FPA 147 00 - 1 
Lecture 5: Early Electronic Music Instruments
 

 

"Electric Harpsicord"

1761

Earliest musical device to use electricity

 

 "Galvanic music" 1837

Dr. Page,Salem Mass.,

purely electrical sound generation:
coils close to magnets induce a tone related to the number of turns in the coils "Singing arc" 1899

William Dudel,

carbon arc whistles modulated with an electrical coil & capacitor. A keyboard was added later. "Telharmonium" 1906

Thaddeus Cahill, New York

Large (several box cars, 200 tons in weight) instrument using large spinning turbines; specifically cogged wheels that induced a frequency related to the number of poles and the speed. Each turbine had an integer multiple of the cogs on it so each harmonic was available for mixing to create the different timbres. Since there was no means as yet for electrical amplification, the individual turbines (there was 5 octaves worth driven by a 200 hp motor) were mixed in large iron core transformers. The instrument was controlled by a thirty-six note per octave keyboard which was difficult for one performer to play. The sound was distributed to subscribers over the phone system. "Theremin" 1919

Leo Theremin, Soviet Union

A device with two sensors or antenna: One for amplitude and the other for pitch "Automated Musical Instrument" 1929

E. Coulpeus, J Givelet

Used perforated paper rolls to control 4 oscillators Trautonium 1928

Friedrich Trautwein

Trautwein & Paul Hindemith founded a studio in Berlin. Trautonium was developed by Oskar Scala into the Mixturtrautonium which was used in 1962 for the soundtrack to Alfred Hitchcock's "The Birds". Ondes Martineau 1928

Maurice Martenot

An expressive and subtle instrument, still in use today. Right hand selects pitch with a continuous controller, left hand controls envelope and timbre. Used speaker selection as a timbral element. Hammond Organ 1930's

Laurens Hammond

First successful, commercial, electronic instrument. Essentially a mini-Telharmonium Optical Soundtracks 1925 - 1980s

Variety of artists drew, etched and otherwise created images on the optical sound strip of 16 and 35 mm film. These were read as sound by the optical sound head of the projector. Of note: John and James Whitney (US) and Norman McLaren, Canada.

 The Sackbut 1945-48

High LeCaine

Developed at the National Research Centre in Ottawa. 20 years ahead of its time. Featured a touch - sensitive keyboard (volume and pitch) as well as a sophisticated joy-stick timbre control. The RCA Synthesizer 1950s Developed in collaboration with several composers. Used predominantly by Milton Babbitt. Moog Voltage Control synthesizer 1960s

Robert Moog and Harold Bode

First inventors to put a variety of studio devices into one package. Use of voltage to control various parameters and the introduction of a familiar clavier style keyboard made it popular. A Voltage Controlled Modular Synthesizer. Despite the visual suggestion of the keyboard, the MOOG was monophonic. Buchla Voltage Control synthesizer 1960s

Donald Buchla

More innovative than the Moog but less accessible for the average musician. The West coast influence (Moog was from New York). Prophet 5 by Sequential Circuits 1970s The development of integrated circuits and simple analogue memory allowed for storage of "patches" or module settings. Could play 5 notes at once (hence the name). This polyphony was liberating and coupled with the timbral flexibility in performance made this a very popular instrument. EMU (Sampler) 1970s First reasonably affordable "sampler". MIDI synthesizers Yamaha DX7 John Chowning FM synthesis. First truly digital synthesizer. First widely released MIDI synthesizer. Watershed for the industry and composers in both the pop and serious music worlds. Mirage Sampler First inexpensive digital sampler. Full 64k of RAM ! Made sampling affordable and thus ubequitous. Various Some current systems: etc.