This technique has a number of enormous attractions in that both pitch and waveshape can be influenced by the pattern on the semi-transparent material which is easy to design and fabricate, thereby providing a very flexible form of wave generation. Indeed optical film sound-track work on this principle to this day.
Musical instruments incorporating this technique include; the WCAU Photona, the Superpiano - invented by Emerick Speilmann and the Syntronic Organ developed by Ivan Eremeef and Leopold Stokowski. In Russia, the Variophone (due to Yevgeny Alexandrovitch Sholpo, 1932) used an optical synthesis method where sound waves are drawn onto transparent 35mm film. Sholpo had been experimenting with 'drawn sound' since the 1920's and created several sound works by photographing drawings to create soundtracks. This technique of "drawn sound" was embraced by the English composer Daphne Oram working at the BBC Radiophonic Workshop in London from 1959 onwards. She developed the system to a high degree of subtelty, even to the point of christening the technique, "Oramics". Oram continued to use the process throughout the sixties producing work for film and theatre.
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