The Electronic Music Box was a synthesis and composition device
designed and built as a personal project by Dr Earle.L.Kent while
employed at the C.G.Conn Ltd Company, USA, to design electric
organ circuits. The Music Box was an analogue 'beat frequency'
vacuum tube based synthesiser controlled by a punched paper strip
device as used previously in the 1930's by instruments such as
Givelet and Coupleaux's
'Givelet' and later on the
RCA mkII and
Siemens Synthesiser amongst others. The punch paper strip was a system similar to
a 'pianola' paper reader and allowed the composer to produce musical
sequences that were beyond the manual dexterity of the performer:
"The goals established for the music Box involved wider flexibility
of performance than is possible in any conventional musical instrument.
It was felt that it should not be confined to the usual limitations
of manual keying. It should be capable of grater speed and wider
combinations than are possible by manual or pedal dexterity, and
it should not be limited to the equally tempered scales as are
most keyed instruments. It was recognised that virtually any speed
or combination could be obtained by keying with a perforated paper
roll with the loss of some of the vital control usually exercised
by a musician while making music and also with the loss of its
conventional acceptance as a musical instrument. However, it was
felt that a musician usually "records" his manual manipulation
rather precisely in his brain before a concert by repetitive rehearsal
and that the losses by recording this operation on paper would
be exceeded by the gains"
Dr Earle.L.Kent
Although based on the established 'beat frequency'/heterodyning
principle, Kent's instrument employed a more complex system of
frequency changers to create a more interesting range of timbre
and control over the shape of the note. The Music Box was designed
to allow control off the 'slurring' of the note, formant filtering
control and control of volume and depth and rate of tremolo. The
Electronic Music Box was influential on the development of electronic
musical intruments, Dr Kent was visited by Harry Olson who later
adapted features of his
RCA synthesiser to incorporate functions of the Music Box, but the Conn company
chose not to exploit the commercial possibilities of the instrument.
"The Art Of Electronic Music" , Darter,Tom. 1984 GPI Productions.
(pp. 46_48)