The Optophonic Piano is an electronic optical instrument created by the
Ukrainian
Ukrainian may refer to:
* Something of, from, or related to Ukraine
* Something relating to Ukrainians, an East Slavic people from Eastern Europe
* Something relating to demographics of Ukraine in terms of demography and population of Ukraine
* So ...
Futurist painter
Vladimir Baranoff Rossiné
Vladimir may refer to:
Names
* Vladimir (name) for the Bulgarian, Croatian, Czech, Macedonian, Romanian, Russian, Serbian, Slovak and Slovenian spellings of a Slavic name
* Uladzimir for the Belarusian version of the name
* Volodymyr for the Ukr ...
.
Vladimir Baranoff Rossiné started working on the instrument in 1916. He performed with it at many events and places, including the
Bolshoi Theatre
The Bolshoi Theatre ( rus, Большо́й теа́тр, r=Bol'shoy teatr, literally "Big Theater", p=bɐlʲˈʂoj tʲɪˈatər) is a historic theatre in Moscow, Russia, originally designed by architect Joseph Bové, which holds ballet and ope ...
(1924). His wife used to help him in those performances.
The Optophonic Piano generated sounds and projected revolving patterns onto a wall or ceiling by directing a bright light through a series of revolving painted glass disks (painted by Vladimir Baranoff Rossiné himself), filters,
mirror
A mirror or looking glass is an object that Reflection (physics), reflects an image. Light that bounces off a mirror will show an image of whatever is in front of it, when focused through the lens of the eye or a camera. Mirrors reverse the ...
s and lenses. The keyboard controlled the combination of the various filters and disks. The variations in opacity of the painted disk and filters were picked up by a photo-electric cell controlling the pitch of a single oscillator. The instrument produced a continuous varying tone which, accompanied by the rotating
Kaleidoscopic projections was used by Vladimir Baranoff Rossiné at exhibitions and public events.
See also
*
List of Russian inventions
A ''list'' is any set of items in a row. List or lists may also refer to:
People
* List (surname)
Organizations
* List College, an undergraduate division of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America
* SC Germania List, German rugby union ...
External links
About the instrument from the project "120 Years of Electronic Music"
* ttp://www.tadream.net/articles/historyofem/history.pdf History of electronic music, includes information about the Optophonic Piano
Synthesizers
Russian inventions
Visual music
Russian electronic musical instruments