The Dubreq Stylophone is a miniature electronic musical instrument invented in 1967 by Brian Jarvis. It consists of a metal keyboard played by touching it with a stylus - each note being connected to a cheap voltage-controlled oscillator via a different-value resistor - thus closing a circuit. Some three million Stylophones were sold, mostly as children's toys. Rolf Harris appeared for several years as the Stylophone's advertising spokesman in the United Kingdom.
The Stylophone appears on a few commercial recordings, most notably
David Bowie's "
Space Oddity" and "
Slip Away" and the commercial
rave single "Stylophonia" by Two Little Boys in 1991.
Kraftwerk used the Stylophone on the track "Pocket Calculator" from their album
Computer World. The British duo
Erasure also employed it on the single "Don't Say Your Love Is Killing Me" (from the album
Cowboy in 1997) as well as on their 2000 album "Loveboat". In a lesser-known instance, the Stylophone is used for the bulk of
Orbital's single, "Style".
Marilyn Manson made use of it for "You and Me and the Devil Makes 3".
They Might Be Giants played the Stylophone in several of their songs, including a number on their 2007 album,
The Else.
Jon Spencer has used the Stylophone extensively on recordings with his band
Blues Explosion, and has famously had problems bringing the device — described as "the world's most annoying musical instrument" — through airport security.
The more versatile
S30s version of the instrument was used by UK experimentalists
Camberwell Now, and appeared on their album
All's Well. The 350s dual-stylus version was also extensively used as a lead instrument by British band
Pulp from 1992 to 1994. Its glacial tones are particularly evident on their breakthrough album
His 'n' Hers (most notably the songs "Happy Endings" and "Pink Glove") whilst the 1993 album,
Intro, features a track called "Styloroc (Nights of Surburbia)" which revolves around a riff played on the first model.
In October 2007 toy company Re:creation, in conjunction with Dubreq Ltd (re-formed in 2003 by the son of the original inventor), re-launched the Stylophone. The new model has a volume control and accepts an MP3 input, as well as sporting two new sounds.
In the Doctor Who audio drama Horror of Glam Rock, a glam rocker in 1974 is contacted by aliens through his stylophone, and playing a certain tune on the instrument summons the aliens to Earth. The play includes an original song (composed by Tim Sutton and performed by Stephen Gately and Clare Buckfield) which heavily features the Stylophone.
2 comments:
very cool, Clanky!
theres speaks a woman whos never seen rolf harris advertising the stylophone http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=5bdMijwdDbg
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