Learn About the Telharmonium With Me

My girlfriend and I went on one of the most delightful Wikipedia rabbit holes in recent memory. We both have a shared interest in digital signal processing so I was telling here about some synthesizer stuff, I ended up fangirling (what's the nonbinary version of that?) about Ikutaro Kakehashi, I told her about his early inventions, and eventually we found ourselves off Wikipedia entirely and on this incredible blog post about my new favorite thing—arguably the world's first synthesizer, Thaddeus Cahill's Telharmonium from ***1897***.

Additive synthesis before the turn of the 20th century and *before* electrical amplification, which is why it had to be connected to the then-new NYC telephone network? The synthesizers enormous alternators output 15,000 watts and around ONE ENTIRE AMP at the receiver meant to handle six ten-trillionths of one? No wonder this thing caused massive interference within the network and shut down the Stock Market a few times. You needed multiple people to play the multiple non-standard keyboards (with touch velocity!) and people subscribed to the service so they could call up the Telharmonium and have it play music in their home or business. They were streaming live synth performances over the phone in 1897, how are we not all constantly gushing about how cool this is?

I really encourage you to read the entire article, I can't do the story justice the way site owner Simon Crab has. God, I want to hear what the telharmonium sounds like so bad...

_{(click the boy standing next to one of the tone wheel generators to go to 120years.net)}

Nicky Flowers - 02/13/25 - Hey: someone help me rebuild this thing. Why not? - (send any comments/questions to hello at nickyflowers dot com)