This must be how it feels to see a unicorn.
Six months ago, I came face to face with a machine I’d read about often but never expected to see. A one-off invention, this oddity had been a dreamlike presence in my life, hovering into my consciousness at unexpected moments, something I imagined but couldn’t fully sketch in my mind. I’d dreamed of it since I was ten, a time when I was obsessing over a cassette tape my dad had given me. On it were some electronic sounds he’d recorded from the radio – sound pieces composed by the BBC Radiophonic Workshop.
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This week, I went to the Science Museum stores which are brimming with musical treasures.
I had a close look at some of the early synths, samplers and other delights that are safely under lock and key, including three Mellotrons, a Fairlight CMI, Wurlitzer Sideman and Arp 2500 modular synth. I’m writing a short piece, exploring how these machines changed the way we perform, produce and listen to music. For now though, here are some technical notes and snaps, taken rather hastily during my visit. I’ve also plundered YouTube for examples of these machines in action.
Sadly, I wasn’t able to plug any of these monsters in. While the rest of us musicians are busy playing – and thus destroying! – our vintage instruments, the Science Museum instruments are conserved in a dormant state. You can think of these as reference instruments – they’ll give musicians of the future a chance to see an Arp, Mellotron, Fairlight or Sideman in all its original glory*.
Tech notes and pictures
Arp 2500 Modular Synth
4-octave carillon
Fairlight CMI
Mellotron
Pyrophone
Wurlitzer Sideman
*Sadly, life isn’t that simple. If you switch off an electrical machine for too many years, it might never work again. Capacitors decay; tapes turn to dust. Arguably, there’s little point in preserving a ‘dead’ musical instrument if you care about the way it sounds, how it was played and how it influenced music culture. So the question of whether to switch on or not has yet to be settled by historians and curators. I suppose it’s important that some instruments are conserved and only switched on very occasionally, while others are being worn out by the musicians who love them.
If I’ve been looking a little wan and dusty lately, it’s because I’ve been holed up in the archives, digging out stories for a couple of new projects. I’ll be revealing more about these in a month or two. Meanwhile, I hope you enjoy this utterly chilling poem that I stumbled on today. It’s from the pages of The Electrical Age, a pioneering gadget magazine, produced from the early 1930s by the Electrical Association for Women.
Published in 1930, Electric Lullaby reveals an exuberant approach to amperes that is rarely matched today (mainly for reasons of health and safety).
I am now hastily preparing a musical version of Electric Lullaby to add to the Spacedog repertoire.
Update 21 January 2010: Electric Lullaby has been the inspiration for my new carillon (automatic bell rig), which we’ll be using along our theremin and vocals at the Electricity and Ghosts gig, Battersea Power Station, summer 2010 – date tbc. I’ll be previewing this carillon at the Kinetica Art Fair, London, 5-7 February 2010. Photos coming soon!
Electric Lullaby (1930)
Hushaby! baby. Mother is near,
Don’t you cry, precious, take an ampere,
Cuddle down, sweet, near the dynamo’s brush,
The current will put you to sleep with a rush.
Hushaby! lullaby. (where is that switch?)
Sleep through till morning, you dear little witch.
Hushaby! Nursie has gone for the night,
Mother will see that the contacts are right.
The voltage is measured, the wires are clear,
So shockaby into the land of dreams, dear.
Your crib’s insulated, the current’s direct,
Shut your eyes, baby, and note the effect.
Hushaby! ‘lectridy’, isn’t this great?
Baby drops off to sleep while you wait.
‘Lectrodes clamped on to one foot and one hand;
While the light burns she sleeps.
Oh! Isn’t this grand.
No more long hours of walking the floor,
Kilowatts do what papa did before.
- From Life
First published in The Electrical Age, Volume 1, 1930
- Rubberworld: research and copywriting on the history of rubber for the Eden Project, 2000.
I’ve been quite the hermit recently as I’ve been locked away in the archives, wading through old lab books, government documents and other curiosities. This is for a book I’m hoping to publish in 2010.
