Audacious

Sorry for the delay of new posts. Forgive me? You definitely be overcome with amnesty after you read this post all about my new obsession: Synthesized-Electronica!!! As you can tell, I am über excited to elaborate.

A synthesizer is defined as electronic instrument (usually played with a keyboard) that generates and modifies sounds electronically and can imitate a variety of other musical instruments. One of the first synthesizers, and my personal favorite, is called a Stylophone. Consider the following:



Ha! Brett Domino is such a nerd. I think I love him. ANYWAYS, the historical factuality of that video may be a little whack. Okay, a LOT whack. The TRUE facts are these: the Stylophone was 1967 by Brian Jarvis and manufactured in the UK. Essentially invented for child’s play, the handheld synthesizer has evolved from a toy to popular musical instrument. Yes, it even has its own dictionary definition. Can you say AWESOME? By itself, the synthesized sounds may be migraine-inducing, but when mixed with some bass and background music, you could essentially get your Stylophone to sound like this.



Little Boots is really something isn’t she? You may be wondering what that little lighted square that beats along with her tunes is? That, boys and girls, is called a Tenori-on which is an electronic music creator invented by Japanese artists Toshio Iwai and Yu Nishibori. It has two sides, one where the musician can control the pitch and timing of sounds, and the other to display a lightshow that responds to the sound. The lights flicker on and off in a four four timing with endless combinations. The best feature of the Tenori-on is that it was made for the musically-challenged. It doesn’t take a genius to play around with some LED buttons.

The third stop on our Synthesized-Electronica tour is in fact the Theremin. You may recognize it as the high-pitched background melody on the Beach Boy’s “Good Vibrations” or Star Trek theme song. Although we all may categorize the sound of the Theremin to themes that are futuristic or unknown, the Theremin has been around for quite a long time. In 1922, Russian scientist Lev Sergeyevitch Termen was working in St. Petersburg for Lenin developing ways to locate enemy radio transmitters for communist Russia when he stumbled upon the realization that by moving his hands between the antennae of the transmitter he was working on, it would create an eerie and intriguing sound. How does the Theremin work? The two frequency oscillators produce a sound that is normally higher than the human’s range of hearing, but when interrupted by your hands’ capacitance, alters the frequency thus creating a sound. Super flash right?



Well! I hope this information has been valuable and to your benefit and next time you hear eerie sounds in a science fiction movie, or the synthesized droning of a Stylophone, you’ll say, “Hey! I read a tremendous and outstanding blog post about synthesized-electronica.” All your friends will think you are so smart.

Information Compiled From:

http://www.tompolk.com/Tannerin/Tannerin.html
http://www.theremin-saw.com/theremin.htm
http://www.moogmusic.com/history.php?cat_id=2
http://120years.net/machines/theremin/index.html
http://www.retrothing.com/2006/06/stylophone_odd_.html
http://www.stylophone.fsnet.co.uk/
http://www.shinyshack.com/product.php?prid=211615
http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2009/jul/06/whats-that-sound-stylophone
http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/features/this-gadget-rocks-the-worlds-newest-musical-instrument-791234.html

P.S. If you didn't know what "flash" meant, that's probably because it's part of my new aussie slang I've been using because I'm that cool.

Flash: Adj. Showy, ostentatious.