I was listening to my Beach Boys CD the other day thought about the Theremin used on “Good Vibrations”. It made some great weird sounds but didn’t seem really practical as a musical instrument. It made me wonder what is the most recently invented musical instrument that is regularly used to make music? I’m not talking about variations on existing instruments such as synthesizing keyboards or electric guitars. I mean a totally original instrument. Any music history experts out there?
I’d make an argument for the Precision Bass Guitar, introduced in 1951.
I would have to go with the Theremin. And it was indeed quite a mainstream instrument during the 50s and 60s, even if its primary use was in science fiction movies.
I can’t think of any innovative chordophone, membranophone, ideophone, or aerophone invented since then. But an electrophone whose means of tone alteration is the radio interference of the player? That’s new.
I’ll argue for the synthesizer, arguably inagurated with the vacuum tube-driven RCA Mark II but inarguably popularized by the first Modular Moog (1964’ish), which is really quite recent in the grand scheme of things.
Note that I’m not talking about sample-playback systems such as modern “synthesizers” or “workstations,” but voltage-controlled machines that use a combination of oscillators, filters, amplifier modules, envelope generators, etc. to electrically generate and control sounds.
Then there’s the sampler, which was much more recent…
The Theremin ain’t that new. It was invented in 1919. I would nominate something like a wind controlled MIDI synth which was pretty revolutionary, though I don’t know if this satisfies your criteria.
The Tubulum maybe?
Wikipedia says the first practical sampler went on the market in 1976.
And that technically wasn’t a Theremin on “Good Vibrations”. It was an Electro-Theremin or Tannerin. Sounded like a Theremin, but was played sort of like a steel guitar.
In the acoustic field–the accordion may be the newest instrument that is widely used.
There are ancient, distant ancestors like the classical hydraulus (water organ). But the accordion was invented in the early 19th century & its variants are played in many parts of the world. It’s been adapted by numerous “folk” traditions–somewhat to the dismay of some ethnomusicologists.
Actually, the saxophone is just a bit later. Blame my Texas chauvinsim. Here’s a link to last year’s International Accordion Festival in San Antonio. Regionally, polka, cajun, zydeco & conjunto accordionists are alive & well. The festival goes farther afield…
How about Junior Brown’s “guit-steel”? Invented in 1985. Maybe not original but definitely unique.
And upon re-reading the OP, I see that “variations on existing instruments” are excluded. Never mind.
I’ll put the Chapman Stick out there.
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I’ve seen Junior Brown live, twice. Once was in a small bar with just a couple dozen people in the whole place. He played like he was auditioning for Carnegie Hall, absolutely incredible. Everybody stopped dancing and just gathered around the stage to watch, they played for a couple of hours with lots of extended jamming in almost every song.
I had never heard of the guy, but read a Rolling Stone review on a show he did in New York, they said he was off the hook. Just a little while later I saw where he was going to be in a local bar and decided to go.
And I’m no fan of country, I’m strictly a rock/metal guy, but this was something to behold.
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Once the idea of blowing into a pipe was explored, “new” instruments are mostly modifications or improvements of old. And then there are sound modification devices like wa-wa pedals, phasers and other electronic gadgets.
Certainly the synthesizer, midi and computer interface is in what I would call the new instrument category, the OP nonwithstanding. Very few new instruments cannot be traced to roots in others – the sax family was pretty innovative, but grows from a clarinet; sousaphones and mellophones are derived from similar instruments. Once you get the idea ofvibrating a reed or lips, it’s all just derivation.
One of the most innovative new instruments I have seen is the Emmett Chapman Stick, basically a guitar and bass sharing a fingerboard ca. 1974. Since human beings have only 2 hands and both are occupied with fingers on frets, Chapman had to invent a better way to amplify the sound so a separate hand wasn’t necessary to pluck it. Some new, some old concepts.
Percussionists are always inventing new things to bang on, but I guess they are mostly stick-on-stuff underneath. Consider Blue Man Group, and the Broadway show Stomp.
Does Emmett Chapman’s “Stick” count? It has strings, but is not a guitar, and can’t be played like one.
In fact, the world’s most qualified Stick player may just be Tony Levin. I have TV footage of the inventor “playing” his instrument, and he was terrible on it. He likely had no idea what it could be made to do in the right hands.
Maybe I wasn’t really clear with what I’m looking for. We can look back in history and see the first drum or stringed instrument or wind. At some point someone said, “Hey no one has ever made music by blowing through a pipe,“ and invented the first wind instrument. Which basic instrument format was the most recently invented? I guess it would have to be the very first instrument that created sounds using only electrical signals.
That limits it to theremins and synthesizers, especially if you are using a “class of instruments” concept.
However, people are making new SOUNDS every day. Just not on radically-new instruments.
Then I guess it would have to be the first synthesizer or theremin. Thank you all for your information.
I think the saxophone, being invented later, would trump that one.
I’d heard OF the stick but I had always thought it was just a variety of bass guitar.
I withdraw my backing of the Theremin.