Misplaced Pages

#910089

104-542: The launch party for the product in 1999 was announced with a recorded CD invitation that was featured in Entertainment Weekly magazine as one of the best party invitations of the year. This article relating to electronic musical instruments is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . This product article is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Electronic musical instrument An electronic musical instrument or electrophone

208-549: A light pen . The Synclavier from New England Digital was a similar system. Jon Appleton (with Jones and Alonso) invented the Dartmouth Digital Synthesizer, later to become the New England Digital Corp's Synclavier. The Kurzweil K250 , first produced in 1983, was also a successful polyphonic digital music synthesizer, noted for its ability to reproduce several instruments synchronously and having

312-470: A paper tape sequencer punched with holes to control pitch sources and filters, similar to a mechanical player piano but capable of generating a wide variety of sounds. The vacuum tube system had to be patched to create timbres. In the 1960s synthesizers were still usually confined to studios due to their size. They were usually modular in design, their stand-alone signal sources and processors connected with patch cords or by other means and controlled by

416-871: A pipe organ for church music, musicians soon discovered that the Hammond was an excellent instrument for blues and jazz ; indeed, an entire genre of music developed built around this instrument, known as the organ trio (typically Hammond organ, drums, and a third instrument, either saxophone or guitar). The first commercially manufactured synthesizer was the Novachord , built by the Hammond Organ Company from 1938 to 1942, which offered 72-note polyphony using 12 oscillators driving monostable -based divide-down circuits, basic envelope control and resonant low-pass filters . The instrument featured 163 vacuum tubes and weighed 500 pounds. The instrument's use of envelope control

520-559: A common controlling device. Harald Bode , Don Buchla , Hugh Le Caine , Raymond Scott and Paul Ketoff were among the first to build such instruments, in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Buchla later produced a commercial modular synthesizer, the Buchla Music Easel . Robert Moog , who had been a student of Peter Mauzey and one of the RCA Mark II engineers, created a synthesizer that could reasonably be used by musicians, designing

624-451: A first for pop music. Although credited with a "Thereman" [ sic ] on the track "Mysterons" from the album Dummy , Portishead actually used a monophonic synthesizer to achieve theremin-like effects, as confirmed by Adrian Utley , who is credited as playing the instrument; on the songs "Half Day Closing", "Humming", "The Rip", and "Machine Gun" he has actually used a custom-made theremin. Page McConnell , keyboardist of

728-561: A group in his own classification system, which is closer to Mahillon than Sachs-Hornbostel. For example, in Galpin's 1937 book A Textbook of European Musical Instruments , he lists electrophones with three second-level divisions for sound generation ("by oscillation", "electro-magnetic", and "electro-static"), as well as third-level and fourth-level categories based on the control method. Present-day ethnomusicologists , such as Margaret Kartomi and Terry Ellingson, suggest that, in keeping with

832-521: A group of musicians and music merchants met to standardize an interface by which new instruments could communicate control instructions with other instruments and the prevalent microcomputer. This standard was dubbed MIDI ( Musical Instrument Digital Interface ). A paper was authored by Dave Smith of Sequential Circuits and proposed to the Audio Engineering Society in 1981. Then, in August 1983,

936-459: A keyboard instrument of over 700 strings, electrified temporarily to enhance sonic qualities. The clavecin électrique was a keyboard instrument with plectra (picks) activated electrically. However, neither instrument used electricity as a sound source. The first electric synthesizer was invented in 1876 by Elisha Gray . The "Musical Telegraph" was a chance by-product of his telephone technology when Gray discovered that he could control sound from

1040-498: A microprocessor as a controller, was the Sequential Circuits Prophet-5 introduced in late 1977. For the first time, musicians had a practical polyphonic synthesizer that could save all knob settings in computer memory and recall them at the touch of a button. The Prophet-5's design paradigm became a new standard, slowly pushing out more complex and recondite modular designs. In 1935, another significant development

1144-460: A mouthpiece. The sound processing is done on a separate computer. The AlphaSphere is a spherical instrument that consists of 48 tactile pads that respond to pressure as well as touch. Custom software allows the pads to be indefinitely programmed individually or by groups in terms of function, note, and pressure parameter among many other settings. The primary concept of the AlphaSphere is to increase

SECTION 10

#1732854639911

1248-434: A near linear region of pitch field can be created over the central two or three octaves of operation. Using optimized pitch field linearisation, circuits can be made where a change in capacitance between the performer and the instrument in the order of 0.01 picofarads produces a full octave of frequency shift. The mixer produces the audio-range difference between the frequencies of the two oscillators at each moment, which

1352-421: A niche interest in the theremin persisted, mostly among electronics enthusiasts and kit-building hobbyists. One of these electronics enthusiasts, Robert Moog , began building theremins in the 1950s, while he was a high-school student. Moog subsequently published a number of articles about building theremins, and sold theremin kits that were intended to be assembled by the customer. Moog credited what he learned from

