Johann Scheibler

Johann Heinrich Scheibler (11 November 1777 – 20 January 1837) was a silk manufacturer from Crefeld, Prussia, without a scientific background, who went on to make contributions to the science of acoustics as a self taught musicologist.

[1] He made a "tonometer" (German: Tonmesser) from 56 tuning forks as an instrument for accurately measuring pitch by counting beating, described in 1834.

"[5] 'The physical and musical Tonometer, which makes evident to the eye, by means of the pendulum [metronome], the absolute vibrations of the tones, and of the principal kinds of combinational tones, as well as the most precise exactness of equally tempered and mathematical chords, invented and executed by Heinrich Scheibler, silk manufacturer in Crefeld.

Thus, for example, [in 1816] Johann Heinrich Scheibler was able to mount up to ten mouth harps on a support disc.

Each mouth harp was tuned to different basic tones, which made even chromatic sequences possible.His writings include: