Rocksichord

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 Rocksichord

• The Beach Boys (on Sunflower)
• Call Cobbs, Jr.
• Chamaeleon Church
• Sam Coomes with Quasi
• Genesis
• Dr. John
• John Lennon
• Quasi
• Stereolab (on Sound-Dust)
• Sun Ra
• Terry Riley (on A Rainbow in Curved Air)
• Rick Wakeman (solo and with 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