The Mello Drama

The Mellotron and Chamberlin were keyboard based instruments that used tape loops as the source of their audio. each key had a corresponding 8 second tape loop that when the key was depressed would start playing. The Chamberlin loop would reset every time the key was released so that each note would have an attack and sustain, where as the Mellotron was a continuous loop. The sound from these instruments came out of a built in speaker, the Chamberlin using a standard speaker, while the Mellotron had a custom built speaker. The Harry Chamberlin started building the first Chamberlins in 1949. This was the first keyed instrument to mimic other instruments. Each chamberlin tape had 8 sounds on it, but were not replaceable, while the Mellotron had only three per tape, but different replacement tape cartridges where available.

The instruments for these keyboards were recorded specifically for them. Harry Chamberlin was meticulous in the hiring of musicians, quality of performance and the quaility of the recording for his tapes. Lawrence Welk was brought in along with members of his band to be the performers on the tapes. The great quality of these tapes greatly added to the specific sound of the chamberlin and made these tapes very highly prized items, and very sought after. The Mellatron on the other hand had much lower standards in terms of the quality of their tapes. The Mellotron tapes were recorded in the backroom of a studio, and sounds from the busy street running behind the studio were picked up on the tapes.

The Chamberlin was invented by Harry Chamberlin in the late 1940s. In the late 50s Harry hired Bill Franson as a salesman, and in 1962 he stole two Chamberlins and took them to England, where he showed them to the Bradly brothers and asked them to upgrade the design. The Bradly brothers had no idea the instruments were stolen, and immediately began working on the first Mellotrons. Some of these improvements included a metal frame, so that it would stay in tune better as well as a better speaker. Early users of these instruments include Mark Pindler from the Moody Blues, Brian wilson of the Beach Boys, Rod Argent of the Zombies, and Rick Nielsen of Cheaptrick. The Beatles used the Mellotron on Strawberry fields forever. Al Kooper used them on sessions he produced with Lynyrd Skynyrd as well.

Despite their widespread use in the 60s and 70s the Chamberlin and Mellotron remained cult instruments. The first reason for this is the lack of reliability. Both the Chamberlin and Mellotron were notorious for going out of tune. Depending on the weather the frame of the Chamberlin would warp, or if it was too cold the motors would slow down on both models. The tapes had a tendency to stick and any condensation would cause problems. These machines were very delicate and had to be transported very carefully, and as such were only economical for bands that had already become successful, and even then bands like Genesis would have to cancel shows if their Mellotron stopped working. Much like Leo Theremin, Harry Chamberlin never realized that he was focusing on the wrong market. While Theremin focused on using his instrument to perform violin concertos, Chamberlin focused his instrument solely on home use, and never saw the potential for use in the genre of rock n' roll. He limited the success of his own instrument by not thinking big enough. At his companies peak he only had 18 employees, and thus never pushed to make his instrument a great success, despite how much the people who did use it loved it. As the 1980s approached synthesizers became popular, and given how exponentially more reliable they were than the Chamberlin and Mellotron, they basically killed both companies off. The Mellotron Corp. was about $50.000 in debt when they finally shut down. Both companies also had trouble with the musicians union. The Musicians union was worried that these instruments would put professional musicians out of work, since they could mimic the sounds or real instruments and orchestras. They ended up having to pay the musicians union for every model they made.

All in all both of these instruments were incredible technological advancements and changed music history. From their inventive use of tape to the incredible sounds that these machines are capable of making, these instruments are a true and beautiful marriage of technology and music.

No, not the guy from Mortal Combat, the musician.

John Cage is an incredible talent in the world of electronic and experimental music. His variation series, or more specifically Variation VII which was performed in October of 1966. The truly wonderful thing about this piece of music is the lack of control that Cage not only accepts, but encourages in this music. Cage started working on this project with the help of several other engineers and musicians including Francis Breer, Cecil Coker, Walter Gatman, Billy Kluver, David Tudor, and Jim McGee. Each of these people were accomplished engineers or musicians who each brought something to the performance. Bob Moog built capacitance antennas, much like the ones used in the Theremin, which were set up around the stage, and Cecil Coker put photo electric cells around the equipment on stage which would trigger different sounds or alter the noises coming from various machines. Coker had been spending much of his time trying to make computers speak using wired electronics, and he brought alot of that experience with him to this project.
John Cage's roll in this piece of music is very interesting. It can be said he wrote it, but there is no written music, and the piece is largly unplanned and the structure is indeterminate. Most of the performance depends on what is going on outside at any given moment. John Cage did "compose" the setting for this project, as he also composed the instruments used and people involved. In away he is changing the definition of what a composer is. Whereas in classical music the composer imagines the music and writes down exactly what he wants to hear, Cage takes a very different approach. He does not control the music, instead he collected a group of engineers and ways to make noise and set forth the ideas of what he wanted accomplished, and then allowed the other members of the group to utilize these things however they wanted.
Cage used dozens of unconventional instruments in this project. There was a large loudspeaker named George, ten telephones scattered New York, including in popular restaurant kitchens, over busy streets, in an aviary, and in a turtle tank, among other places. These phones were affixed with magnetic pickups and the signal was then sent to the performance at the Armory. There were also kitchen appliances, and radios. All of these "instruments" were fed back to the engineers, and controlled and manipulated using the photoelectric cells and the capacitance antennas.
This piece of music being so experimental means that it redefines normal expectations of music, including the idea of music having a beginning middle and end. The music clearly has a beginning, with the loudspeaker blaring the bomb siren esq tones. And it has an end, when the music stops, but what goes on between the two. There is no bridge or chorus or verse. It certainly challenges the normal notion of what a song is and how they are constructed, much as it challenges the idea of the performer. There is a sense of some form, most dictated by the instruments and the idea that the music is controlled as much by chance and embracing the lack control as it is by the performers. The music was also a multi media experience. Its as important to see the shadows projected on the giant white screens around the stage and the performers scurrying around the stage plugging one thing in and unplugging another as they turn a nob clockwise as it is to hear the sounds that these actions make. ONe of the performers even said that he felt like a bartender while performing. The spectrum of this performance is so outside the normal realm of music that the entire experience feels like something other than music, for both the audience and the performers.