Electronic Instruments for musical expression | Part 1 | 1750–1915
- anant rohmetra
- 3 days ago
- 6 min read
Electronic Music Instruments: Instruments that use electronics for either sound generation or modification.
Today, the line between acoustic and electronic music is more blurred than ever because if someone played a piece by Bach on a laptop. Arguably, it is not called electronic music. If we go a step further and take a 64 bar piano loop and repeat it. While the loop is playing the composer sings and records vocals on a laptop. We might still not call it electronic music. Now if I make a 1 bar piano loop and play it over and over again. It is definitely ‘Electronic Music’. It is interesting to think when exactly we transition
Introduction
The blog series is divided in 3 parts:
Part 1 (1750–1915): The era of early experimentation with electricity, when inventors and scientists first began harnessing electrostatic forces, electromagnetism, and primitive circuits to create sound. Instruments like the Denis d’or, Clavecin Électrique, and Telharmonium emerged during this period, often more as public spectacles than practical instruments.
Part 2 (1915–1950): The age of the vacuum tube, which transformed electronic sound from novelty into a new musical medium. Instruments such as the Theremin, Sphärophon, and Pianorad flourished, while composers and engineers experimented with heterodyning oscillators, polyphony, and spatial audio systems.
Part 3 (1950 onwards): The era of tape, transistors, and computers, when recording technologies, miniaturization, and digital logic revolutionized sound production. Magnetic tape opened doors to musique concrète and studio experimentation; the transistor made instruments portable and reliable; and by the mid-1950s, computers began generating and manipulating sound, setting the stage for the digital age.
1750-1850 ADE:
Experiments with electricity for sound in the mid-18th to early 19th centuries were driven by a confluence of industrial and scientific advancement, especially during the Industrial Revolution, which radically transformed both technology and society. The development of steam engines, windmills and early mechanical engineering led to alternate sources of energy. This included electricity—more feasible and appealing.1 Growing cities, new forms of entertainment, and a demand for public spectacle incentivized inventors to devise novel electrical instruments for demonstration and public amusement.
Key Factors for early experiments with Electronic Music Instruments(1850-1915):
These early experiments, however exciting for the time, were rudimentary given that electricity was still a mysterious and poorly understood phenomenon by humans. Reliable electrical components, such as electromagnets, amplifiers, and electrical circuits were not yet developed.2 The 19th century saw major breakthroughs in understanding electromagnetism. This laid the foundation for using electricity to control and create sound a little more reliably. The telephone and telegraph boom brought rapid progress in electrical engineering—currents, transmission techniques, and electromagnetic circuits.This formed the technical backbone for electric sound production and distribution.
Image courtesy 120 Years of Electronic Music3
In the 1860s, there was a fresh development, as Matthias Hipp’s “Electromechanical Piano” helped launch the era of the “player piano”.4 Hipp’s instrument was an electro-mechanical player piano controlled by a perforated paper roll. The paper roll had holes representing musical notes' pitch and duration, as well as a separate track for volume. The metal brushes sensed the presence or absence of a hole in the perforated paper. These electrical signals triggered electromagnets, which then activated the piano’s hammer mechanisms, causing the strings to be struck and produce sound. Traditionally, instruments are played in real time through direct bodily interaction. The Electromechanical Piano shifts this dynamic, distancing the performer from the act of sound production. Debatibly leading to a “mechanical” sounding sequence of notes. This was also an early form of acousmatic music.
Image Courtesy Far Out Magazine4
Elisha Gray would have been known to us as the inventor of the telephone if Alexandra Graham Bell hadn’t got to the patent office one hour before him(120 Years of Electronic Music). He is still known for one of the earliest electronic music instruments , “The Musical Telegraph”(1876). Gray accidentally discovered that they could control sound from a self vibrating electromagnetic circuit and in doing so invented a single note oscillator.5 The “Musical telegraph” used steel reeds whose oscillations were created and transmitted over a telephone line by electromagnets. The instrument contained enough single tone oscillators to play two octaves and later models had a wheel dial to control tone.
Image Courtesy Wikimedia Commons6
Teleharmonium by Thaddeus Cahil(1897) was a collection of 145 modified dynamos employing a number of specially geared shafts and inductors producing alternating current of different audio frequencies that is 36 notes per octave tuneable to frequencies between 40 - 40,000 hz. Earlier models used a horn to reproduce amplified sound. This later shifted to transmission through telephone wires to subscribers’ homes.
Music was sent to subscribers in hotels, restaurants, and homes in NYC which is an early form of “streaming”. “One little party given on New Year’s Eve, with charade and storytelling and music. It was the music feature of the party that was distinctive; it was supplied by wire through an invention known as the Teleharmonium. The music came over the regular telephone wire –the playing being done meanwhile, by skilled performers at the central station.” says Mark Twain (Clemens) in his biography. Streaming music from Teleharmonium made sense because the instrument weighed 200 tons and 60 feet long with a quoted cost of $200,000. There were 3 Teleharmonium’s made, each bigger and more elaborate than the predecessor. The Telharmonium was played using a series of multiple keyboards and foot pedals, similar in concept to an organ.
