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Even at first glance the Trautonium is just plain
weird. Invented by Friedrich Trautwein 1929, the Trautonium is
played by pressing a finger on a wire against a metal bar to close an
electric circuit while the other hand controls the volume. Rather like an electrified slack-key guitar.
Like
the Theremin, it's one of those electronic
instruments that at first seemed the wave of the future because you
could get notes out of it just by touching the thing, but also like
the Theremin it was another matter entirely to actually get it to make music. So much practice was
involved in mastering it that the number of accomplished
Trautoniumists could fit easily in a Cooper Mini with a large suitcase
and a couple of house plants and the device is remembered today for
its use in creating the sound effects for Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds. | 
