Electronic musical instrument was designed to be a lower-cost alternative to a pipe organ for church music, musicians soon discovered that the Hammond was an excellent instrument for blues and jazz; indeed, an entire genre of music developed built around this instrument, known as the organ trio (typically Hammond organ, drums, and a third instrument, either saxophone or guitar). The first commercially manufactured synthesizer was the Novachord, built by the Hammond Organ Company from 1938 to 1942, which offered 72-note polyphony using 12 oscillators driving monostable-based divide-down circuits, basic envelope control and resonant low-pass filters. The instrument featured 163 vacuum tubes and weighed
Musical instrument and Organ Players') the following year, a treatise on organ building and organ playing. Of the instructional books and references published in the Renaissance era, one is noted for its detailed description and depiction of all wind and stringed instruments, including their relative sizes. This book, the "Syntagma musicum" by Michael Praetorius, is now considered an authoritative reference of sixteenth-century musical instruments. In the sixteenth century, musical instrument builders gave most instruments – such as the violin – the "classical shapes" they retain today. An emphasis on aesthetic beauty also developed; listeners were as pleased with the physical appearance of