1456-575: A non-standard scale, Bertrand's Dynaphone could produce octaves and perfect fifths, while the Emicon was an American, keyboard-controlled instrument constructed in 1930 and the German Hellertion combined four instruments to produce chords. Three Russian instruments also appeared, Oubouhof's Croix Sonore (1934), Ivor Darreg 's microtonal 'Electronic Keyboard Oboe' (1937) and the ANS synthesizer , constructed by

1560-524: A novel experience in playing relative to operating a mechanically linked piano keyboard. All electronic musical instruments can be viewed as a subset of audio signal processing applications. Simple electronic musical instruments are sometimes called sound effects ; the border between sound effects and actual musical instruments is often unclear. In the 21st century, electronic musical instruments are now widely used in most styles of music. In popular music styles such as electronic dance music , almost all of

1664-513: A process of chance short-circuiting, creating experimental electronic instruments, exploring sonic elements mainly of timbre and with less regard to pitch or rhythm, and influenced by John Cage ’s aleatoric music concept. Theremin The theremin ( / ˈ θ ɛr əm ɪ n / ; originally known as the ætherphone , etherphone , thereminophone or termenvox / thereminvox ) is an electronic musical instrument controlled without physical contact by

1768-403: A repeating loop of adjustable length, set to any tempo, and new loops of sound can be layered on top of existing ones. This lends itself to electronic dance-music but is more limited for controlled sequences of notes, as the pad on a regular Kaossilator is featureless. The Eigenharp is a large instrument resembling a bassoon , which can be interacted with through big buttons, a drum sequencer and

1872-423: A self-vibrating electromagnetic circuit and so invented a basic oscillator . The Musical Telegraph used steel reeds oscillated by electromagnets and transmitted over a telephone line. Gray also built a simple loudspeaker device into later models, which consisted of a diaphragm vibrating in a magnetic field. A significant invention, which later had a profound effect on electronic music, was the audion in 1906. This

1976-543: A separate triggering signal. This standardization allowed synthesizers from different manufacturers to operate simultaneously. Pitch control was usually performed either with an organ-style keyboard or a music sequencer producing a timed series of control voltages. During the late 1960s hundreds of popular recordings used Moog synthesizers. Other early commercial synthesizer manufacturers included ARP , who also started with modular synthesizers before producing all-in-one instruments, and British firm EMS . In 1970, Moog designed

2080-443: A set of parameters. Xenakis used graph paper and a ruler to aid in calculating the velocity trajectories of glissando for his orchestral composition Metastasis (1953–54), but later turned to the use of computers to compose pieces like ST/4 for string quartet and ST/48 for orchestra (both 1962). The impact of computers continued in 1956. Lejaren Hiller and Leonard Issacson composed Illiac Suite for string quartet ,

2184-612: A showcase for artists who perform or create music with new electronic music instruments, controllers, and synthesizers. In musicology, electronic musical instruments are known as electrophones. Electrophones are the fifth category of musical instrument under the Hornbostel-Sachs system. Musicologists typically only classify music as electrophones if the sound is initially produced by electricity, excluding electronically controlled acoustic instruments such as pipe organs and amplified instruments such as electric guitars . The category

SECTION 20

#1732854639911

2288-419: A slightly higher resonant frequency. When a hand approaches the antenna, the natural frequency of that circuit is lowered by the extra capacitance, which detunes the oscillator and lowers its resonant plate current. In the earliest theremins, the radio frequency plate current of the oscillator is picked up by another winding and used to power the filament of another diode-connected triode , which thus acts as

2392-412: A sound. However, it is increasingly common to separate user interface and sound-generating functions into a music controller ( input device ) and a music synthesizer , respectively, with the two devices communicating through a musical performance description language such as MIDI or Open Sound Control . The solid state nature of electronic keyboards also offers differing "feel" and "response", offering

2496-410: A steel guitar and a piccolo trumpet in unison in the solo interlude, but for this performance, thereminist Rob Schwimmer played the solo. Russian composer Dmitri Shostakovich was one of the first to incorporate parts for the theremin in orchestral pieces , including a use in his score for the film Odna ( Russian : Одна , 1931, Leonid Trauberg and Grigori Kozintsev ). While the theremin

2600-535: A time. Popular monophonic synthesizers include the Moog Minimoog . A few, such as the Moog Sonic Six, ARP Odyssey and EML 101, could produce two different pitches at a time when two keys were pressed. Polyphony (multiple simultaneous tones, which enables chords ) was only obtainable with electronic organ designs at first. Popular electronic keyboards combining organ circuits with synthesizer processing included

2704-424: A variable conductance element changing the output amplitude. The harmonic timbre of the output, not being a pure tone, was an important feature of the theremin. Theremin's original design included audio frequency series/parallel LC formant filters as well as a 3-winding variable-saturation transformer to control or induce harmonics in the audio output. Modern circuit designs often simplify this circuit and avoid

