100 year history of electronic instruments

A detailed Summary of 100 year history of electronic instruments

Even 100 Year History of Electronic Instruments

before the turn of the century, when the electronic age was still in its infancy, the first attempts to generate sound from electricity had begun. By 1901, Thaddeus Cadhill had already manufactured the Telharmonium, an electric organ, powered by dynamos and designed to send sound down telephone lines. The Telharmonium proved to be the first of several forward-thinking electronic instruments to be developed in the early part of the century, the most important of which was the Theramin.

Named after its Russian inventor Leon Theramin and consisting of a box with two ariels sticking out to control volume and pitch, the Theramin was the favorite instrument of Russian revolutionary leader Lenin. It was also manufactured for a short time in the United States, and although Theramin's ideas proved too progressive for the American public, they would later inspire Robert Moog to develop his first synths.

Other electronic instruments, like the rautonium, the Odnes Martenot and the first mass-market electronic instrument, the Hammond Organ, continued to pop up through the 20's and 30's. It was with the arrival of magnetic tape, developed around the same period and perfected during World

At the same time as tape was being used to unlock the world of found-sound, the development of electronically generated or synthesized sound was continuing apace. American Hugh Le Caine developed a proto-type synth (short for synthesizer) with his 'electronic sackbut' in 1948. The room-sized RCA synthesizer was active throughout the 50's and others continued to work on the idea of electronic synthesis. Finally, in the early 60's Robert Moog expanded the idea of the Theramin into what would become the first ever commercially available synth, the Moog. The first synth's were clumsy modular systems the size of sideboards and changing sound on them meant negotiating a mass of wires or 'patch-chords'. However, they did allow users to sculpt their own sounds and provided the blue print for every synth that had come after.

The release of the Sequential Circuits Prophet 5 in 1978 saw the next big step in synth design since the Mini-Moog. It offered polyphonic sound, which meant that you could play more than one note at a time. It was the beginning of a particularly fertile period in the growth of electronic music technology, with samplers, digital synths, sequencers and programmable drum machines all becoming commercially available within the next few years. Midi became a standard in 1983 and companies like EMU, Roland, Akai and Ensoniq took over the market. The new technology became affordable

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Approximate Word count = 949
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)

Category: History