Every time I work on a postwar tender I always wondered what were the two musical notes used in the plastic whistle shell of a 2046W. I know that seems really odd, but being a musician I felt "compelled" to figure it out.
So over the weekend I was cleaning up a 2046W and tested out each air hole individually matching it to the same note on my piano. The lower note is a D6 while the higher note is a G6. When these two notes are combined, the harmony they create is called a Perfect Fourth. The word perfect is used, from early music, as describing a sound that is "pure" and "simple". It is not considered "major" or "minor." Composers in the Middle Ages and early Renaissance who wrote for the church were "encouraged" to use this interval in their compositions. However, if the D6 was changed to a D-flat 6 or the G6 was changed to a G-sharp 6, it would create an interval known as a "tritone" which was absolutely forbidden in early music because its harsh sound could "invoke the devil!"
After this discovery, I wondered how the folks at Lionel came about using these two notes for their whistles. Was a musician brought in to play some samples on an instrument? Did a factory worker just start carving out holes in the plastic until he found a "pure" and "simple" sound? Or did they base it off a sound heard somewhere, perhaps at a merry-go-round calliope?
Thanks for humoring me by reading this post as I "geek out"! LOL
Greg
