Snapping your fingers is pretty simple, right?
Now try this: For every two snaps of your
left hand,
snap three times with your right hand.
Anybody with a sense of rhythm can actually
get the hang of it after a while.
What if you want to challenge yourself and
try, say,
seven left-hand snaps against eleven right-hand
snaps.
Yeah, it's downright difficult to do.
And what's the best solution for something
that's way too challenging for a person?
Well, you hand it over to a computer of a
machine!
This is where the Rhythmicon makes its entrance!
I've got to admit the instrument looks kind
of weird.
But you can think of it as being a small bionic
piano.
But unlike the piano, each of the keys emits
a steady stream of beats
instead of producing one single sound.
The lowest of the keys produces a slow stream
of beats,
and the higher up you go on the keyboard,
the faster the beats become.
The design and concept for this instrument
was put forth by American composer Henry Cowell,
and the engineering was done by legendary
Russian inventor Leon Theremin.
Together, the devised an instrument that
produces intricate beat patters that are next
to impossible
to perform by a soloist on any other instrument.
The principle behind the Rhythmicon is to
equally divide
a portion of time into smaller segments,
and to then seperate these segments from one
another by some sort of punctual sound effect.
For instance, we could have a beat sounding
once every second,
or twice every second, or three times every
second, and so on.
The Rhythmicon is made to go from one beat
up to 16 beats per segment of time.
In order to mechanically translate these different
beat patterns,
the instrument has a rotating disc divided
in 16 concentric circles.
And each circle has a specific number of holes
punched into it.
The innermost circle has only one hole,
the second circle has two holes, the third
one has three holes,
and so on, up to 16 holes for the outermost
circle.
A series of small lights is placed on one
side of the disc,
and a series of electrical cells sensitive
to light is placed on the other side.
When a key is held down on the keyboard,
the light associated to that key switches
on.
And as the light is allowed
to shine through the holes while the disk
is rotating,
the electrical cell opposite to that light
produces an audible version of the rhythmic
pattern
specific to that circular section of the disc.
The ultimate purpose of this instrument is
to allow the player to press
as many keys as desireded,
and to produce elaborate rhythmic patterns,
such as
2 beats against 3,
3 beats against 5,
5 beats against both 7 and 9,
and even simultaneously sounding 7, 9, 11
and 13 beats against each other.
At this point, I need to clarify a few things
about the Rhythmicon.
Number one:
The keys don't actually need to be laid out
the way they are on a piano,
it's just a question of esthetics, and
to give a sense of familiarity to its player.
Number two:
The sounds produced by the instrument are't
just beats as they've been presented up to
now.
They are actual pitches.
The lowest key of the instrument is given
a specific pitch,
and the other keys follow the harmonic series
above this lower pitch.
If we put asside the rhythmic patterns produced
by the instrument,
this is what the actually Rhythmicon sounds
like:
And number three:
So far, i've talked about the 16 first keys
of the instrument.
The 17th key apparently adds an extra beat
in the middle of each turn of the disc.
I unfortunately haven't found any more information
online,
so if by chance one of you out there has more
information about that 17th key,
please let me know in the comments below.
"Why isn't this instrument still in use today?"
Well, in a way it still is, but under a different
guise:
Any device specifically designed to produce
rhythmic patterns is called a "Drum Machine".
The evolution of the Rhythmicon is just a
quesion of technological advances,
modified designs, and overall changing trends
in music.
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