Thaddeus Cahill's "Dynamophone/Telharmonium" (1897)

Let me introduce you the first synthetiser ever built.

Dynamophone/Telharmonium - 1897

In 1897 Thaddeus Cahill patented (pat no 580,035) what was to become the "Telharmonium" or "Dynamophone" which can be considered the first significant electronic musical instrument . The first fully completed model was presented to the public in 1906 in Holyoke, Mass.






The Telharmonium was essentially a collection of 145 modified dynamos employing a number of specially geared shafts and associated inductors to produce alternating currents of different audio frequencies. These signals were controlled by a multiple set of polyphonic velocity sensitive keyboards ( of seven octaves, 36 notes per octave tuneable to frequencies between 40-4000Hz) and associated banks of controls.
The resulting sound was audible via acoustic horns built from piano soundboards in the early models, later models were linked directly to the telephone network or to a series of telephone receivers fitted with special acoustic horns - this was the only way to amplify the sound in this preamplifier era (Cahill's invention had predated the invention of amplifiers by 20 years). The Telharmonium supplied 1 amp of power to each telephone receiver on the network this was much more than the telephone itself but was enough to be able to hear the music without lifting the receiver speaker to the ear however this also masked and disrupted any other signal on the line. The instrument was usually played by two musicians (4 hands) and reproduced "respectable" music of the time: Bach, Chopin, Grieg, Rossinni etc.

Go here for more details: http://www.obsolete.com/120_years/machines/telharmonium/

A couple of years ago, when i was wrinting for an electronic music magazine, Clubbing Mag, i had to write the technical page, so i decided to start with the first electronic music instrument ever built. I was extremply happy to find out about the Telharmonium. It is a wonderful piece of art.

Unfortunatly, they stoped manufacturing this instrument because the wireless technology evolved and it was obvious that people would rather use that than this way of transmiting music.

This is how it looked: