Operation Manual

12 The Electric Piano
2 The Electric Piano
2.1 A Short History
The electric piano was invented by Harold Rhodes (1910-2000) during the forties when he was in
the army. The first instruments he built were made of aircraft pieces and were intended to entertain
army servicemen. The Rhodes piano as we know it today grew out of a partnership between
Harold Rhodes and Leo Fender who released the Fender Rhodes Piano Bass a 32-note version of
the instrument. But it is not until 1965, after the takeover of Fender by CBS, that the instrument
really came to life when a 73-note model was released. From then different models were introduced
including the Mark series as well as the two 88-note Suitcase and Stage models until 1984 when
production ceased.
Harold Rhodes was not the only one to work on the electric piano. In the thirties, the inventor
Ben Meissner had developed an electrostatic pickup design he used to amplify a conventional
upright piano. The Wurlitzer company became interested in this idea but replaced the piano strings
by metal reeds. In 1955, the EP-100 Wurlitzer piano was released and followed by many other
models until 1982.
Electric piano players seem to be divided into two camps: Rhodes or Wurlies. Whatever the
preference both instruments, with their distinctive sounds, have marked the history of rock and
jazz in the sixties and seventies. They have been popularised in thousands of songs by legendary
musicians and bands such as Ray Charles, Joe Zawinul, Herbie Hancock, Chick Corea, Stevie
Wonder, Steely Dan, Supertramp and many others. In the recent years, the electric piano has
enjoyed a resurgence through its extensive use in rock, jazz, fusion, hip hop, R&B, and house.
2.2 General Functioning
The mechanism of a Rhodes electric piano is relatively simple and is illustrated in Figure 3. A
note played on the keyboard releases a damper and activates a felt-tipped hammer which hits a
metal bar having the shape of a tuning fork. The struck portion of the fork is called the tine and
is made of stiff steel wire. The other part of the fork, parallel to the tine, is called the tonebar. It
acts as a resonator adding sustain to the sound. The vibrations of the tine bar are picked up by an
electromagnetic pickup and sent to an amplifier, very much like in an electric guitar. The result is
a very expressive instrument with a characteristic smooth tone which can also be made to growl or
bark when played harder and the pickups introduce nonlinear distortion.
The functionning of a Wurlitzer piano is very similar except that instead of a fork, the hammer
hits a metal reed as shown in Figure 4. The reeds are placed near metal plates which together with
the metal reeds form an electrostatic or capacitive pickup system. Compared to Rhodes, Wurlies
are known to have a brighter and more hollow sound.