Radiohead loves Ondes Martenot

2009-06-25 13:41

Paris - What do Olivier Messiaen, Radiohead and Mars Attacks the movie have in common? The Ondes Martenot, an electronic keyboard that has just turned 80 and is the prequel to the synthesiser.

The instrument dates back to 1928, the brainchild of Frenchman Maurice Martenot, a cello player and wartime radio transmissions expert determined to turn the screech of airwaves into music.

Contemporary composers such as Messiaen, Pierre Boulez, Arthur Honegger and Andre Jolivet have all written for the Ondes Martenot, which produces one note of variable pitch along with weird and wonderful sounds perfect for sci-fi movies such as Mars Attacks.

But pop musicians including Radiohead and Gorillaz too are fans of the trailblazing instrument that resembles an electronic organ surrounded by several loudspeakers.

In front of the central keyboard, which produces vibrato effects, is a ribbon which the ondist plays by placing a ring on a finger, recreating the undulating frequencies of the musical saw.

Rare trade

One of its most renowned proponents is Christine Ott, 45, who has a foot in both camps, interpreting classics, but also collaborating with Radiohead. Being a professional ondist is a rare trade, particularly as there are thought to be few left in the world.

Alongside Ott and other players such as Thomas Bloch and Monique Pierrot there are thought to be around 10 ondists.

"The Ondes Martenot presents a wide range of possibilities - ethereal, impressionist and other more brutal industrial sounds," said Ott, who has just released an album titled Solitude Nomade. "It is an instrument of space and of sound sculpture, it has form, like a painter using a palette of sounds."

But despite its capacity to captivate, the Ondes Martenot is facing an uphill struggle to survive in the modern world. Firstly they are hard to find as they are hardly manufactured nowadays, although an inventor named Ambro Oliva developed a derivative instrument, the Ondea, in 2003.

"It is a very small world and is very complicated," said Ott. "It is very difficult to know the number of instruments in existence. Often they are in cellars where their condition is deteriorating."

An ondist for 25 years after learning to play the piano, it took Ott "15 years to find an instrument". Another problem is a hugely limited printed repertoire.

"I have looked for certain scores for three or four years, they are always very difficult to find, many of the pieces are not published any more.

"Also, there is a lack of new material because most composers think nowadays that the instrument is extinct and that it is no longer made. It is a vicious circle," said the musician, who devotes her time to passing on her knowledge of the instrument.

Like Bloch, she teaches Ondes Martenot at the National Academy of Strasbourg.

"When I arrived eight or nine years ago there were only two pupils, now there are 10," she said. "They have a raft of percussion or piano medals. They heard us on stage with certain groups and developed a passion for the Ondes Martenot."

- AFP