Electronic Musical Instruments

We will address the historical development of the most relevant electronic instruments and explain each one without detailing their operation since many no longer operate today. In this sense, it is necessary to mention that it is not that the electronic instruments not developed in this volume do not matter, but that the importance of those addressed is much greater.

Therefore, we will focus on the analysis of how they were manufactured and, where appropriate, how they evolved to become modern electronic music instruments. Since the design of new musical instruments has been complex, the instruments mentioned throughout this volume will not be explained primarily in technical detail.

Still, the most relevant points will be mentioned as an introduction. Something that we must consider all the time when reading this volume is that all the instruments discussed have a common factor: their design has always been intrinsically linked to the technologies available to their inventor, depending on the time in which he lived. While many of them may seem somewhat outdated or childish when compared to those that exist today, we must never forget that most of these instruments ignored practices, aesthetic ideals, and industry standards about the time and place in which they were conceived, such as the ease of manufacture (the telharmonium is an incredible example), the sonic predictability and the economy of scale to be able to mass-manufacture them.

For practical reasons, I have divided this volume into three sections: those developed in the 18th century, those produced in the 19th century, and finally, those manufactured in the 20th century, many of which are still in operation today. In this way, we will realize how most of the electronic instruments that are currently used are not more than a century old after they were manufactured for the first time, which is quite surprising. On the other hand, although a highly considerable number of patents for electronic instruments have been registered (especially in the 20th century), I have limited myself to mentioning the most relevant of them to have a notion of how it is that we got to the current point in this ambit.

With this in mind, we will inevitably ask ourselves: Why have only very few of the electronic instruments discussed in this volume survived to date? Part of the answer to this question lies in the fact that those instruments that made it have had the capacity to adjust to the rapid and aggressive change of modernity, and because they have been conceived with too much intuition in mind; that is, they work perfectly or rarely fail, they generate familiarity in the consumer at the first contact, and their way of producing them has proven to be profitable for the investors behind the project or the company that manufactures them.