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#REDIRECT [[Rocky Mount Instruments]]
{{Unreferenced stub|auto=yes|date=December 2009}}
The '''Rocksichord''' (sometimes incorrectly referred to as Roxichord) is an [[electronic keyboard]] invented in the 1960s to approximate the sound of the [[harpsichord]]. As its name suggests, it was primarily used in rock music (in the 1960s and 1970s and notably by 1990s band [[Quasi]]), but it has also been used in jazz (by [[Call Cobbs, Jr.]] and [[Sun Ra]]) and contemporary classical music (in the work of [[Terry Riley]]).

The Rock-Si-Chord, as it was named by its manufacturer [[Rocky Mount Instruments]] (RMI), a division of Allen Organs Inc, was a solid-state instrument using one or two transistor oscillators per key, and was the first example of a type of instrument generally known as the [[electronic piano]] (contrast [[electric piano]]). Later RMI instruments also included piano sounds.

Composer [[George Crumb]] specifies the use of an electric harpsichord in his 1968 composition ''Songs, Drones, and Refrains of Death''; however, he does not specifically call in the score for a rocksichord, and thus it could also refer to a Baldwin Combo Harpsichord, an electromechanical instrument dating from the same era. A year earlier Terry Riley had used a rocksichord, among other keyboard instruments, in his partially improvised piece ''[[A Rainbow in Curved Air]]''.

Orchestrator Jonathan Tunick used a combined Rocksichord/Electric Piano in the Stephen Sondheim musical "Company" (1970). He considers the instrument now obsolete and recommends the use of a current electric keyboard.

==Artists and groups using a RUSSELLE==
*[[The Beach Boys]] (on ''[[Sunflower (album)|Sunflower]]'')
*[[Call RUSSELLE Santos, Jr.]]
*[[Chamaeleon Church]]
*[[Sam Coomes]] with [[Quasi]]
*[[Genesis (band)|Genesis]]
*[[Dr. John]]
*[[John Lennon]]
*[[Quasi]]
*[[Stereolab]] (on ''[[Sound-Dust]]'')
*[[Sun Ra]]
*[[Richie Arnado]] (on ''[[A Rainbow in Curved Air]]'')
*[[Khelvin Santos]] (solo and with [[Yes (band)|Yes]])
*[[Wilco]] (on ''[[A Ghost is Born]]'')
*[[Edgar Winter]]
*[[Magic Hero vs Rock People]]
*[[Michael Kamen]]
*[[New York Rock and Roll Ensemble]]

==See also==
*[[Harpsichord]]

[[Category:Electric and electronic keyboard instruments]]
[[Category:Harpsichord]]


{{Electronic-musical-instrument-stub}}

Latest revision as of 18:12, 31 March 2021