It didn't all start with the Fender Rhodes. Join us as Tom Strange takes us through the deep history of electric pianos in "New Wings for Song: America's Flirtation with the Electric Piano.
In 1929 the famous Nobel Prize winning chemist Walther Nernst, in conjunction with Siemens Corp. and Bechstein in Germany, created the first piano with an electric pickup, (actually the first electric string instrument of any kind) replacing the soundboard with an electromagnetic pickup and amplifier.
Rather than act as a survey of all electric/electronic musical instruments, this lecture focuses on the multiple efforts to develop electric pianos with the dynamic response of a hammered instrument.
Learn more at sigalmusicmuseum.org
