Rhythmicon
The rhythmicon or rhythmicon is an electronic musical instrument . It was built in 1931 by the Russian physicist Leon Theremin (actually Lev Sergejewitsch Termen, 1896–1993) at the request of the composer and theoretician Henry Cowell .
The rhythmicon is a keyboard instrument . The left outer key forms the basic tone together with the basic rhythm, the others a tone sequence which corresponds in pitch and rhythm to the overtone series of the basic tone. The second key thus produces a tone twice as high as the first with twice as fast a rhythm, the third a tone three times the frequency and a tone sequence three times faster, etc.
The rhythm icon has 17 keys and generates the tones like a pinhole siren with optical scanning. To generate the rhythms, light penetrates the holes in the rotating discs and is evaluated by photocells.
The rhythmicon was used in a number of films from the 1950s and 1960s, including Dr. Strange - or: How I learned to love the bomb .
Various groups are also said to have used it, for example Pink Floyd in Atom Heart Mother , Arthur Brown in The Crazy World of Arthur Brown, and the Tornados in Robot . Tangerine Dream used rhythmicon sequences in the album Rubycon (1975).
literature
- Irina Aldoshina, Ekaterina Davidenkova: The History of Electro-Musical Instruments in Russia in the First Half of the Twentieth Century (PDF; 4.0 MB) , Proceedings of the Second Vienna Talk, Sept. 19–21, 2010
Web links
- The Rhythmicon or "Polyrhythmophone" (1930) (English) (article includes image)
- Электронное устройство Термена "РИТМИКОН" (Russian) ( Termen's electronic device "Rhythmikon", the article also contains a picture of a later device)
- The Online Rhythmicon (Here you can play the Rhythmicon online)