Comments on: Keyboards Back from the Dead

Keyboards Back from the Dead

jonp72 — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 16:46:49 -0800

Dead musical instruments... brought back to life by YouTube? Check out this mellotron demo film, a rare trautonium keyboard in some guy's garage, trautonium music by composer Oskar Sala, an original Ondes Martenot, a documentary on the telharmonium (parts 1, 2, and 3), and the Sonovox (used to funny but not-suitable-for-work effect in this parody of Sparky's Magic Piano). Meanwhile, avant-gardists have revived the art of prepared piano, but more mainstream acts such as Tori Amos and Ferrante & Teicher have also experimented with it. Last but not least, another performer of prepared piano is Margaret Leng Tan, but I think she should get more accolades as the best virtuoso of the toy piano since Schroeder from Peanuts.

By: retronic

retronic — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 16:55:32 -0800

Thanks for this. Margaret Leng Tan is awesome (and new to me).

By: flapjax at midnite

flapjax at midnite — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 17:00:19 -0800

I call your attention to a post I made on the Ondes Martenot in December of last year, which in fact includes the same YouTube clip you've linked to here. Not calling this FPP out as a double, though: you've got lots of other links here, and I look forward to exploring them. Otherwise, jonp72, a suggestion: add the musicalinstrument tag, and join the ever-expanding legion of users of this handy signifier!

By: CitrusFreak12

CitrusFreak12 — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 17:10:04 -0800

Those were great, thanks!

By: Sys Rq

Sys Rq — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 17:13:26 -0800

Mellotrons are awesome. While they're completely archaic at this point -- Mellotron samples are virtually indistinguishable from the real thing and plenty more reliable -- they're still being made... in Calgary, of all places.

By: jonp72

jonp72 — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 17:27:57 -0800

Otherwise, jonp72, a suggestion: add the musicalinstrument tag, and join the ever-expanding legion of users of this handy signifier! Thanks for the tip. I had a post up ages ago with some bizarre mechanical instruments such as the piatarbajo and cloud-chamber bowls, but that was pre-You Tube and the Metafilter Era B.T. (before tags).

By: sleepy pete

sleepy pete — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 19:26:27 -0800

Nice post, jonp72. Here's the link to his piatarbajo post (I once had a long one man band post that I gave up on, so I had the link saved). If any of you can find it, I highly recommend Heavenly Sounds in Hi-Fi by Ferrante and Teicher (I used to see it occasionally in thrift stores). It's full of prepared piano, minor-key renditions of standards, and, overall, enough psychedelic flourishes to make it one of my favorite albums.

By: flapjax at midnite

flapjax at midnite — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 20:00:19 -0800

Hey, wow, that Telharmonium documentary is really interesting, and very charmingly put together. So glad you discovered abd posted it, jonp72. I kind of can't believe I'd never heard of this crazy thing til now!

By: DevilsAdvocate

DevilsAdvocate — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 20:08:57 -0800

Wonderful post! No Videos found for 'heckelphone' Really? I didn't think they were that obscure. Quite a few nice glass harmonica performances, though.

By: sleepy pete

sleepy pete — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 20:44:25 -0800

There's a nice list of instruments at obsolete.com's 120 years of electronic music, with info on and sometimes mp3s and video of a lot of instruments. Also, for cortex, here's a stylophone version of "Popcorn".

By: cortex

cortex — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 20:48:12 -0800

Glee!

By: flapjax at midnite

flapjax at midnite — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 21:11:07 -0800

Did someone say "glass harmonica"? Let Flapjax Industries take care of all your glass (h)armonica needs!

By: sleepy pete

sleepy pete — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 23:02:31 -0800

Also, since I don't know if it's been here in awhile, here's a link to Audio Playground's Virtual Drum Machine page (the article about synths I linked to earlier is also linked there), with a few links to some keyboards at the bottom. It includes the one keyboard I always loved having, but never used it more than once a year: the Rheem Kee Bass. They aren't necessarily dead, but it's fun to play them just the same. You will need a flash plugin to get these to work, just in case you were wondering.

By: retronic

retronic — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 00:37:45 -0800

Speaking of Stylophones, I've got a mint-in-box, never used Stylophone (including instructional phonograph record!) that I'll be breaking in once I can assemble enough batteries to power it. Also, a friend of mine's got a line on never-used Stylophones, if anybody's interested....

By: XMLicious

XMLicious — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 04:19:05 -0800

Just don't get the rare trautonium keyboard anywhere near the anti-trautonium banjo.