Fender Rhodes: The Piano That Changed the History of Music
To find the origin of the Rhodes piano, we must go back to WW II when Harold Rhodes got the idea for the instrument. And it wasn't really musical instruments he was into
Fender Rhodes: The Piano That Changed the History of Music
To find the origin of the Rhodes piano, we must go back to WW II when Harold Rhodes got the idea for the instrument. And it wasn't really musical instruments he was into, but a different way to teach piano. The story of the Rhodes piano is very complicated, or rather, so totally unbelievable that we might not even have seen the end of it yet!!!
by Frederik "Freddan" Adlers
Harold Burroughs Rhodes, who was born 1910 in the San Fernando Valley, discovered early that none of the established music schools he tried were into opening up the ears of their pupils. You should teach piano, but with a relation to sound, Harold thought, and felt a mission to develop his own method. Barely 20 years old (1930), he was managing a whole chain of schools across the USA, the Harold Rhodes School of Popular Piano. It was based on the success of the Rhodes Method, which you still can choose as a student (i.e. if you can still find it).
"The Grand Old Man" himself insisted that people who want to learn the piano (and pay for it) should not only be trained mechanically, but also learn how music works. And a good way to do that is to build your own piano! Less than two years before his stroke in 1996, he was working with kids in LA, in the wood shop of Foshay Junior High, building instruments at the age of 86. Strange words like "harmony", "sound" and "touch" relate to physical sensations that are the keys to understanding music. But let's get back to history....
World War II
Everything starts during WW II when Rhodes dissolves his pedagogic enterprise to join the Army Air Corps. By circumstance he finds himself between classifications, has nothing to do and is asked to provide therapy for wounded soldiers. Piano students lying in bed!?!? The obvious solution must be a bed piano (obvious to Harold, that is)!
Hydraulic aluminum pipes from the wings of the B-17 bombers seemed to have a good tone when cut to xylophone length. Picture yourself a toy piano, sized like a small suitcase, with 2.5 octaves of regular-size keys. It is a big success, and thousands are made. Rhodes is even awarded the Medal of Honor for his therapeutic achievements after the war, and in Air Corps Manual No. 29 in the army archives, you find the Rhodes Method described.
The Post-War Years
After the war, Rhodes is game for the music industry. They want to mass-produce the mini-piano - superior as it is in size, weight and (most of all) price to regular pianos - but Rhodes, used to doing things his own way, wants to give it a try himself.
The Rhodes Piano Corporation is established and introduces the Pre-Piano (NAMM show 1946) featuring 3.5 octaves and strings from a doorbell manufacturer, Torrington. It sounds better in the lower register and inspires Rhodes to learn electronics, so he can build an amplified version. An electrostatic microphone, amplifier and 6" speaker give the final product a price tag of $99.50.
The following year or two keeps Rhodes busy servicing way too many Pre-Pianos, due to less serious associates assembling the pianos. He gives up after two years, and during a stint in Texas he finally invents the "asymmetric tuning fork" idea. US Patent No. 2,972,922 is a reality.
Encouraged, he now builds a 72-note instrument resembling a baby grand, goes on a demo tour, and the rumor of the instrument reaches Leo Fender.
Meanwhile, Wurlitzer is busy releasing a piano built from the Pre-Piano idea, patented by Ben Meissner, a significant electronics authority. Rhodes even receives a letter from Meissner, explaining the weird sounds and uncontrollability he is facing. The reply is a model showing that if you can make the fork vibrate freely from its attachment, it behaves just fine!
By now we're far into the 50's, a decade totally dominated by Leo Fender, who in the span of just 5 years creates the Telecaster, the Precision Bass and the Stratocaster, and a line of amps to become classics as well. Even Harold must have been impressed, and being approached by Fender must have been like winning the Lotto. But unfortunately, what their new partnership would mean, in spite of Fender's potential, was Major Disappointment No. 2.
The Fender Years
The years 1959-1965 are a dark era in Rhodes history. The only available instrument is the Fender Rhodes Piano Bass, a 32-note version consisting only of the low range of the piano. This is hard to believe, since Rhodes finally had made a real full-range instrument. It seems that Leo didn't like the upper-range sound, so he locked Harold in the workshop to experiment with various strange ideas based upon the guitar neck (like the Hohner Clavinet). This didn't prevent Rhodes from, in his spare time, realizing his next milestone: the Rhodes 88.
Suddenly one day in 1964, he is visited in his workshop by two guys, who leave after a few remarks about the piano. They were Goddard Lieberson and Don Randall from CBS, and a few months later they offer him a release from the Fender agreement, plus an option to either