Session Log - The Ondioline +Gotye’s Ondioline Orchestra

I’ve got a unique instrument I want to discuss this month called an Ondioline. The Ondioline is an early monophonic electronic instrument invented by the French musician, poet, inventor and instrument builder Georges Jenny in 1941. A precursor of the synthesizer, it is a tube-based analog instrument that can imitate the sounds of wind instruments, string instruments, bagpipes and even banjo, sitar or soprano voice. Back in the 1940s these sounds were utterly unthinkable and groundbreaking!

A unique aspect of this instrument is that it is built with special springs that allow the player to gently jiggle the three-octave keyboard laterally to create a natural vibrato. The volume is operated via a lever by the player’s knee, much akin to the pitch bending levers in a pedal steel guitar.

Georges Jenny developed the Ondioline on his own while recovering from tuberculosis in a sanatorium in France and later won an inventions competition for this instrument in 1946. Still, it wasn’t until 1947 that he was able to start manufacturing it commercially.

In the 1950s, the French pop electronica pioneer Jean-Jacques Perrey first heard the Ondioline and became enamored with the instrument and committed to using it during his performances. He convinced Jenny to “gift” or lend him one. After extensive practice, he impressed Jenny to the point that Perrey quit his medical studies and started working as a traveling salesman and product demonstrator for Jenny’s handmade home-built instrument.

Perrey (who was later one-half of the early Moog-adopting duo Perrey and Kingsley) enjoyed a great career in electronic music, playing with the likes of Charles Trenet, Django Reinhardt, Yves Montand, Jacques Brel, Paul Durand, Pierre Schaeffer, Harry Breuer, Angelo Badalamenti and Édith Piaf. Piaf was so impressed with the Ondioline’s sound that she funded a recording session to showcase the instrument in New York.

Piaf connected Perrey with the then-owner of Carrol Music, Carroll Bratman, who sponsored Perrey’s Green Card and paid for his relocation from France to the U.S. She assisted with his living expenses and the construction of a lab and tape studio so he could continue to develop the Ondioline and demonstrate its capabilities to American audiences.