Hanert Electric Orchestra (1944-1945)

The Hanert Synthesiser or 'Electric Orchestra' was designed and built by John Hanert c1945 for the Hammond Organ Company and was described as an 'Apparatus for Automatic Production of Music'. The Synthesiser was an instrument for composition and synthesis of electronic music similar to the later RCA Synthesiser and other coded performance machines. Instead of using punch paper tape like the RCA Synthesiser the Hanert Synthesiser had a moving mechanical scanning head that moved over a sixty foot long table covered in eleven inch by twelve inch paper cards. The paper cards held the characteristics of the sound (pitch,duration,timbre and volume) stored in the form of graphite marks that were 'read' by direct electrical contact of the scanning head. The sound generating part of the instrument occupied a whole room and consisted of a bank of vacuum tube oscillators, a random frequency generator (to produce 'white noise' characteristics for percussive sounds) and wave shaping circuits. Speeding up and slowing down of the music(accelerando/decelerando) could be controlled by altering the speed and direction of the scanning head. Hanert's unique system allowed a great deal of flexibility in composition and synthesis, marks could be added to the cards simply by using a graphite pencil and the cards could be arranged in any order allowing variations and multiple combinations in the composition. Hanert commented: "The composer ultimately usually has but slight control over the instrumentation employed by the orchestra and it is only after tedious and time consuming steps have been taken and the orchestra has ultimately rendered the composition the composer can actually audition his composition......its is seldom that a recording represents the closeness to perfection which is anticipated by the composer and the cunductor....... In the method and apparatus of this invention the composer, arranger or conductor has at his command means for controlling the quality of each note, its intensity, envelope and the degree of accent, duration and tempo without necessarily affecting any other note or tone of the composition. he has under his control, within the limitations imposed by the apparatus as a whole, facilities for producing, under his sole control, any of a substantially infinite variety of renditions of a composition."

Further Information: T.L.Rhea:"The Evolution of Electronic Musical Instruments in the United States" (diss., George Peabody College, Nashville, Tenn, 1972)