2808-471: A variation of the theremin (pitch antenna only) during performances of " Whole Lotta Love " and " No Quarter " throughout the performance history of Led Zeppelin, an extended multi-instrumental solo featuring theremin and bowed guitar in 1977, as well as the soundtrack for Death Wish II , released in 1982. Brian Jones of the Rolling Stones also used the instrument on the group's 1967 albums Between

2912-561: A variety of automated electronic-music controllers during the late 1940s and 1950s. In 1959 Daphne Oram produced a novel method of synthesis, her " Oramics " technique, driven by drawings on a 35 mm film strip; it was used for a number of years at the BBC Radiophonic Workshop . This workshop was also responsible for the theme to the TV series Doctor Who a piece, largely created by Delia Derbyshire , that more than any other ensured

3016-405: A velocity-sensitive keyboard. An important new development was the advent of computers for the purpose of composing music, as opposed to manipulating or creating sounds. Iannis Xenakis began what is called musique stochastique, or stochastic music , which is a method of composing that employs mathematical probability systems. Different probability algorithms were used to create a piece under

3120-411: Is a musical instrument that produces sound using electronic circuitry . Such an instrument sounds by outputting an electrical, electronic or digital audio signal that ultimately is plugged into a power amplifier which drives a loudspeaker , creating the sound heard by the performer and listener. An electronic instrument might include a user interface for controlling its sound, often by adjusting

3224-546: Is also used in popular music genres, such as rock . The theremin was the product of Soviet government-sponsored research into proximity sensors . The instrument was invented in October 1920 by the Russian physicist Lev Sergeyevich Termen, known in the West as Leon Theremin . After a lengthy tour of Europe, during which time he demonstrated his invention to packed houses, Theremin moved to

Electribe - Misplaced Pages Continue

3328-406: Is an electromechanical instrument, as it used both mechanical elements and electronic parts. A Hammond organ used spinning metal tonewheels to produce different sounds. A magnetic pickup similar in design to the pickups in an electric guitar is used to transmit the pitches in the tonewheels to an amplifier and speaker enclosure. While the Hammond organ was designed to be a lower-cost alternative to

3432-420: Is distinguished among musical instruments in that it is played without physical contact. The thereminist stands in front of the instrument and moves their hands in the proximity of two metal antennas. While commonly called antennas, they are not used as radio antennae for receiving or broadcasting radio waves, but rather act as plates of capacitors . The distance from one antenna determines frequency (pitch), and

3536-472: Is less developed than pitch technique, some thereminists have worked to extend it, especially Pamelia Kurstin with her " walking bass " technique and Rupert Chappelle. The critic Harold C. Schonberg described the sound of the theremin as "[a] cello lost in a dense fog, crying because it does not know how to get home." The first orchestral composition written for theremin was Andrei Pashchenko's Symphonic Mystery , which premiered in 1924. However, most of

3640-467: Is significant, since this is perhaps the most significant distinction between the modern synthesizer and other electronic instruments. The most commonly used electronic instruments are synthesizers , so-called because they artificially generate sound using a variety of techniques. All early circuit-based synthesis involved the use of analogue circuitry, particularly voltage controlled amplifiers, oscillators and filters. An important technological development

3744-433: Is the tone that is then wave shaped and amplified and sent to a loudspeaker. To control volume, the performer's other hand acts as the grounded plate of another variable capacitor. As in the tone circuit, the distance between the performer's hand and the volume control antenna determines the capacitance and hence natural resonant frequency of an LC circuit inductively coupled to another fixed LC oscillator circuit operating at

3848-608: The GS-1 and GS-2 , which were costly and heavy. There followed a pair of smaller, preset versions, the CE20 and CE25 Combo Ensembles, targeted primarily at the home organ market and featuring four-octave keyboards. Yamaha's third generation of digital synthesizers was a commercial success; it consisted of the DX7 and DX9 (1983). Both models were compact, reasonably priced, and dependent on custom digital integrated circuits to produce FM tonalities. The DX7

3952-896: The Minimoog , a non-modular synthesizer with a built-in keyboard. The analogue circuits were interconnected with switches in a simplified arrangement called "normalization." Though less flexible than a modular design, normalization made the instrument more portable and easier to use. The Minimoog sold 12,000 units. Further standardized the design of subsequent synthesizers with its integrated keyboard, pitch and modulation wheels and VCO->VCF->VCA signal flow. It has become celebrated for its "fat" sound—and its tuning problems. Miniaturized solid-state components allowed synthesizers to become self-contained, portable instruments that soon appeared in live performance and quickly became widely used in popular music and electronic art music. Many early analog synthesizers were monophonic, producing only one tone at

4056-526: The Radiohead guitarist Jonny Greenwood . The Trautonium was invented in 1928. It was based on the subharmonic scale, and the resulting sounds were often used to emulate bell or gong sounds, as in the 1950s Bayreuth productions of Parsifal . In 1942, Richard Strauss used it for the bell- and gong-part in the Dresden première of his Japanese Festival Music . This new class of instruments, microtonal by nature,

