The Sonar was a monophonic vacuum tube instrument developed by Nikolai Anan’yev at the GIMN Acoustic Laboratory in the USSR from 1930. The Sonar used the same heterodyning principles of Termen’s Thereminvox but with the addition of a fretted fingerboard made from a long, narrow conductive strip to vary the pitch of the oscillator – a technology used in several other instruments of the ear including the Trautonium, Hellertion and Ondes Martenot. Anan’yev considered the Sonar to be an improvement of the Thereminvox and the addition of a fingerboard made the Sonar more popular (at the time in the early Soviet period) with musicians due to it’s familiarity and playability.1Smirnov, Andrey, (2013) Sound in Z, Experiments in Sound and Electronic Music in Early 20th Century Russia, Koenig, 95.
Later versions of the instrument had a timbre and volume pedal control that meant the Sonar was said to have been able to reproduce violin like timbres – Anan’yev competed for realism with a well-known violinist and the audience was said to favour the Sonar– as well as simple speech phrases such as “mama”, “papa” as well as conventional instrumental sounds and became known for it’s use in ‘proletarian’ outdoor events. In the 1930s a course for Sonar performers was established at the Saratov Conservatory and Anan’yev gave over six hundred concerts to around five hundred thousand people with the Sonar during his lifetime.2 Davies, Hugh & Smirnov, Andrey (2014), The Sonar, The Grove dictionary of musical instruments, New York : Oxford University Press, 480.
References:
- 1Smirnov, Andrey, (2013) Sound in Z, Experiments in Sound and Electronic Music in Early 20th Century Russia, Koenig, 95.
- 2Davies, Hugh & Smirnov, Andrey (2014), The Sonar, The Grove dictionary of musical instruments, New York : Oxford University Press, 480.