Uploaded on May 8, 2009
"Demonstration of the third version of Rhythmicom built by Leon Theremin at Moscow State Conservatory in early 1960-s. The first Rhythmicon was developed by Leon Theremin for Henry Cowell in 1932. It was the first rhythm machine ever built."
Spotted this one on BoingBoing. Via the Red Bull Acedemy where you'll find the full post:
"The Rhythmicon was never mass-produced. Only three models were ever made. One of them has been lost to the sands of time – depending on whom you ask, it was either tossed in the trash by a janitor at Columbia University or disposed of by staff at Stanford’s psychology department. Another model was last seen in storage at the Smithsonian Institution.
As for the third Rhythmicon – a Russian model built out of junk parts by Theremin in the mid-’60s – it’s currently in safe keeping at the Theremin Center of the Moscow Conservatory.
It’s a very nice noise machine.
Andrey Smirnov, an artist, curator and instrument collector, got his hands on this smaller, DIY version of the Rhythmicon and refurbished it in 2004. Speaking by Skype from his home in Moscow, he says the machine is still in working order, though it usually requires a tune-up before you turn it on. But like most Rhythmicon experts, he believes this contraption is more valuable for its novel mechanics than for its potential as an actual musical instrument.
'You can’t start the rhythm from the first measure. It’s always on,” he says, noting that it’d be highly impractical to perform with live. “It’s a very nice noise machine.'
The Rhythmicon is universally regarded as the world’s first drum machine, but technically it’s not a “drum” machine. As opposed to other early devices, like the Chamberlin Rhythmate (introduced in 1957) or the Wurlitzer Sideman (1959), it doesn’t play beats according to typical time signatures. Instead it offers up a series of complex rhythmic pulses, each playing at a different pitch and each corresponding to different ratios from the harmonic series."
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