4160-555: The electric guitar remain in the chordophones category, and so on. In the 18th-century, musicians and composers adapted a number of acoustic instruments to exploit the novelty of electricity. Thus, in the broadest sense, the first electrified musical instrument was the Denis d'or keyboard, dating from 1753, followed shortly by the clavecin électrique by the Frenchman Jean-Baptiste de Laborde in 1761. The Denis d'or consisted of

4264-431: The grounded plate of a variable capacitor in an L-C (inductance-capacitance) circuit , which is part of the oscillator and determines its frequency. In the simplest designs, the antenna is directly coupled to the tuned circuit of the oscillator and the 'pitch field', that is the change of note with distance, is highly nonlinear, as the capacitance change with distance is far greater near the antenna. In such systems, when

Electribe - Misplaced Pages Continue

4368-411: The pitch , frequency , or duration of each note . A common user interface is the musical keyboard , which functions similarly to the keyboard on an acoustic piano where the keys are each linked mechanically to swinging string hammers - whereas with an electronic keyboard, the keyboard interface is linked to a synth module , computer or other electronic or digital sound generator, which then creates

4472-465: The violin . Small flutters of the pitch hand can be used to produce a vibrato effect. To produce distinct notes requires a pecking action with the volume hand to mute the volume while the pitch hand moves between positions. Thereminists such as Carolina Eyck use a fixed arm position per octave, and use fixed positions of the fingers to create the notes within the octave, allowing very fast transitions between adjacent notes. Although volume technique

4576-406: The 1950s in the context of computer music , including computer- played music (software sequencer), computer- composed music ( music synthesis ), and computer sound generation ( sound synthesis ). The first digital synthesizers were academic experiments in sound synthesis using digital computers. FM synthesis was developed for this purpose; as a way of generating complex sounds digitally with

4680-569: The 1950s. The Mark II Music Synthesizer , housed at the Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center in New York City . Designed by Herbert Belar and Harry Olson at RCA, with contributions from Vladimir Ussachevsky and Peter Mauzey , it was installed at Columbia University in 1957. Consisting of a room-sized array of interconnected sound synthesis components, it was only capable of producing music by programming, using

4784-650: The ARP Omni and Moog's Polymoog and Opus 3. By 1976 affordable polyphonic synthesizers began to appear, such as the Yamaha CS-50, CS-60 and CS-80 , the Sequential Circuits Prophet-5 and the Oberheim Four-Voice. These remained complex, heavy and relatively costly. The recording of settings in digital memory allowed storage and recall of sounds. The first practical polyphonic synth, and the first to use

4888-730: The Air , and The Ten Commandments . The theremin is played and identified as such in the Jerry Lewis movie The Delicate Delinquent . The theremin is prominent in the score for the 1956 short film A Short Vision , which was aired on The Ed Sullivan Show the same year that it was used by the Hungarian composer Mátyás Seiber . More recent appearances in film scores include Monster House , Ed Wood , The Machinist and The Electrical Life of Louis Wain (2021), (last three featuring Lydia Kavina ), as well as First Man (2018). A theremin

4992-501: The American rock band Phish , plays the theremin on rare occasions. His last notable performance was on 6 August 2017, the final evening of the band's 13-night residency at Madison Square Garden . When Simon and Garfunkel performed their song " The Boxer " during a concert at Madison Square Garden in December, 2003, they utilized a theremin. The original recording of the song had featured

5096-449: The Buttons and Their Satanic Majesties Request . Tesla guitarist Frank Hannon used a theremin in the band's song "Edison's Medicine" from the 1991 album Psychotic Supper . Hannon is also seen using the instrument in the song's music video at the 2:40 mark. The Lothars are a Boston-area band formed in early 1997 whose CDs have featured as many as four theremins played at once –

5200-703: The Earth Stood Still , and Justin Hurwitz 's First Man , as well as in theme songs for television shows such as the ITV drama Midsomer Murders and the Disney+ series Loki , the latter composed by Natalie Holt . The theremin is also used in concert music (especially avant-garde and 20th- and 21st-century new music ); for example, Mano Divina Giannone is a popular American thereminist who along with his orchestra, The Divine Hand Ensemble, regularly holds said concerts. It

5304-707: The MIDI Specification 1.0 was finalized. The advent of MIDI technology allows a single keystroke, control wheel motion, pedal movement, or command from a microcomputer to activate every device in the studio remotely and in synchrony, with each device responding according to conditions predetermined by the composer. MIDI instruments and software made powerful control of sophisticated instruments easily affordable by many studios and individuals. Acoustic sounds became reintegrated into studios via sampling and sampled-ROM-based instruments. The increasing power and decreasing cost of sound-generating electronics (and especially of

SECTION 50

#1732854639911

5408-511: The Russian scientist Evgeny Murzin from 1937 to 1958. Only two models of this latter were built and the only surviving example is currently stored at the Lomonosov University in Moscow . It has been used in many Russian movies—like Solaris —to produce unusual, "cosmic" sounds. Hugh Le Caine , John Hanert, Raymond Scott , composer Percy Grainger (with Burnett Cross), and others built

