Evening star., 1955-05-01
BY DAY THORPE

It's q brave. new world. Bob
Rodgers, head of Station
WGMS, asked me to come over
Wednesday to hear the RCA
electronic synthesizer, the
amazing instrument reported
in this column several months
ago. I went. and it's quite q
story to tell.
The new machine creates
music, rather than reproduce
it after the fashion of the
phonograph or tape recorder.
1t creates sounds in close
imitation Of standard instru-
ments. According to its Gre
ator, the Radio Corporation
of America. it can make music
indistinguishable from, that
of any instrument, any en-
semble. or any human voice.
RCA does not claim that the
invention is yet perfected. The
demonstration was only to
show that the principle is
sound.
Characteristics Of Tone
II you draw a bow across q
fiddle string. strike a note on
the piano. blow o saxophone,
or create a sound on any other
instrument whatever, the re-
sulting tone will have certain
fixed determining characters
tics. 1t can be analysed in re-
spect to pitch, loudnesS, tim
bre, and duration. No one of
these qualities is a constant for
longer than the minimum
time the ear is able to distin-
guish-and this is a short
moment indeed. In addition it
will have q certain individual
sound at the moment OF at
tack-a characteristic some
times known as the trans
lent"
Now timbre - the funda-
mental distinguishing quality
of sound Of any instrument or
voice-is the result of the
identity Of the overtones Of
the note.
The theory of overtones is
hard to comprehend, and for
one like me who does not fully
understand 1t. impossible to
explain. To describe the cleo
tronic synthesizer, however, q
few words about overtones are
necessary.
Grading of the Overtones
The identifying sound OF any
instrument or Of any voice is
the prominence of the over
tones above It's fundamental
note. These overtones are
usually natural; occasionally,
as in the case Of the organ,
artificial. Overtones can be
added to, or subtracted from,
the sound of any instrument
to create the sound of any
other instrument. The elec-
tronic organ. such as the
Hammond, is based on this
concept.
RCA has taken the principle
of the electronic organ and re-
duced the pure fundamental
note to the smallest unit In
time that the ear can dis
tinguish.
A chain of these units can
theoretically reproduce any
note conceivable - any note
that can be sung or played oy
any instrument, Or for that
matter, any note that might
be sounded by any voice or
instrument not yet invented.
Then to each unit can be
added the necessary oyertones.
and finally each of the result
ing lines or voices can be
superimpoSed to create any
music whatever, from a single
pizzicato note on a violin to
the Metropolitan Opera cho-
rus. orchestra, and Soloists.
Now the Fun Begins
It's been unquestionably
rough sledding SO far. but now
the fun begins.
The RCA engineers have
made tapes of music recreat-
ing the sound Of various in
struments no less closely than
Frankenstein resembles Percy
Bysshe Shelley, and as time
goes on and they add more
and more categories of vari-
ables to their machine, the
resemblance will be, closer.
The C minor fugue frcm
the first book Of the we'll
tempered clavier was played
by MIR. Rodgers on an instru-
ment that could easily be iden-
tifaed as o clavichord--it Ger
tainly sounded more like q
clavichord than any other in
strument.
You could tell that Chopin's
A nat polonaise was supposed
to come from a piano, and
that "Nola" was an imitation
Of a jazz band.
"The Holy City" was played
in imitation of an electronic
organ. a procedure that seemed
almost as exciting as making
milk out of Kiln. The human
voice. undoubtedly possible
theoretically, RCA has not yet
demonstrated, although 1t
claims that its machine can
sing.
Imitation Not Complete
It Is easy to smile ct o con-
traption admittedly as crude
as the first Edison talking
machine. but the demonstra-
tion showed that what was
possible in embryo could be
developed into something ap-
preaching hi-fl. I think 1t
fair to say that no one in the
WGMS studio during Wednes-