Electronic Instruments

With the advent of the use of electricity to power nearly all power-run appliances, electronic instruments grew popular especially during the early twentieth century. However, the first electronic instrument, the electric harpsichord was made for early - in 1761. What exactly do we mean by electronic instruments? There are two types of electronic instruments. The first is the traditional plucking, hitting or bowing to create the sound. This sound is sent to a sound amplifier, which then makes the sound louder, by several magnitudes. Examples of the first type are electric guitars, violins, cellos, basses, mandolins, organs and banjos.

The second type of electronic instruments is one that produces sound as a result of electric vibrations. These types

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of instruments can emulate existing sounds or stimulate new sounds. An example of the first, one which can

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emulate existing sounds, is the electronic organ. Examples of the latter are the Theremin, 1920; Ondes Martenot, 1928; Trautonium, 1930; and MixturTrautonium, 1952.

The magnetic tape and later the compact disc recorder allowed further development of electronic instruments. The tape or CD itself acted as an instrument for playback and for composers to produce new sounds. Inside the magnetic tape are microscopic magnets that the tape recorder manipulates in a binary code fashion. In the same respect, the compact disc has tiny potholes within the bottom of the disc. An arrangement of “filled” and “unfilled” holes creates yet the same binary code that a compact disc player is able to read.

The invention of the music synthesizer, created in 1955 and improved in the 1960s provided yet another way to create music. The allowance of sound within computers was also another great step in electronic instrumentation. Today, many personal computers have the ability to read and playback MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface) which produced more than one hundred different types of instruments and sounds. During the 1990s, the creation of the so-called “wavetable” sound card, which used actually recording of real instruments and sounds, allowed a more realistic and closer aspect to digital music. Today, with the software and the sound card at hand, nearly anyone can afford the professional-like tools to create music.