5512-517: The United States, often sharing the bill with Paul Robeson . Joseph Whiteley (1894-1984) performed under the stage name Musaire and his 1930 RCA Theremin can be seen, played and heard at the Musical Museum , Brentford, England. During the 1930s, Lucie Bigelow Rosen was also taken with the theremin and together with her husband Walter Bigelow Rosen provided both financial and artistic support to

5616-598: The United States, where he patented his invention in 1928. Subsequently, Theremin granted commercial production rights to RCA . Although the RCA Thereminvox (released immediately following the Stock Market Crash of 1929 ) was not a commercial success, it fascinated audiences in America and abroad. Clara Rockmore , a well-known thereminist, toured to wide acclaim, performing a classical repertoire in concert halls around

5720-427: The antenna is removed, the oscillator moves up in frequency. To partly linearise the pitch field, the antenna may be wired in series with an inductor to form a series tuned circuit , resonating with the parallel combination of the antenna's intrinsic capacitance and the capacitance of the player's hand in proximity to the antenna. This series tuned circuit is then connected in parallel with the parallel tuned circuit of

5824-417: The circuits while he was at Columbia-Princeton. The Moog synthesizer was first displayed at the Audio Engineering Society convention in 1964. It required experience to set up sounds but was smaller and more intuitive than what had come before, less like a machine and more like a musical instrument. Moog established standards for control interfacing, using a logarithmic 1-volt-per-octave for pitch control and

5928-402: The complexity of two heterodyne oscillators by having a single pitch oscillator, akin to the original theremin's volume circuit. This approach is usually less stable and cannot generate the low frequencies that a heterodyne oscillator can. Better designs (e.g., Moog, Theremax) may use two pairs of heterodyne oscillators, for both pitch and volume. Important in theremin articulation is the use of

6032-476: The composition "Equatorial" for two theremin cellos and percussion in 1934. His work was a stated influence throughout the career of Frank Zappa , who also composed for theremin. Maverick composer Percy Grainger chose to use ensembles of four or six theremins (in preference to a string quartet) for his two earliest experimental Free Music compositions (1935–1937) because of the instrument's complete 'gliding' freedom of pitch. Musician Jean-Michel Jarre used

6136-528: The cubes, a variety of music and sound software can be operated. AudioCubes have applications in sound design, music production, DJing and live performance. The Kaossilator and Kaossilator Pro are compact instruments where the position of a finger on the touch pad controls two note-characteristics; usually the pitch is changed with a left-right motion and the tonal property, filter or other parameter changes with an up-down motion. The touch pad can be set to different musical scales and keys. The instrument can record

6240-541: The development and popularisation of the instrument. In 1938, Theremin left the United States, though the circumstances related to his departure are in dispute. Many accounts claim he was taken from his New York City apartment by NKVD agents (preceding the KGB ), taken back to the Soviet Union and made to work in a sharashka laboratory prison camp at Magadan, Siberia. He reappeared 30 years later. In his 2000 biography of

6344-426: The distance from the other controls amplitude (volume). Higher notes are played by moving the hand closer to the pitch antenna. Louder notes are played by moving the hand away from the volume antenna. Most frequently, the right hand controls the pitch and the left controls the volume, although some performers reverse this arrangement. Some low-cost theremins use a conventional, knob-operated volume control and have only

SECTION 60

#1732854639911

6448-445: The early 1960s. During the 1940s–1960s, Raymond Scott , an American composer of electronic music, invented various kind of music sequencers for his electric compositions. Step sequencers played rigid patterns of notes using a grid of (usually) 16 buttons, or steps, each step being 1/16 of a measure . These patterns of notes were then chained together to form longer compositions. Software sequencers were continuously utilized since

6552-497: The experience as leading directly to his groundbreaking synthesizer , the Moog . (Around 1955, a colleague of Moog's, electronic music pioneer Raymond Scott , purchased one of Moog's theremin subassemblies to incorporate into a new invention, the Clavivox , which was intended to be an easy-to-use keyboard theremin.) Since the release of the film Theremin: An Electronic Odyssey in 1993,

6656-414: The expressiveness of the cello . The French composer Olivier Messiaen used the ondes Martenot in pieces such as his 1949 symphony Turangalîla-Symphonie , and his sister-in-law Jeanne Loriod was a celebrated player. It appears in numerous film and television soundtracks, particularly science fiction and horror films . Contemporary users of the ondes Martenot include Tom Waits , Daft Punk and

6760-781: The first complete work of computer-assisted composition using algorithmic composition. In 1957, Max Mathews at Bell Lab wrote MUSIC-N series, a first computer program family for generating digital audio waveforms through direct synthesis. Then Barry Vercoe wrote MUSIC 11 based on MUSIC IV-BF , a next-generation music synthesis program (later evolving into csound , which is still widely used). In mid 80s, Miller Puckette at IRCAM developed graphic signal-processing software for 4X called Max (after Max Mathews), and later ported it to Macintosh (with Dave Zicarelli extending it for Opcode ) for real-time MIDI control, bringing algorithmic composition availability to most composers with modest computer programming background. In 1980,

