Motherboard

Culture / Series

(Now Playing) The Stylophone

Aug 12, 2009

In the late 60s, a British man with funny hair invented a cheap, handheld synthesizer that plays by running a little electronic pen across a little keyboard. Despite sounding like a musical greeting card that’s been through the microwave a couple times, the Stylophone captured the imagination of some of the era’s most notable musical weirdoes, among them a young David Bowie and even younger Ralf Hutter of Kraftwerk, and did pretty decent business until its discontinuation in 1980. In this English edition of Motherboard, we meet up with the Stylophone’s creator, some of its recent revivalists like Little Boots and the Stylophone Orchestra of Great Britain, and try to figure out how this plucky little box sealed its place in the pantheon of great, obnoxious instruments. If only the same could be said for its stillborn brother, the wobble-board.

  • listenn2slayer

    about 1 month ago

    Vibraphones are awesome too!

  • itsceegee

    4 months ago

    i'm soo jealous i want a stylophone necklace so bad! it's the way of the future in music AND fash...

  • localola

    4 months ago

    i need to get one of these for my cultivation of beats

Read all 38 comments

Qzjfqdgqix26ssuh5hmzoxoja0o4xsjm
  • 17:05
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
  • 3
Motherboard_standard_original_small
Series

 

01001101 01101111 01110100 01101000 01100101 01110010 01100010 01101111 01100001 01110010 01100100 00100000 01101001 01110011 00100000 01100001 01101110

Read more on the blog

All episodes

  • 55 episodes

Set your language preference

Cancel

Grid offon