e-pianos

Electric Pianos
Electric pianos - like the electric guitar - have been an essential part of popular
music since the 1960s.
Early electric pianos share some other qualities with electric guitars - they aren’t
true electric instruments, but modified acoustic instruments. The sound they make
is produced mechanically, but instead of having a soundboard they use
electromagnetic pickups and electronic amplification.
It was impractical for bands to carry an acoustic piano around with them to gigs,
and the piano in the concert room of the ‘Dog & Duck’ was usually out of tune or
completely unplayable. A portable piano with a responsive keyboard was needed.
Rhodes and Wurlitzer
The best known electric pianos to emerge from the 1960s were probably those
made by Rhodes and Wurlitzer.
Rhodes Suitcase 73
Rhodes (a small company developing electric pianos) was bought up by Fender in
1959. This was not a good business move, and they produced very little until they
got away from Fender in 1965. During this time, Wurlitzer (makers of cinema
organs and jukeboxes) produced electric pianos based on technology that Rhodes
had developed and held patents on. Rhodes and Wurlitzer instruments are very
similar, although players usually prefer the sound of one or the other.
The sound is produced by using a mechanism similar to a grand piano. Each key
on the keyboard operates a hammer ‘action’, but instead of the hammer hitting a
string, it hits a tuned metal bar which is essentially a tuning fork. An
electromagnetic pickup mounted close to the tuning fork converts the sound into an
electrical signal, which is then amplified. The position of the pickup relative to the
‘tuning fork’ can be adjusted, changing the tonal qualities of the instrument.
Later refinements included the addition of a ‘tremolo’ or vibrato effect, which was
eventually replaced with stereo chorus.
Classic tracks:
Anything by Supertramp, Pink Floyd (Animals - Dogs), The Doors - Riders on the
Storm.
Hohner
Hohner are probably best known for their piano accordions and harmonicas, but
during the 1970s they experimented with electric piano design.
The Hohner Pianet sounded very similar to the Rhodes pianos, but worked in a
very different way. The sound was produced by a series of metal tongues - similar
to the reeds found in an accordion. Instead of a piano hammer action, the Pianet
used small flat rubber suckers, which ‘plucked’ the tongues when the keys were
pressed, and damped them when the keys were released. This simple
mechanism made the Pianet both lighter to carry and cheaper to produce than the
Rhodes style instrument, although it lacked the ‘traditional piano feel’ of the
Rhodes and Wurlitzer instruments .
A better known Hohner innovation was the Clavinet. Not strictly a piano, it was in
fact an electric spinet, containing strings which sounded when touched by metal
tangents under the keys.
The instrument had a unique sound, somewhere between an electric piano and a
harpsichord. It was a predominant in black American funk music of the 1970s.
Classic Track - Stevie Wonder - Superstitious
Yamaha CP series
Although the Rhodes style electric pianos were relatively portable, they didn’t sound
that much like a piano - mainly because of their stringless design.
In the mid 1970s, Yamaha produced a new instrument - the CP70 electric grand
piano. This was essentially a very small, fairly lightweight grand piano which could
be broken in half - the action & keyboard in one half and the frame and strings in
the other.
Like the Rhodes piano before it, there was no soundboard, but it did have strings.
Instead of the heavy electromagnetic pickups of the Rhodes, the CP70 used piezo
pickups (similar to bridge pickups found in electro-acoustic guitars). As well as
keeping the weight down, the piezo pickups produced a much brighter sound. This
was almost like listening to a real grand piano.
The Yamaha CP80 was the same as the CP70, but had 80 notes rather than 70. A
modern acoustic piano has 88 notes.
Yamaha CP80 in the playing position and split ready for transport
Classic tracks - anything by Genesis from the 1970s, Peter Gabriel (So - Lead a
normal life)
Mellotron
The Mellotron (a.k.a. the Chamberlain and the Novatron) was one of the strangest
and most innovative musical instruments of it’s time. The Mk1 Mellotron was
originally produced as a special effects playback system for use in studios
producing radio plays.
First apperaring in 1963 (long before digital audio and samplers) it was the first
keyboard instrument to use the sound of real instruments, which was achieved by
recording real instruments (string section, flutes, choirs etc) playing individual
notes onto tape. 36 lengths of tape (each containing one note) were mounted on
interchangable racks which fitted inside the Mellotron – one recorded note under
each key. Pressing a key engaged the playback mechanism for that note, which
could be played for a maximum of 8 seconds.
Novatron
Classic tracks - anything by Genesis from the 1970s, the Beatles ‘Strawberry
Fields Forever’ (flutes); Led Zeppelin ‘Stairway to Heaven’ (flutes again); Nelly
Furtado (Whoa Nelly - opening of ‘Turn out the Light’)