6864-483: The first compositions for electronic instruments, as opposed to noisemakers and re-purposed machines. The Theremin was notable for being the first musical instrument played without touching it. In 1929, Joseph Schillinger composed First Airphonic Suite for Theremin and Orchestra , premièred with the Cleveland Orchestra with Leon Theremin as soloist. The next year Henry Cowell commissioned Theremin to create

6968-574: The first electronic rhythm machine, called the Rhythmicon . Cowell wrote some compositions for it, which he and Schillinger premiered in 1932. The ondes Martenot is played with a keyboard or by moving a ring along a wire, creating "wavering" sounds similar to a theremin . It was invented in 1928 by the French cellist Maurice Martenot , who was inspired by the accidental overlaps of tones between military radio oscillators, and wanted to create an instrument with

7072-517: The first polyphonic digital sampler , was the harbinger of sample-based synthesizers. Designed in 1978 by Peter Vogel and Kim Ryrie and based on a dual microprocessor computer designed by Tony Furse in Sydney, Australia, the Fairlight CMI gave musicians the ability to modify volume, attack, decay, and use special effects like vibrato. Sample waveforms could be displayed on-screen and modified using

7176-474: The first weighing seven tons, the last in excess of 200 tons. Portability was managed only by rail and with the use of thirty boxcars. By 1912, public interest had waned, and Cahill's enterprise was bankrupt. Another development, which aroused the interest of many composers, occurred in 1919–1920. In Leningrad, Leon Theremin built and demonstrated his Etherophone, which was later renamed the Theremin . This led to

7280-402: The free running frequency of the oscillator, and small changes in antenna capacitance have greatest effect. Under this condition, the effective inductance in the tank circuit is at its minimum and the oscillation frequency is at its maximum. The steepening rate of change of shunt impedance with hand position compensates for the reduced influence of the hand being further away. With careful tuning,

7384-677: The guitar-like SynthAxe , the BodySynth, the Buchla Thunder , the Continuum Fingerboard , the Roland Octapad , various isomorphic keyboards including the Thummer, and Kaossilator Pro , and kits like I-CubeX . The Reactable is a round translucent table with a backlit interactive display. By placing and manipulating blocks called tangibles on the table surface, while interacting with

7488-471: The instrument has enjoyed a resurgence in interest and has become more widely used by contemporary musicians. Even though many theremin sounds can be approximated on many modern synthesizers, some musicians continue to appreciate the expressiveness, novelty, and uniqueness of using an actual theremin. The film itself has received positive reviews. Both theremin instruments and kits are available. The Open Theremin, an open hardware and open software project,

7592-622: The instrument in his concerts Oxygène In Moscow in 1997 and Space of Freedom in Gdańsk in 2005, providing also a short history of Leon Theremin's life. The five-piece Spaghetti Western Orchestra use a theremin as a replacement for Edda Dell'Orso's vocals in their interpretation of Ennio Morricone 's "Once Upon a Time in the West". Other notable contemporary theremin players include Pamelia Kurstin , Peter Theremin , Natasha Theremin , Katica Illényi . and Lydia Kavina , Dutch classical musician Thorwald Jørgensen has been described as "one of

7696-513: The instrument sounds used in recordings are electronic instruments (e.g., bass synth , synthesizer , drum machine ). Development of new electronic musical instruments, controllers, and synthesizers continues to be a highly active and interdisciplinary field of research. Specialized conferences, such as the International Conference on New Interfaces for Musical Expression , have organized to report cutting-edge work, as well as to provide

7800-597: The inventor, Theremin: Ether Music and Espionage , Albert Glinsky suggested he had fled to escape crushing personal debts, and was then caught up in Stalin's political purges. In any case, Theremin did not return to the United States until 1991. After a flurry of interest in America following the end of the Second World War , the theremin soon fell into disuse with serious musicians, mainly because newer electronic instruments were introduced that were easier to play. However,

7904-660: The late 1970s and early 1980s, do-it-yourself designs were published in hobby electronics magazines (such the Formant modular synth, a DIY clone of the Moog system, published by Elektor ) and kits were supplied by companies such as Paia in the US, and Maplin Electronics in the UK. In 1966, Reed Ghazala discovered and began to teach math " circuit bending "—the application of the creative short circuit,

8008-487: The level of expression available to electronic musicians, by allowing for the playing style of a musical instrument. Chiptune , chipmusic, or chip music is music written in sound formats where many of the sound textures are synthesized or sequenced in real time by a computer or video game console sound chip , sometimes including sample-based synthesis and low bit sample playback. Many chip music devices featured synthesizers in tandem with low rate sample playback. During

