An Illustrated Guide to Prog Rock Instruments

Ajay wrote: Save a future slot for the Eigenharp.

Warthur wrote: I would like to perk up to mention one synthesiser not mentioned in the (very impressive) OP: the humble stylophone. Its operation is simple. You have a stylus. You run a stylus across the pad, making an electrical connection. The tone of the tinny bleeping noise the stylophone makes varies across the pad. It was sold as a novelty and tended to be used by one, but there's a few interesting uses of it on the periphery of prog. David Bowie played one on Space Oddity (accompanied by Rick Wakeman on more grown-up keyboards!), Kraftwerk made use of one on Pocket Calculator, and the "I Do Like to Be Beside the Seaside" bit at the end of Queen's Seven Seas of Rhye (album version) features some. Not, in short, a particularly clever or even impressive instrument, but an iconic one anyway, not least because many British kids of a certain age have fond memories of mucking about with stylophones received as stocking-fillers.

Thanks Dean, a very impressive instrument and concept for its time indeed, the precursor of muzak (or how do you say it in English, 'piped music'?) to say the least!

Dayvenkirq wrote:  I have just noticed that. That's just ... weird ... a pipe shoved up Dave's mouth. ... Just weird.

Hi,

Very nice ... and the pictures make it a nice treat as well.

I do not think, however, that I would write this in a book as "progressive rock instruments", since this IS a part of the history of the development of the piano, guitar into the electronic age, and as such, the evaluation and history of it, becomes more important. We forget that the 50's and 60's ... was the major gate to history ... it all became ELECTRIC ... and that was a massively major change for ALL music and instrumentation!

I would never want to suggest that none of these was ever used in pop music, specially when ELP were very much a part of the pop music thing, with a couple of "hits" and then doing fun, rock'n'roll songs on the incredible instruments as a joke ... I mean you don't need that much to do the sheriff any justice ... but it sounds good and fun all the same!

We should/could add here folks like Beaver & Krause, the works of various composers like Stockhausen that was a forerunner of Riley and many others, and then Tomita for sure.

As a book, this will likely do a lot better with a different title than "prog rock instruments" ... because these were ... the instruments of a generation of music history that is what the 20th century was about in music. What we call "progressive" is a lot more about the full work - lyrics and all, than it is about the instruments.

But it is a very good piece of work ... makes me want to tell Storm that he needs to update his book on album covers! And Roger needs to do a Views 2 and Views 3 ... and I like the 12x12 format! Yours would be magnificent in that size as well!

Edited by moshkito - February 18 2013 at 21:53

moshkito wrote: Hi, Very nice ... and the pictures make it a nice treat as well. I do not think, however, that I would write this in a book as "progressive rock instruments", since this IS a part of the history of the development of the piano, guitar into the electronic age, and as such, the evaluation and history of it, becomes more important. We forget that the 50's and 60's ... was the major gate to history ... it all became ELECTRIC ... and that was a massively major change for ALL music and instrumentation!

Edited by Gerinski - February 19 2013 at 06:39

Thanks, very informative as always!

Added:

Gerinski wrote: Dean wrote: From a pure technical/electronics point of view there is no difference between an electric organ, an electric piano and a synthesiser, the only difference is in application. Are you quite sure about that? I always thought that, at least in common lay-man terminology, the way sounds are generated and/or edited makes such a difference.  Devices which generate sound by mechanical / acoustic means and then convert them into electric sound signals (typically by electromagnetic pickups, say an electric guitar, a Hammond, a Hohner Clavinet, a Rhodes, a Wurly etc) are not considered synthesizers. Devices which generate the sound directly from electronic components (vacuum tubes, transistors, oscillators etc) are considered as either 'electronic keyboards' or as 'synthesizers'. The main difference between 'electronic keyboard' and 'synthesizer' being that in a synth the user has control on the synthesis and signal processing. An instrument with only presets but no possibility for the user to alter them (such as the ARP String Ensemble) would be called an electronic keyboard, while an instrument allowing the user to play with the synthesis and editing of the waveform would be a synth. Am I very mislead?