Oscillation

The material you are about to read joins yesterday's post as a half-witted excuse for a research paper. I am flying solo with Wikipedia, so be warned.

A fellow by the name of Elisha Gray, who is credited with the invention of a telephone prototype, apparently crafted the first synthesizer of sound in 1876. I will venture a guess that the instrument was neither appealing in the tones it produced nor ever commercially produced. I have nothing to base this upon, except for the seeming lack of information regarding its whereabouts.

An equally unsuccessful venture was the Hammond Novatron, produced by the Hammond Company in the 1930s and 40s. Hammond would later produce the B3, which is still widely esteemed as the holy grail of jazz organs. The Novatron failed to win the affections of music experimenters, and it is now relegated to short, under-thought paragraphs such as this.

It was not until the 1960s that the synthesizer earned a date with destiny. Robert Moog's synthesizer, cleverly named Moog, spread onto pop albums like syphilis.

The Moog is an instrument near to my heart. Though I have never touched one, Jan Hammer did during his tenure as the keyboard player in the Mahavishnu Orchestra, a favorite band of mine during the formative high school years. Led by guitarist John McLaughlin, the virtuosic band set the standard for fusing rock music with Indian rhythms and melodies. I owned all of their albums, most of which were original vinyl pressings, and I wore them out.

A woman by the name of Wendy Carlos recorded an album of the Brandenburg Concerti using Moog synthesizers. It is a famous recording, and my parents even owned it when I was a child. I must confess that even though I admire the experiment, I hate the resulting sound. Wendy Carlos was formerly known as Walter Carlos because she used to be a man. It is not relevant; I'm just mentioning.

The synthesizer may have earned its stripes in the 1960s, but the 70s ushered in its heydey. Producing the famed soundtrack for the film Chariots of Fire, Vangelis used only synthesizers to craft the iconic compositions heard therein. Genres of music started to unfold with aesthetics rooted in synthesized sound. Movements such as New Wave and Synthpop emerged as bright, sparkly alternatives to the rough, live sound so popular the decade before.

New Wave is considered to be a genre of music similar to Punk Rock that employs a more experimental, electronic approach. Nothing more than a sub-genre, Synthpop is a form of new wave composed almost exclusively with synthesized sounds.

Yesterday and today serve as the preface for the meat of this discussion, which is slated to appear here tomorrow. Join me then for an exploration of current sub-genres of music under the umbrella of electronica, all grossly under-researched as well.