8112-517: The most important exponents of classical music on the theremin". In 2019 in Kobe, Japan, the Matryomin ensemble, a group of 289 theremin players that included Natasha Theremin, Masha Theremin and Peter Theremin, the daughter, granddaughter and great-grandson of the inventor, achieved a Guinness world record as the largest ensemble of the instrument. The name Matryomin is a portmanteau by its inventor of

8216-409: The oscillation frequency. Close to the resonant frequency of the antenna circuit, the effective inductance is small, and the effect on the oscillator is greatest; farther from it, the effective inductance is larger, and fractional change on the oscillator is reduced. When the hand is distant from the antenna, the resonant frequency of the antenna series circuit is at its highest; i.e., it is closest to

8320-433: The performer (who is known as a thereminist). It is named after its inventor, Leon Theremin , who patented the device in 1928. The instrument's controlling section usually consists of two metal antennas which function not as radio antennas but rather as position sensors . Each antenna forms one half of a capacitor with each of the thereminist's hands as the other half of the capacitor. These antennas capacitively sense

8424-449: The personal computer), combined with the standardization of the MIDI and Open Sound Control musical performance description languages, has facilitated the separation of musical instruments into music controllers and music synthesizers. By far the most common musical controller is the musical keyboard . Other controllers include the radiodrum , Akai's EWI and Yamaha's WX wind controllers,

8528-493: The pitch antenna. The theremin uses the heterodyne principle to generate an audio signal. The instrument's pitch circuitry includes two radio frequency oscillators set below 500 kHz to minimize radio interference. One oscillator operates at a fixed frequency. The frequency of the other oscillator is almost identical, and is controlled by the performer's distance from the pitch control antenna. The performer's hand has significant body capacitance , and thus can be treated as

8632-666: The popularity of electronic music in the UK. In 1897 Thaddeus Cahill patented an instrument called the Telharmonium (or Teleharmonium, also known as the Dynamaphone). Using tonewheels to generate musical sounds as electrical signals by additive synthesis , it was capable of producing any combination of notes and overtones, at any dynamic level. This technology was later used to design the Hammond organ . Between 1901 and 1910 Cahill had three progressively larger and more complex versions made,

8736-594: The present. Lothar and the Hand People were the first rock band known to perform live with a theremin in November 1965. In fact, Lothar was the name they gave to their Moog theremin. The Beach Boys ' 1966 single " Good Vibrations "—though it does not technically contain a theremin—is the most frequently cited example of the instrument in pop music. The song actually features a similar-sounding instrument invented by Paul Tanner called an Electro-Theremin . Upon release,

8840-442: The relative position of the hands and control oscillators for frequency with one hand, and amplitude ( volume ) with the other. The electric signals from the theremin are amplified and sent to a loudspeaker . The sound of the instrument is often associated with eerie situations. The theremin has been used in movie soundtracks such as Miklós Rózsa 's Spellbound and The Lost Weekend , Bernard Herrmann 's The Day

8944-495: The sheet music was lost after its second performance. Other concert composers who have written for theremin include Bohuslav Martinů , Percy Grainger , Christian Wolff , Joseph Schillinger , Moritz Eggert , Iraida Yusupova , Jorge Antunes , Vladimir Komarov, Anis Fuleihan , and Fazıl Say . Another large-scale theremin concerto is Kalevi Aho 's Concerto for Theremin and Chamber Orchestra "Eight Seasons" (2011), written for Carolina Eyck . Edgard Varèse completed

9048-526: The single prompted an unexpected revival in theremins and increased the awareness of analog synthesizers . In response to requests by the band, Moog Music began producing its own brand of ribbon-controlled instruments which would mimic the sound of a theremin. Frank Zappa also included the theremin on the albums Freak Out! (1966) and We're Only in It for the Money (1967). Jimmy Page of Led Zeppelin used

9152-469: The smallest number of computational operations per sound sample. In 1983 Yamaha introduced the first stand-alone digital synthesizer, the DX-7 . It used frequency modulation synthesis (FM synthesis), first developed by John Chowning at Stanford University during the late sixties. Chowning exclusively licensed his FM synthesis patent to Yamaha in 1975. Yamaha subsequently released their first FM synthesizers,

9256-417: The spirit of the original Hornbostel Sachs classification scheme, if one categorizes instruments by what first produces the initial sound in the instrument, that only subcategory 53 should remain in the electrophones category. Thus, it has been more recently proposed, for example, that the pipe organ (even if it uses electric key action to control solenoid valves ) remain in the aerophones category, and that

9360-439: The success of FM synthesis Yamaha signed a contract with Stanford University in 1989 to develop digital waveguide synthesis , leading to the first commercial physical modeling synthesizer , Yamaha's VL-1, in 1994. The DX-7 was affordable enough for amateurs and young bands to buy, unlike the costly synthesizers of previous generations, which were mainly used by top professionals. The Fairlight CMI (Computer Musical Instrument),

