Flexatone
Encyclopedia
Percussion instrument
A percussion instrument is any object which produces a sound when hit with an implement or when it is shaken, rubbed, scraped, or otherwise acted upon in a way that sets the object into vibration...
(an indirectly struck idiophone
Idiophone
An idiophone is any musical instrument which creates sound primarily by way of the instrument's vibrating, without the use of strings or membranes. It is the first of the four main divisions in the original Hornbostel-Sachs scheme of musical instrument classification...
) consisting of a small flexible metal sheet suspended in a wire frame ending in a handle.
History, construction and technique
An invention for a flexatone occurs in the BritishGreat Britain
Great Britain or Britain is an island situated to the northwest of Continental Europe. It is the ninth largest island in the world, and the largest European island, as well as the largest of the British Isles...
Patent
Patent
A patent is a form of intellectual property. It consists of a set of exclusive rights granted by a sovereign state to an inventor or their assignee for a limited period of time in exchange for the public disclosure of an invention....
Records of 1922 and 1923. In 1924 the 'Flex-a-tone' was patented in the USA
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
by the Playatone Company of New York.
A wooden knob mounted on a strip of spring steel lies on each side of the metal sheet. The player holds the flexatone in one hand with the palm around the wire frame and the thumb on the free end of the spring steel. The player then shakes the instrument with a trembling movement which causes the beaters to strike the sides of the metal sheet. While shaking the handle, the musician makes a high- or low-pitched sound depending on the curve given to the blade by the pressure from his thumb. A vibrato
Vibrato
Vibrato is a musical effect consisting of a regular, pulsating change of pitch. It is used to add expression to vocal and instrumental music. Vibrato is typically characterised in terms of two factors: the amount of pitch variation and the speed with which the pitch is varied .-Vibrato and...
is thus produced.
An alternate technique involves removing the two wooden knobs and their mounting springs, and then using a small metal rod (e.g., a triangle
Triangle (instrument)
The triangle is an idiophone type of musical instrument in the percussion family. It is a bar of metal, usually steel but sometimes other metals like beryllium copper, bent into a triangle shape. The instrument is usually held by a loop of some form of thread or wire at the top curve...
beater) held in the free hand striking the strip of spring steel. The pitch is altered in the same manner as the previous technique. This method of playing results in a different, more constrained sound.
Uses
The flexatone is sometimes heard in funkFunk
Funk is a music genre that originated in the mid-late 1960s when African American musicians blended soul music, jazz and R&B into a rhythmic, danceable new form of music. Funk de-emphasizes melody and harmony and brings a strong rhythmic groove of electric bass and drums to the foreground...
music, and occasionally in pop music for special effect. It is occasionally used in the soundtracks of films or cartoons to represent "ghosts" or other paranormal phenomena.
The instrument is rarely used in classical music; Arnold Schoenberg
Arnold Schoenberg
Arnold Schoenberg was an Austrian composer, associated with the expressionist movement in German poetry and art, and leader of the Second Viennese School...
employed it in his Variations for Orchestra and his unfinished opera Moses und Aron
Moses und Aron
Moses und Aron is a three-act opera by Arnold Schoenberg with the third act unfinished. The German libretto was by the composer after the Book of Exodus.-Compositional history:...
, and Aram Khachaturian
Aram Khachaturian
Aram Ilyich Khachaturian was a prominent Soviet composer. Khachaturian's works were often influenced by classical Russian music and Armenian folk music...
wrote for it in his Piano Concerto
Piano Concerto (Khachaturian)
Aram Khachaturian's Piano Concerto in D-flat major, Op. 38, was composed in 1936. It was his first work to bring him recognition in the West, and it immediately entered the repertoire of many notable pianists....
(though here the flexatone is now often omitted). It is also used in Jonny spielt auf
Jonny spielt auf
Jonny spielt auf is an opera with words and music by Ernst Krenek about a jazz violinist. The work typified the cultural freedom of the 'golden era' of the Weimar Republic.-Performance history:...
by Ernst Krenek
Ernst Krenek
Ernst Krenek was an Austrian of Czech origin and, from 1945, American composer. He explored atonality and other modern styles and wrote a number of books, including Music Here and Now , a study of Johannes Ockeghem , and Horizons Circled: Reflections on my Music...
, and Erwin Schulhoff
Erwin Schulhoff
Erwin Schulhoff was a Czech composer and pianist.-Life:Born in Prague of Jewish-German origin, Schulhoff was one of the brightest figures in a generation of European musicians whose successful careers were prematurely terminated by the rise of the Nazi regime in Germany...
's Symphony No. 1. The cellist in Sofia Gubaidulina
Sofia Gubaidulina
Sofia Asgatovna Gubaidulina, is a Russian composer of half Russian, half Tatar ethnicity.Gubaidulina's music is marked by the use of unusual instrumental combinations...
