Telharmonium console by Thaddeus Cahill 1897

The earliest purely electronic musical instrument was the Telharmonium or Teleharmonium, developed by Thaddeus Cahill in 1897. The Telharmonium was intended to be listened to using telephone receivers. Teleharmonium by Thaddeus Cahill 1897 Source: [1] This image has been released into the public domain by the copyright holder, its copyright has expired, or it is ineligible for copyright. ... Teleharmonium by Thaddeus Cahill 1897 Source: [1] This image has been released into the public domain by the copyright holder, its copyright has expired, or it is ineligible for copyright. ... Thaddeus Cahill (1867 - 1934) was a prominent inventor of the early 20th century. ... 1897 was a common year starting on Friday (see link for calendar). ... An electronic musical instrument is a musical instrument that produces its sounds using electronics. ... Thaddeus Cahill (1867 - 1934) was a prominent inventor of the early 20th century. ... 1897 was a common year starting on Friday (see link for calendar). ... A telephone handset A touch-tone telephone dial Telephone This article is about telephone technology. ...

Like the later Hammond organ, the Telharmonium used electromechanical tonewheels to generate musical sounds as electrical signals by additive synthesis. An authoritative history of the Telharmonium is 'Magical Music from the Telharmonium' by Reynold Weidenaar, Scarecrow Press, 1995. The Hammond organ is an electric organ which was designed and built by Laurens Hammond in April 1935. ... A tonewheel is a relatively primitive apparatus for generating electronic musical notes. ... Additive synthesis is a technique of audio synthesis which creates musical timbre. ...

The Mark I version weighed 7 tons. The Mark II version weighed almost 200 tons. Cahill built three versions in total, each one being a considerable advancement over the features of its predecessor. A small number of performances in front of a live audience were given in addition to the telephone transmissions. Performances in New York were well received by the public in 1906, and the performer would sit at a console (see picture) to control the instrument. The actual mechanism of the instrument itself was so large it occupied an entire room — wires from the controlling console were fed discreetly through holes in the floor of an auditorium into the instrument room itself, which was housed in the basement beneath the concert hall. 1906 was a common year starting on Monday (see link for calendar). ...

The Telharmonium foreshadowed modern electronic musical equipment in a number of ways. For instance, its sound output came in the form of connecting ordinary telephone receivers to large paper cones — a primitive form of loudspeaker. Indeed, Cahill was noted for saying that ideally, electromagnetic diaphrams were the most preferable means of outputting its distinctive sound. Closeup of a loudspeaker driver A loudspeaker is a device which converts an electrical signal into sound. ... Electromagnetism is the physics of the electromagnetic field: a field, encompassing all of space, composed of the electric field and the magnetic field. ...

Although no recordings exist of the Telharmonium, observers reported that its sound was very clear and pure — probably referring to the sine tones it was capable of producing. However, it was not restricted to such simple sounds. Each tonewheel of the instrument corresponded to a single note, and, to broaden its possibilities, Cahill added several extra tonewheels to add harmonics to each note. This, combined with organ-like stops and multiple keyboards (the Telharmonium was polyphonic), as well as a number of foot pedals, meant that every sound could be sculpted and reshaped — the instrument was noted for its ability to reproduce common orchestral woodwind instruments such as the flute, bassoon, clarinet, and also the cello. In acoustics and telecommunication, the harmonic of a wave is a component frequency of the signal that is an integral multiple of the fundamental frequency. ... This article or section should be merged with Pipe organ The Casavant pipe organ at Notre-Dame de Montréal Basilica, Montreal The organ is a type of keyboard musical instrument, distinctive because the sound is not produced by a percussion action, as on a piano or celesta, or by... This article pertains to the musical instrument. ... Bassoon Playing range of a bassoon The bassoon is the tenor member of the woodwind family. ... A bass clarinet, which sounds an octave lower than the more common Bb soprano clarinet. ... A cropped image to show the relative size of a cello to a human (Uncropped Version) The cello (also violoncello or cello) is a stringed instrument and a member of the violin family. ...

The Telharmonium's demise came for a number of reasons. Its immense size, weight and power consumption (this being in an age before vacuum tubes had been invented) caused obvious problems. In addition, problems began to arise when telephone broadcasts of Telharmonium music were subject to crosstalk and unsuspecting telephone users would be interrupted by strange electronic music. By 1912, interest in this revolutionary instrument had worn off, and Cahill's company was later declared bankrupt. In electronics, a vacuum tube (American English) or (thermionic) valve (British English) is a device generally used to amplify a signal. ... In telecommunication, the term crosstalk (XT) has the following meanings: 1. ... 1912 is a leap year starting on Monday. ...

External links

• http://www.synthmuseum.com/magazine/0102jw.html
• http://csunix1.lvc.edu/~snyder/em/dyna.html
• http://sonhors.free.fr/panorama/sonhors2.htm