9464-595: The tape recorder as an essential element: "electronically produced sounds recorded on tape and arranged by the composer to form a musical composition". It was also indispensable to Musique concrète . Tape also gave rise to the first, analogue, sample-playback keyboards, the Chamberlin and its more famous successor the Mellotron , an electro-mechanical, polyphonic keyboard originally developed and built in Birmingham, England in

9568-411: The variable pitch oscillator. With the antenna circuit disconnected, the oscillator is tuned to a frequency slightly higher than the stand alone resonant frequency of the antenna circuit. At that frequency, the antenna and its linearisation coil present an inductive impedance; and when connected, behaves as an inductor in parallel with the oscillator. Thus, connecting the antenna and linearising coil raises

9672-432: The visual display via finger gestures, a virtual modular synthesizer is operated, creating music or sound effects. AudioCubes are autonomous wireless cubes powered by an internal computer system and rechargeable battery. They have internal RGB lighting, and are capable of detecting each other's location, orientation and distance. The cubes can also detect distances to the user's hands and fingers. Through interaction with

9776-417: The volume control antenna. Unlike touched instruments, where simply halting play or damping a resonator in the traditional sense silences the instrument, the thereminist must "play the rests, as well as the notes", as Clara Rockmore observed. If the pitch hand is moved between notes, without first lowering the volume hand, the result is a "swooping" sound akin to a swanee whistle or a glissando played on

9880-512: The words matryoshka and theremin . The theremin concerto "Dancefloor With Pulsing" by the French composer Regis Campo was written for Carolina Eyck and premiered with the Brussels Philharmonic in 2018. Theremins and theremin-like sounds started to be incorporated into popular music from the end of the 1940s (with a series of Samuel Hoffman / Harry Revel collaborations) and has continued, with various degrees of popularity, to

9984-432: Was added to the Hornbostel-Sachs musical instrument classification system by Sachs in 1940, in his 1940 book The History of Musical Instruments ; the original 1914 version of the system did not include it. Sachs divided electrophones into three subcategories: The last category included instruments such as theremins or synthesizers , which he called radioelectric instruments. Francis William Galpin provided such

10088-539: Was developed by Swiss microengineer Urz Gaudenz, using the original heterodyne oscillator architecture for a good playing experience, combined with Arduino . Using a few extra components, a MIDI interface can be added to the Open Theremin, enabling a player to use their theremin to control different instrument sounds. The theremin's singular operation method has been praised for providing an accessible route to music-making for people with disabilities. The theremin

10192-506: Was made in Germany. Allgemeine Elektricitäts Gesellschaft (AEG) demonstrated the first commercially produced magnetic tape recorder , called the Magnetophon . Audio tape , which had the advantage of being fairly light as well as having good audio fidelity, ultimately replaced the bulkier wire recorders. The term " electronic music " (which first came into use during the 1930s) came to include

10296-427: Was not used for the soundtrack of Forbidden Planet , for which Bebe and Louis Barron built disposable oscillator circuits and a ring modulator to create the electronic tonalities used in the film. Los Angeles–based thereminist Charles Richard Lester is featured on the soundtrack of Monster House and has performed the US premiere of Gavriil Popov's 1932 score for Komsomol – Patron of Electrification with

10400-485: Was not widely used in classical music performances, the instrument found great success in many motion pictures, notably, Spellbound , The Red House , The Lost Weekend (all three of which were written by Miklós Rózsa , the composer who pioneered the use of the instrument in Hollywood scores), The Spiral Staircase , Rocketship X-M , The Day the Earth Stood Still , The Thing from Another World , Castle In

10504-493: Was only adopted slowly by composers at first, but by the early 1930s there was a burst of new works incorporating these and other electronic instruments. In 1929 Laurens Hammond established his company for the manufacture of electronic instruments. He went on to produce the Hammond organ , which was based on the principles of the Telharmonium , along with other developments including early reverberation units. The Hammond organ

10608-400: Was the first mass market all-digital synthesizer. It became indispensable to many music artists of the 1980s, and demand soon exceeded supply. The DX7 sold over 200,000 units within three years. The DX series was not easy to program but offered a detailed, percussive sound that led to the demise of the electro-mechanical Rhodes piano , which was heavier and larger than a DX synth. Following

10712-490: Was the first thermionic valve, or vacuum tube and which led to the generation and amplification of electrical signals, radio broadcasting, and electronic computation, among other things. Other early synthesizers included the Telharmonium (1897), the Theremin (1919), Jörg Mager's Spharophon (1924) and Partiturophone, Taubmann's similar Electronde (1933), Maurice Martenot 's ondes Martenot ("Martenot waves", 1928), Trautwein's Trautonium (1930). The Mellertion (1933) used

10816-529: Was the invention of the Clavivox synthesizer in 1956 by Raymond Scott with subassembly by Robert Moog . French composer and engineer Edgard Varèse created a variety of compositions using electronic horns , whistles, and tape. Most notably, he wrote Poème électronique for the Philips pavilion at the Brussels World Fair in 1958. RCA produced experimental devices to synthesize voice and music in

#910089