People who are not really familiar with Art Music (and even some who are) have a tendency to think that modern orchestral instrumentation sprang fully formed from the head of Zeus like Athena. The truth is that composers often look for novel sounds and instruments and players instruments that are easier to play.
Consider the valved Brass instruments I’m most familiar with. Until the late 18th, early 19th century there was no such thing. Instead you were limited to major harmonics controlled by your embouchure (basically the tightness of your lips and facial muscles). Sure you could flatten or sharp it a little, but if you wanted to play in a different key, you had to use a different instrument.
Even an unvalved French Horn (the oldest of the modern brass instruments) was invented as recently as 1725.
During the Baroque and Classical periods instrumentation changed quite a bit, so much so that there is now an Early Music movement dedicated to Renaissance and Medieval instruments and performance styles. Concert strings switched from fretted to unfretted (which makes certain obvious and non-obvious changes to the harmonics that are too difficult to get into here). Flat backs were replaced by shaped ones that sound louder. Lutes are replaced by guitars.
The Woodwind instruments (flute, clarinet, oboe, bassoon) owe their modern shape to Theobald Boehm who in 1847 introduced a simplified (Hah! Too many for me.) fingering system that used a complicated set of levers and pads to control the airflow, and thus the harmonics.
You may be somewhat aware of the development of the Pianoforte (means Soft/Loud) from the earlier Harpsichord by replacing a plucked string system with a percussive hammer action. Well, that happened in 1700, 400 years ago but not, you know, in the dim dark mists of some pre-historic time. New York City had over 7,000 inhabitants and was to publish it’s very first newspaper in a mere 25 years (same time as the French Horn).
The Saxophone, the newest of what is generally considered a “classic” orchestra instrument was patented in 1840 by Adolphe Sax. The Tuba in 1835.
So what occasions this discussion of the history of musical instruments? The 81st birthday of Robert Moog.
There is an unfortunate prejudice against electronic instruments in Art Music. Because they are programmable (with the right kind of controls) they are derided as mere recordings and, because they can replace many imperfect musicians with one that always does what you tell it to (which may not be what you want), are rightly viewed as an employment threat.
In their earliest forms though a considerable amount of skill and practice was required, just as with any instrument. One of the first electronic instruments was the Theremin. It was patented by Léon Theremin in 1928. You don’t physically touch the instrument, it senses the capacitance between your hands and the sensors to control pitch and volume. While it did gain some novelty attraction in Art Music world it is best known for lending its 87 year old “futuristic” sound to movie sound tracks and TV theme songs.
Recognize that? It’s the Dr. Who theme commonly credited to the BBC Radiophonic Workshop that was really composed by Ron Grainer and performed by Delia Derbyshire.
Robert Moog built one himself and later put together a fairly popular (among electronics geeks) kit.
A really popular electronic instrument is the Hammond electric organ from 1935. It was intended as a low cost, lighter, semi-portable alternative to a traditional pipe organ and quickly saturated the ecclesiastical market. The sound is produced “by creating an electric current from rotating a metal tonewheel near an electromagnetic pickup.” While it has many buttons and sliders that can produce different sounds none of them actually sound like an organ and the greatest similarity is the stop switches and keyboard controls.
What Moog did that was different with his synthesizer is that he didn’t try to duplicate anything. I had an opportunity to work with an early model and it was basically a wave form generator patched through an amplifier.
There are 3 basic types, Sine, Square, and Sawtooth, so named because that’s what they look like on an oscilloscope which is your main output device (other than your speakers). You can control amplitude and frequency and (in the case of Sawtooth) rate of attack and decline. Using these fundamental tools it is theoretically possible to reproduce any sound at all.
Theoretically. Most of my efforts sounded like that annoying hum you get when you haven’t plugged your components together properly, but I am decidedly unmusical and only had a couple of hours to play with it.
Modern practice is to sample the sound you want to duplicate, analyze it to its components, and tweak the output until it sounds the way you like. Computer generated sound is capable of things human musicians can not duplicate any more than John Henry, on the other hand you still have to imagine it and tell them what to do. 60 Hz AC is perfectly acceptable noise, but it’s hardly a symphony.
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