Chapter 11. Meeting 11, Interfaces: Electronic and Electromagnetic Instruments 11.1. Announcements • Next class is a Discussion and Workshop meeting • Focus on Bimber reading • Experiment with electro-magnetic pickups (bring anything with vibrating metal) • Building oscillators with Collins CMOS Hex Schmitt Trigger IC design 11.2. Quiz Review • ? 11.3. Reading: McSwain • McSwain, R. 2002. “The Social Construction of a Reverse Salient in Electric Guitar Technology: Noise, the Solid Body, and Jimi Hendrix.” In Music and Technology in the Twentieth Century. H. Braun, ed. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press. 186-198. • What are the three stages of suggested for electric guitar development? • What is a technological reverse salient • What does it mean to re-conceptualize a reverse saliet? What are the possible outcomes? 11.4. The Telharmonium (Dynamophone): Idea • Thaddeus Cahill (1872-1917) • Considered the first electronic polyphonic instrument • One or two performers sit at a keyboard with multiple manuals • Keyboards trigger dynamo oscillators • Dynamos contain large cylinders on pitch shafts (Holmes 2008, p. 8) with raised bumps called rheotome 238• Size and number of teeth in each rotor determines frequency (similar to a tone wheel) • Up to five (Holmes 2008, p. 9) Sine-like tones mixed and processed to produce more complex tones • Output distributed over conventional telephone lines • Goal of distributing music (Telharmony) everywhere via phone lines as a commercial service to restaurants, hotels, and individuals 11.5. The Telharmonium (Dynamophone): Images • Photos 239240• Patent drawings 24124224311.6. The Telharmonium (Dynamophone): History • 1884: Cahill was a student at Oberlin Conservatory in Ohio (Holmes 2008, p. 8), learned of Helmoholtz • Began experiments with telephones in 1893 • First patents in 1895, 1896, and 1897 • First prototype built from 1898-1901 • 1901: Demonstrated in Baltimore at the Maryland Club, with sounds generated in Washington D.C. on one-octave instrument (Holmes 2008, p. 9) • Moved to Holyoke Massachusetts to build improved model, started Cahill Telharmonium Company • Moved Telharmonium to New York City on 30 railroad flat cars • 1905: New York Electric Music Company established • Telharmonic Hall: 39th St and Broadway, NYC • Weighed over 200 tons, measured over 60 feet long, required 2000 switches (Holmes 2008, p. 10), and included 145 dynamos 244• NYC premier: 26 September 1906, later up to four public performances a day • 1908: New York Electric Music Company collapsed • Problems with maintaining volume, power consumption, and crosstalk • 1909: Third Telharmonium completed • 1910: The New York Cahill Telharmonic Company • 1911: installed new Telharmonium at 535 West 56th Street, NYC • 1912: demonstrated at Carnegie hall • 1914: Company bankrupt • Operation ceased in 1916 11.7. The Theremin: Idea • Lev Sergeyevich Termen (1896-1993) • The first successful monophonic electronic instrument, first gesture controlled instrument • Performer’s hands act as the grounded plate of a variable capacitor • Vertical antenna: distance from performer’s hand determines frequency via capacitance • Horizontal loop: distance from performer’s hand determines amplitude via capacitance • Beat frequency oscillator: employs two supersonic radio frequency oscillators that are heterodyned to produce the audible frequencies • Early models included an integrated Loudspeaker • Some models offer different timbres available with switches 11.8. The Theremin: History • 1920: first demonstrated in Russia • 1922: demonstrated to Lenin • 1927 to 1938: Theremin, in U.S., spies for the Soviet Union (Holmes 2008, p. 22) • late 1920s (1925 or 1929): RCA manufactures 500 theremins • 1920s: composers such as Pashchenko, Shillinger, and Varèse compose works with the Theremin 245• 1954: Bob Moog begins to build theremins 11.9. The Theremin: Images • Historic Models (RCA) © source unknown. All rights reserved. This content is excluded from our Creative Commons license.For more information, see http://ocw.mit.edu/fairuse. 246Courtesy of Sonny the Radiolaguy (http://www.radiolaguy.com). Used with permission.247• Contemporary Models: Moog Theremin ($419) 248 Courtesy of Sonny the Radiolaguy (http://www.radiolaguy.com). Used with permission.• Contemporary Models: Moog Etherwave Pro ($1395) © Moog Music. All rights reserved. This content is excluded from our Creative Commons license. For more information, see http://ocw.mit.edu/fairuse. 24911.10. The Theremin: Video • Theremin virtuoso Clara Rockmore © Moog Music. All rights reserved. This content is excluded from our Creative Commons license. For more information, see http://ocw.mit.edu/fairuse. 25011.11. The Ondes Martenot: Idea • Maurice Martenot (1898-1980), influenced by Leon Termin • Monophonic instrument with a vacuum tube oscillator, designed to be a symphonic instrument • First models used a “pull wire” to control pitch; a conventional keyboard was added in fourth version (1930) • Originally used a touch sensor; the fifth version added a ribbon controller (1933) • Keys can be moved laterally to create small pitch changes • Amplitude was controlled by a pressure sensitive key for the left hand, switches could be used to alter timbre • Same synthesis technique as the Theremin: (beat-frequency oscillator) • Used in works by Boulez, Varèse, Milhaud, Honegger, and others 11.12. The Ondes Martenot: History • 1923: Martenot meets Termin • 1928: Patents instrument as “Perfectionnements aux instruments de musique électriques” • 1929, 1930, 1933: improved versions • 1930-1931: tours with instrument • 1947: Martenot establishes classes at Paris Conservatory 11.13. The Ondes Martenot: Images • Photos 251© Source unknown. All rights reserved. This content is excluded from our Creative Commons license. For more information, see http://ocw.mit.edu/fairuse. • Jean Laurendeau and the Ondes Martenot YouTube (http://youtube.com/watch?v=Yy9UBjrUjwo) 11.14. Listening: Oraison • Oliver Messiaen (1908-1992), French composer, interested in new harmonic and rhythmic structures • 1937: Oliver Messiaen: Oraison for Ondes Martenot Quartet 25211.15. The Ondes Martenot: Abstraction of a Musical Interface •