience as a composer has had a huge Impact on my development as an organologist, albeit a peripheral one; in order to compose idiomatically for an instrument, you have to really understand the instrument in the pretty much same way that the player does – tunings, fingerings, extended techniques, et cetera. Musicians can always tell when a composer really doesn't understand the instrument he is writing for. Another composition teacher I had once told me that in a very real way, a composer plays all the instruments in the pieces he or she writes.

The dinner conversation with my friend got me thinking later about how much of my training as an organologist was actually peripheral experience: Who knew that all those years playing in bands and horse-trading guitars was preparing me to write my Ph.D. thesis on the early electric guitar? Who knew that the music copying I did when a kid to pay for music lessons (hand copying – with a fountain pen on semi-transparent vellum paper – individual orchestral and big band parts from scores) was preparing me to analyse original manuscripts of late 16th century harpsichord music? Who knew that making all those RadioShack electronic kits when I was a kid, and talking to my dad about the crystal radios he made when he was a kid, was preparing me to research George Breed's electrified guitar design of 1890? Who knew that being a roadie and live sound engineer in my teens and twenties –  dealing with feedback, ground loops, and 60 cycle hum – would give me insight into the amplification problems faced by early electric guitarists? Who knew that buying, reading about and learning how to play every strange, obscure and wonderful instrument I could get my hands on, was preparing me to be a museum curator? I have had a very strange, circuitous route to get to where I am now, but curiously, when I look back, I see that all the ragtag eclecticism of my life has actually been the perfect training for what I do; there is no way I could have done my Ph.D. if I had gone the normal route. As they relate to organology, my musical experiences may have been peripheral – but they were still essential.

Who knew?

Random Organological Facts

Around the turn of the 19th century, the term "organology" was an alternative name for the pseudoscience of phrenology. Phrenologists believed that the bumps on a person's head were directly linked to particular personality traits and moral character. 

A440 Hz did not become the ISO (world) standard for pitch until 1955 (ISO 16). It was almost 439 Hz, but scientists complained because 439 is a prime number, which would make dividing the frequency awkward. Over the last few centuries European pitch standards have varied widely, even within the same city; it was not uncommon for a European city to have one pitch for church organs and music (often called "quire pitch" in Britain) and another for everything else. 

The French composer Jean-Baptiste Lully (1632 - 1687) died from an gangrenous infection caused by stabbing himself in the foot with his baton/staff while marking time during a performance.

"Catgut" strings, once used on violins, guitars and other stringed instruments (and still used on modern reproductions of historical instruments), were never made from the guts of actual cats. There were instead made from sheep's or goat's intestines. I have yet to to inform my own two cats of this fact; I do not want them to get complacent.

The Native American Water Drum

Native American water drum
with elaborate lacing typical of water drums
used in the Native American Church.

In honour of Thanksgiving Day, I think it's appropriate to have a Native American topic. Drums are an important and well known part of Native American/First Nations musical culture, and yet they feature a variety and subtlety that is not generally known or appreciated. I am not an expert on Native American/First Nations musical instruments, but, in my former position as Curator of North America at the Musical Instrument Museum in Phoenix, I developed and oversaw – with the help of the amazing team of consultants (thank you, Maria Williams!) – a number of exhibits of Native American/First Nations musical instruments; about a third of the gallery space and probably the largest such display in the world.

I think my favourite instrument in the gallery was the water drum. They were originally associated with the Iroquois (also known as the Haudenosaunee) and Ojibwe people, but the water drum has spread to many Native American communities, in a manner similar to the powwow drum, which was originally confined to Plains Native American groups (and northern plains at that), but is now used by practically all Native Americans/First Nations people. In recent times the water drum has become particularly associated with the Native American Church.

At first, the water drum doesn’t appear very impressive; it looks a lot like many other small, hand-held, single headed drums played with a beater. North-eastern Native American water drums are traditionally made from wood, typically a hollowed-out log, and topped with a tanned-hide playing head. But amongst different peoples, there is a wide variance in materials, with clay pots and small cast-iron kettles and other re-purposed objects being used; I was told by more than one person that the sawn-off bottom of an oxygen tank made the perfect body for a water drum. The head is attached to the body either by lacing or a pressure fitted rim (typically wrapped in strips of cloth to more evenly distribute the tightening pressure). The lacing designs on water drums used in the Native American church can be quite elaborate and beautiful. But what makes the water drum different is, surprise, water. The instrument is played with the hide drumhead thoroughly wet. The drum itself is filled with a small quantity of water, which allows the player to modify the sound as he (and as far as I’m aware, it is almost always a he) tilts the drum at various angles while playing. The resulting sound is like no other drum; a wavering, continuously pitch-shifting, piccolo timpani. The effect is quite subtle, and is best appreciated close-up. Although water has no set form (other than the container it is in), it is actually quite hard and dense (think of the pain of a belly-flop dive), making it a good reflector of sound.

There are other instruments in the world with the name “water drum” that should not be confused with the Native American water drum; two that spring to mind are an African instrument consisting of an upturned gourd sitting in a larger water-filled gourd and an instrument from Oceania that consists of a large upright log handled by two people which is used to strike the surface of water. Metal and/or ceramic bowls filled with water, often moved or tilted for a pitch-shifting effect, are sometimes called water drums as well.

The Native American water drum perfectly embodies the adaption/adoption principle found in musical instrument dissemination the world over; an instrument designed and used in one place, spreads to and gets adopted by other peoples, with its construction and playing technique correspondingly adapted and changed for local conditions and traditions. In terms of organological classification, I believe the water drum may possibly be the only example of a hydro-membranophone, a category of instrument which, if it didn’t exist, would certainly need to be invented.

Almost Famous on the Octobasse

A good friend and fellow organologist Dr. Eleanora Smith sent me a link to a ClassicFM web article on quote-unquote strange instruments. That's me in the first photograph playing the octobasse. It looks like that photo was a still from this video vignette that the Arizona Republic made on the octobasse back when I was a curator at the MIM. Just for fun, I googled "octobasse" and lots of YouTube videos of me giving demonstrations on it turned up.

I'm almost famous on the octobasse.

Man vs. bass.

Welcome to the Organology Blog.

Welcome to the organology blog! My name is Matthew Hill and I am an organologist, that is, somebody who studies musical instruments. That's actually a bit of an understatement; I'm a bit obsessed with musical instruments – I read about them, I write about them, I examine them, I measure them, I photograph them, I appraise them, I talk about them (a lot, often to the annoyance of my friends), I think about them (even more than I talk about them).

Oh, I even play one or two. Or 50. Some of them competently. All of them professionally.

I have a website: www.organology.org that tells a bit more about me and my research. I'm interested in all types of musical instruments but I tend to concentrate on electric instruments of the 20th century, particularly electric guitars and their variants. I will be using this blog to think out loud (even though words on the screen are actually pretty silent) about musical instruments and related topics. It is anything you see here that interests you, please feel free to comment, or email me at matthew@organology.org.