stylophone
A stylophone
is a miniature analogue electronic keyboard which produces a distinctive
buzzing sound when a stylus (hence the name) is drawn along its metal keyboard.
The ‘original pocket organ’ Stylophones were all produced in the UK between
1968 and 1975 by Dubreq, the company cofounded by Stylophone inventor Brian
Jarvis. In 2007, a digital copy was launched by Re:Creation, a toy company
founded by Brian Jarvis’s son Ben.
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prime example
the story
Rush
released to coincidence with the first landing on the moon, David Bowie’s single
Space Oddity relates the adventures of fictional astronaut Major Tom, who is
launched and then circles around in space. Although future Yes keyboardist Rick
Wakeman added Mellotron to the track, it was another weird instrument, played
by Bowie himself, that caught all the attention.
Producer Tony Visconti: “His Stylophone was a complimentary sample sent to his manager Ken Pitt from the company. I watched David play with it for a few minutes then I had a bash on it too. Something was cooking in his brain whilst playing with it. I think Space Oddity emerged a couple of weeks later. The Stylophone was a curious instrument that all rock musicians wanted to get their hands on. David immediately realized the potential of its unusual voice. It was the beginning of synths, albeit a very unorthodox synth.”
Bowie used the Stylophone only very briefly in the song (one note around 2:40 and in the background around 3:25), as would most bands who would use the instrument later on. Space Oddity provided Bowie with his first hit single and the lunar landing, at least in England, with its unofficial soundtrack. He would later use the instrument again on the song Slip Away form his 2002 album Heathen.
Producer Tony Visconti: “His Stylophone was a complimentary sample sent to his manager Ken Pitt from the company. I watched David play with it for a few minutes then I had a bash on it too. Something was cooking in his brain whilst playing with it. I think Space Oddity emerged a couple of weeks later. The Stylophone was a curious instrument that all rock musicians wanted to get their hands on. David immediately realized the potential of its unusual voice. It was the beginning of synths, albeit a very unorthodox synth.”
Bowie used the Stylophone only very briefly in the song (one note around 2:40 and in the background around 3:25), as would most bands who would use the instrument later on. Space Oddity provided Bowie with his first hit single and the lunar landing, at least in England, with its unofficial soundtrack. He would later use the instrument again on the song Slip Away form his 2002 album Heathen.
other examples
According
to guitarist Brian May, it was producer Roy Thomas Baker who played the
stylophone at the end of Seven Seas Of Rhye, from Queen’s second album Queen II. It was
used to accompany several people singing I Do Like To Be Beside The Seaside, a
popular British music hall song. In 2005, British mockrockers The Darkness
released their second album, One Way Ticket To Hell… And Back. While the band
had already been compared once too often to Queen, they decided to hire Roy
Thomas Baker for this album, featuring a rather laughable stylophone solo on
the song Girlfriend. Four years later, Queen drummer Roger Taylor released his
solo single The Unblinking Eye, in which he plays every instrument - including
the stylophone which provided a brief solo.
Self proclaimed stylophone fan Jarvis Cocker never missed an opportunity to include the toy instrument in one of his songs, particularly on albums from the early nineties such as His ‘N’ Hers, where keyboardist Candida Doyle plays a Stylophone 350S, the deluxe version of the pocket organ, and Intro, which features a track called Styloroc (Nites Of Suburbia), based around a riff played on an original Stylophone. Styloroc was also released as the B-side of Babies, the single that got Pulp on MTV and into mainstream.
Self proclaimed stylophone fan Jarvis Cocker never missed an opportunity to include the toy instrument in one of his songs, particularly on albums from the early nineties such as His ‘N’ Hers, where keyboardist Candida Doyle plays a Stylophone 350S, the deluxe version of the pocket organ, and Intro, which features a track called Styloroc (Nites Of Suburbia), based around a riff played on an original Stylophone. Styloroc was also released as the B-side of Babies, the single that got Pulp on MTV and into mainstream.