2009

Precursors to the Synthesizer
It may surprise you to learn that the earliest seeds of modern electronic synthesizers
began in the twilight years of the 19th century. In 1896/1897, an American inventor
named Thaddeus Cahill applied for a patent to protect the principle behind an instrument
known as the Telharmonium, or Dynamophone. Weighing in at a staggering 200 tons,
this mammoth electronic instrument was driven by 12 steam-powered electromagnetic
generators. This behemoth was played in real time using velocity-sensitive keys and,
amazingly, was able to generate several different sounds simultaneously. The
Telharmonium was presented to the public in a series of “concerts” held in 1906. Christened
“Telharmony,” this music was piped into the public telephone network, because no public
address systems were available at the time.
In 1919, Russian inventor Leon Theremin took a markedly different approach. Named
after the man who masterminded it, the monophonic Theremin was played without
actually touching the instrument. It gauged the proximity of the player’s hands, as they
were waved about in an electrostatic field between two antennae, and used this
information to generate sound. This unorthodox technique made the Theremin
enormously difficult to play. Its eerie, spine-tingling (but almost unvarying) timbre made
it a favorite on countless horror movie soundtracks. Incidentally, R. A. Moog, whose
synthesizers would later garner worldwide fame, began to build Theremins at the tender
age of 19.
In Europe, the Frenchman Maurice Martenot devised the monophonic Ondes Martenot
in 1928. The sound generation method of this instrument was akin to that of the Theremin,
but in its earliest incarnation it was played by pulling a wire back and forth.
In Berlin during the 1930s, Friedrich Trautwein and Oskar Sala worked on the Trautonium,
an instrument that was played by pressing a steel wire onto a bar. Depending on the
player’s preference, it enabled infinitely variable pitches—much like a fretless stringed
instrument—or incremental pitches similar to that of a keyboard instrument. Sala
continued to develop the instrument throughout his life, an effort culminating in the
two-voice Mixturtrautonium in 1952. He scored numerous industrial films, as well as the
entire soundtrack of Alfred Hitchcock’s masterpiece “The Birds,” with this instrument.
Although the movie does not feature a conventional musical soundtrack, all bird calls
and the sound of beating wings heard in the movie were generated on the
Mixturtrautonium.
In Canada, Hugh Le Caine began to develop his Electronic Sackbut in 1945. The design
of this monophonic instrument resembled that of a synthesizer, but it featured an
enormously expressive keyboard, which responded not only to key velocity and pressure
but also to lateral motion.
556 Appendix Synthesizer Basics