DOTDOTDOT.COM

Apr 1, 2001 12:00 PM

           
 

Over the years, toy manufacturer Mattel has created a number of unusual and intriguing musical instruments that have graduated from consumer items into the realm of the professional musician. A classic example is the Optigan (short for optical organ). Developed in the early '70s, the Optigan resembled other home organs that were popular at the time. However, the Optigan used recordings of real instruments played from interchangeable optical disks. Optigans were fragile, temperamental, and, to many people, sounded terrible. However, for audio kitsch connoisseurs, the Optigan has proven to be invaluable. A wonderful and comprehensive resource on the instrument is Optigan.com (www.optigan.com). Here you will find background information on the instrument, details about the disks, and lists of musicians who have used the Optigan on records…. A Web site that includes not only the Optigan but instruments of even greater obscurity (have you ever heard of the Sonorous Cross, the Optophonic Piano, or the Hellertion?) is 120 Years of Electronic Music (www.obsolete.com/120_years). Although the site could use a once-over with a link validator and spell-check program, it nonetheless documents numerous rare and one-of-a-kind instruments. The page begins with Elisha Grey's Musical Telegraph and ostensibly goes up to the ‘80s, where many of the links are not fully functioning, to cover instruments by Akai, Kurzweil, and E-mu. The E-mu Emulator page is particularly interesting because it contains a fabulous photo of a large E-mu modular synth rather than an Emulator. Where this Web site succeeds, however, is in giving the visitor a sense of the breadth of simultaneous research in electronic instruments throughout the 20th century.