| I remember when my family bought our electric | | | | an accepted fact. Indeed, the synthesizer is credited |
| keyboard. I must have been about ten years old, and I | | | | with the emergence of the Synthpop music genre, a |
| remember thinking that our family was going to be the | | | | subgenre of New Wave, during the late 1970s and |
| coolest one on the block. All the different sounds it | | | | mid-1980s. Certainly, some of the most popular songs |
| could make! All the different beats it could produce! I | | | | of the 1980s feature the sounds of the synthesizer, |
| was sure that I'd be producing professional-sounding | | | | songs like Tainted Love by Soft Cell, Just Can't Get |
| music in no time. Of course, as I soon found out, there's | | | | Enough by Depeche Mode, and of course, that anthem |
| more to playing an electric keyboard that just fiddling | | | | of the 80s, Whip It by Devo. |
| around with the buttons and keys. I soon lost interest in | | | | The synthesizer has had a significant impact on the |
| the instrument when it became evident that I'd have to | | | | average American as well as the gods of rock and |
| put actual work into learning to play it. Fortunately, | | | | roll. Mine was not the only family purchase an |
| many real musicians the world over have had more | | | | electronic keyboard; for average mortals, the appeal |
| perseverance than me, and they have used electronic | | | | of the instrument lies in its comparative affordability |
| keyboards to stretch the boundaries of modern music. | | | | and reasonable size as compared to a traditional, |
| An electronic keyboard, or more accurately, a | | | | full-size piano. Many parents have purchased electronic |
| synthesizer, produces a wide variety of sounds by | | | | keyboards in the hopes that their children would follow |
| generating and combining signals of different | | | | in the footsteps of pianists like Mozart, Vladimir |
| frequencies. These frequencies are transmuted into | | | | Horowitz, or Elton John. |
| electrical signals, which are then amplified through | | | | The broad applicability of the electronic keyboard is |
| speakers. Not surprisingly, the electronic keyboard has | | | | another of its principle assets. In its most traditional role, |
| its roots in instruments like the piano and the | | | | it can function as a stand-in for a traditional piano. But, |
| harpsichord, instruments that have existed for | | | | as bands like Culture Club and Depeche Mode have |
| hundreds of years. The modern synthesizer, however, | | | | proven, the synthesizer can be made to produce |
| only came into existence in the mid-1970s, about thirty | | | | some of the most outre music ever heard by the |
| years ago. Since that time, electric keyboards have | | | | human ear. You would be hard pressed to find a |
| had an incalculable effect on the music industry and | | | | music genre that does not avail itself of the electronic |
| culture. | | | | keyboard's seemingly inexhaustible array of sounds. In |
| When famous artists like Stevie Wonder and popular | | | | fact, it is interesting to wonder, but at the same time |
| bands like Duran Duran began to make regular use of | | | | difficult to imagine, what the modern music industry |
| this instrument, its place in the music industry became | | | | would be like without this instrument. |