POWERHOUSE COLLECTION

Stylophone electronic musical instrument and instructions

Object No. 2000/135/1

The Stylophone was an early attempt to create an electronic instrument cheaply and that could be played with virtually no musical training. This development has parallels to previous attempts to produce cheap, easy to play instruments such as autoharps, zithers and harmonicas made in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. This trend had been attempted as early as the late 18th century when the English guitar was modified with the addition of buttons to simplify playing to the point where it was no longer necessary to actually finger notes and chords on the neck of the instrument. The recently acquired Australele, dating from the 1920s and 1930s was also designed to fulfil a similar identified niche in the musical instrument market - that of enabling people without musical training to play tunes on a musical instrument with very minimal instruction and at a relatively low cost. The stylophone was also unique in that it was produced in the early days of electronic keyboard development. However, unlike electric organs and pianos of the same period it used a stylus rather than moveable keys to complete an electric circuit to produce notes. A crucial factor in the popularity of the Stylophone and its large sales was not only its ease of use but its endorsement by entertainer Rolf Harris who used the instrument on his English television programs that were broadcast to a wide audience both in the United Kingdom and abroad. Popularity of the Stylophone grew to the point where it was used in some main stream popular music. David Bowie's hit, Space Oddity includes a Stylophone in the instrumentation and it was also used by a pop group in 1970 called Printed Circuit. Michael Lea Curator