The last of the series was made in 1916 which survived the wall street crash and world war 1 but could not survive the advent of popular radio broadcasting. It was instrumental in paving the way for electronic music.7 The instrument was polyphonic, capable of playing multiple notes simultaneously which was unique in electronic music instruments of the time which were mostly monophonic.
Image Courtesy 120 Years of Electronic Music8
Before Thomas Edison invented the light bulb, electric street lamps were still widely used in Europe. A carbon arc lamp provided light by creating a spark between two carbon nodes.The problem with it though apart from the dim lighting was the humming sound. William Du Duddel(1899) made the “Singing Arch” by attaching a keyboard to the lamp to make one of the first electronic instruments without the use of a telephone system as an amplifier.
Image Courtesy SupersStock9
The Octophonic Piano(1916) was an electrical optical instrument by the futurist painter Vladimir Baranoff Rossine. The instrument was used at exhibitions of his own paintings and revolutionized artistic events in the new Soviet. After 2 concerts with his instrument at Meyerhold and Bolchoi theatres Vladimir migrated to Paris. The Octaphonic Piano generated sounds and projected revolving painted glass disks(painted by Vladimir), filters, mirrors and lenses. The variation in opacity of the painted disk and filters were picked up by a photo-electric cell controlling the pitch of a single oscillator.
Conclusion
These instruments were still novelty and one of a kind. They struggled to make an impact on the music scene and audience. Before the development of reliable electronic amplifiers and loudspeakers, early electronic instruments produced weak sounds that were often inaudible to large audiences outside of telephone receivers or small venues.
Early electronic instruments often generated unusual, unfamiliar sounds that contrasted sharply with established musical norms. Many audiences and musicians considered them novelties rather than serious instruments, hindering adoption in traditional concert settings. Electronic instruments disrupted traditional expectations and were sometimes perceived as mechanical, cold, or lacking musical "soul".
At around the same time, Luigi Russelo known for his work Art of noise the futurist manifesto had a contradicting viewpoint and was instrumental in questioning the norms of music and attempted to put futuristic theory to art and music. Ruseelo said,“Ancient life was all silence. In the 19th century, with the invention of the machine, noise was born. Today, noise triumphs and reigns supreme over the sensibilities of men”. Although, it is up for debate what noise means? And if noise was actually born with the invention of the machine?He believed that the current musical instruments could not satisfy humans' acoustic thirst.
Image Courtesy Trifecta Press10
In 1904, the vacuum tube was invented by English physicist and electrical engineer John Ambrose Fleming which led a new generation of electronic music instruments. Vacuum tubes allowed weak electrical signals to be amplified to levels sufficient to drive loudspeakers or other sound-producing devices. This made electronic instruments audible in larger venues giving electronic music instruments like Theremin, Helertion, etc. a boom after the 1920s.
Encyclopaedia Britannica. (n.d.). The Industrial Revolution (1750–1900). In History of Technology. Retrieved from https://www.britannica.com/technology/history-of-technology/The-Industrial-Revolution-1750-1900
Electronic musical instrument. (n.d.). Wikipedia. Retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_musical_instrument
120 Years of Electronic Music. (n.d.). The electromechanical piano (MSR, Hipps, Switzerland, 1867). Retrieved from https://120years.net/the-electromechanical-piano-msr-hippsswitzerland1867/
Far Out Magazine. (n.d.). The first electric musical instrument. Retrieved from https://faroutmagazine.co.uk/the-first-electric-musical-instrument/
120 Years of Electronic Music. (n.d.). The musical telegraph (Elisha Gray, USA, 1876). Retrieved from https://120years.net/the-musical-telegraphelisha-greyusa1876/
Wikimedia Commons. (n.d.). Console for the Telharmonium in the Cabot St Music Plant of the New England Electric Music Company, Holyoke, Massachusetts. Retrieved from https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6f/Console_for_the_Telharmonium_in_the_Cabot_St_Music_Plant_of_the_New_England_Electric_Music_Company%2C_Holyoke%2C_Massachusetts.jpg
Perfect Circuit. (n.d.). The Telharmonium: The first electronic musical instrument. Retrieved from https://www.perfectcircuit.com/signal/telharmonium-history
120 Years of Electronic Music. (n.d.). Duddell moving-coil oscillograph image. Retrieved from https://120years-net.stackstaging.com/wp-content/uploads/638px-Oscillograph_Duddell_Moving_Coil3.png
SuperStock. (n.d.). Optophonic Piano by Vladimir Baranov-Rossiné. Retrieved fromhttps://www.superstock.com/asset/optophonic-piano-baranov-rossine-vladimir-davidovich/4266-21639751
Trifecta Press. (n.d.). Electronic instruments and the Audion Piano. Retrieved from https://www.trifectapress.com/text/ElectronicInstruments.html
Comments