's The Canticle of the Sun plays a flexatone in the middle of the piece. Dmitri Shostakovich
Dmitri Shostakovich
Dmitri Dmitriyevich Shostakovich was a Soviet Russian composer and one of the most celebrated composers of the 20th century....
also uses a flexatone prominently in his opera The Nose, to characterise the nihilistic schoolteacher in Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk, and in his rarely performed suite Hypothetically Murdered. Alfred Schnittke
Alfred Schnittke
Alfred Schnittke ; November 24, 1934 – August 3, 1998) was a Russian and Soviet composer. Schnittke's early music shows the strong influence of Dmitri Shostakovich. He developed a polystylistic technique in works such as the epic First Symphony and First Concerto Grosso...
used it in the death tango movement of his Faust Cantata as well as in the Tuba Mirum movement of his Requiem and in his Viola Concerto. In Schnittke's score for the ballet "Peer Gynt", the flexatone represents the sound of the moaning wind. György Ligeti
György Ligeti
György Sándor Ligeti was a composer of contemporary classical music. Born in a Hungarian Jewish family in Transylvania, Romania, he briefly lived in Hungary before becoming an Austrian citizen.-Early life:...
used it in many of his works, such as the second movement of his concerto for piano and his opera Le Grand Macabre
Le Grand Macabre
Le Grand Macabre is György Ligeti's only opera. The opera has two acts and its libretto – loosely based on the 1934 play, La Balade du grand macabre, by Michel De Ghelderode – was written by Ligeti in collaboration with Michael Meschke...
. Peter Maxwell-Davies uses it in the third movement of his Symphony No. 1, and Brian Ferneyhough
Brian Ferneyhough
Brian John Peter Ferneyhough is an English composer. His music is characterized by the extensive use of complex rhythmic tuplet notation which features in all his works...
calls for it in his 2011 orchestral piece Plötzlichkeit. The 1964 ballet "The Display", by Australian composer Malcolm Williamson
Malcolm Williamson
Malcolm Benjamin Graham Christopher Williamson AO , CBE was an Australian composer. He was the Master of the Queen's Music from 1975 until his death.-Biography:...
, also includes a part for the flexatone.
"Weird Al" Yankovic
"Weird Al" Yankovic
Alfred Matthew "Weird Al" Yankovic is an American singer-songwriter, music producer, accordionist, actor, comedian, writer, satirist, and parodist. Yankovic is known for his humorous songs that make light of popular culture and that often parody specific songs by contemporary musical acts...
also uses it in "Another One Rides The Bus", and it is featured in Rick James
Rick James
James Ambrose Johnson, Jr. , better known by his stage name Rick James, was an American singer, songwriter, musician and record producer. James was a popular performer in the late 1970s and 1980s, scoring four number-one hits on the U.S. R&B charts performing in the genres of funk and R&B...
' "Super Freak". It appears frequently on Weather Report "Sweetnighter". The BP Renegades Steel Orchestra uses it during a quiet passage in their rendition of the calypso "Sound of the Ghost". DJ Quik
DJ Quik
David Martin Blake , better known by his stage name DJ Quik, is an MC and record producer. According to Quik himself, his stage name reflects his ability to produce records in short time....
uses the flexatone in many of his songs, such as "Pitch in on a Party". Rick Wakeman
Rick Wakeman
Richard Christopher Wakeman is an English keyboard player, composer and songwriter best known for being the former keyboardist in the progressive rock band Yes...
uses it on his album "Criminal Record"
Rick Wakeman's Criminal Record
-Personnel:* Rick Wakeman – keyboard, producer* Chris Squire – bass* Alan White – drums* Frank Ricotti – percussion* Bill Oddie – vocals* Ars Laeta Choir of Lausanne, Switzerland* Robert Mernoud – Conductor* John Timperley – engineer* Dave Richards - engineer...
A flexatone can be heard on a number of tracks on the London Calling
London Calling
London Calling is the third studio album by the English punk rock band The Clash. It was released in the United Kingdom on 14 December 1979 through CBS Records, and in the United States in January 1980 through Epic Records...
album by The Clash
The Clash
The Clash were an English punk rock band that formed in 1976 as part of the original wave of British punk. Along with punk, their music incorporated elements of reggae, ska, dub, funk, rap, dance, and rockabilly...
, most noticeably on the track Jimmy Jazz. The instrument is also prominent in the intro to "Faith Healer" by Sensational Alex Harvey Band and is used almost as a lead instrument in Sing Swan Song on the album Ege Bamyasi
Ege Bamyasi
Ege Bamyası is the fourth studio album by the German experimental rock band Can which was originally released as an LP in 1972 by United Artists. The album contains the single "Spoon", which charted in the Top 10 in Germany, largely because of its use as the theme of a German TV thriller series...
by Can (band)
Can (band)
Can was an experimental rock band formed in Cologne, West Germany in 1968. Later labeled as one of the first "krautrock" groups, they transcended mainstream influences and incorporated strong minimalist and world music elements into their often psychedelic music.Can constructed their music largely...
.