Synthesizer
Born out of the minds of electronics tinkerers with an avid interest in music, the synthesizer is a unique musical instrument that exists in an infinite range of forms and shapes. At its very root, a synthesizer is simply a device with all the components necessary to create and modify sounds electronically. While electronic sound-making machines have existed for a long time, they remained fringe instruments used in experimental music; only after World War II were they heavily incorporated into all forms of popular music. The Singing Arc, invented by William Duddell in 1899, is often considered the first electronic instrument. It used the ability of the carbon arc (which existed at that time in the new electric street lights) to generate notes. Further technological developments like thermionic valves and later transistors, revolutionized the electronic music scene.
It was Robert Moog’s ingenuity as experimenter, engineer and entrepreneur that took synthesizers to a new level. According to authors Trevor Pinch and Frank Trocco: “The synthesizer is the only innovation that can stand alongside the electric guitar as a great new instrument of the age of electricity…the synthesizer may turn out to be the more radical innovation, because, rather than applying electricity to a pre-existing instrument, it uses a genuinely new source of sound − electronics. It is the radicalness of the instrument that has allowed the synthesizer to evolve into the digital age.” Moog’s synthesizers gained popularity because he included the keyboard, a format musicians were familiar with, as a control device. Like some of the pioneers of the electric guitar, he engaged musicians in his design process, built prototypes for them to test, and kept on tinkering to create newer, richer sounds.
Moog’s early instruments gained widespread use when they were used by popular musicians such as The Monkees and The Doors. In 1968, the album Switched on Bach, introduced a whole new way to play classical music and hugely popularized the instrument. By 1970, Moog had created the portable Mini Moog and one of the most popular synthesizers ever developed. With a keyboard and a small wheel for bending pitches upward or downward, its design became the instrument standard.
In 1975 and 1977, Donna Summer and Italian arranger/producer Giorgio Moroder created two breakthrough songs, “Love to Love You Baby” and “I Feel Love,” that put the Moog synthesizer on the disco music map. By the early 1980s, relatively inexpensive, mass-produced models could produce multiple pitches at the same time. Many popular artists of the early 1980s used synthesized tones and drum beats in pop, dance styles like techno, house and hip-hop. And the many hip-hop and house DJs active during this period further sampled and remixed these sounds on their turntables to create new works. Today, synthesizers are available in a variety of forms and are no longer driven by the keyboard. Yamaha’s latest Tenori-on and Patten Studio’s Audiopad signal future directions.
