Thu 3/27 @ 7PM
The next entry in the Rock Hall’s film series doesn’t star a musician but rather an instrument: a synthesizer known as the Resynator.
It was invented in the ’70s by a young musician named Don Tavel, at the University of Indiana in Bloomington’s Center for Computer and Electronic Music. It took electric audio signals from any instrument and to create a synth tone that reflected that instrument’s pitch blending the sound of the instrument with synthesized sound. Only six were made, but among those who used it were Peter Gabriel and Jon Anderson.
Sadly, Tavel died in a car crash in 1988 at the age of 36, and the instrument was forgotten — until his daughter Alison, who was an infant when he died, resurrected it with a film called Resynator that’s spend the last year traveling to film festivals around the world. It includes appearances by Gabriel and Anderson, as well s Jimmy Jam Garce Potter, Mark Ronson, Fred Armisen and Gotye and explores the story of the instrument’s creation, uses and disappearance. While making the film, she learned more about the real man behind the father she never knew.
The Rock Hall event includes a post-screening conversation with Alison Tavel. Get tickets here.