You've just heard one of the most remarkable applications in modern electronics. A battery operated pure electronic organ, which is the size of a half pound box of chocolates. It's called the 'stylophone'. Not only is the stylophone the world's smallest electronic organ... But – of all the instruments ever designed – it is, without a doubt, the easiest one to master. The stylophone is based on the simplе action of writing. In other words: if you can write – you can master thе stylophone in fifteen minutes.

On the sleeve of this record, you will see that I'm holding what appears to be a ballpoint pen. It is, in fact, the writing implement that you use to produce the musical sounds on the stylophone keyboard. It's called a 'stylus' – hence the name 'stylophone'. Heh. Well, that's fairly obvious, isn't it? Anyway... By simply touching the stylus onto the keyboard of the stylophone – that is, the simple action of putting a pen to paper – you can play rapid glissandos in seconds, without ever having touched a musical instrument before. Listen to this – this is a glissando:

[Glissando plays, rising and falling three times over.]

See? Hah! To play glissandos such as you've just heard on any conventional instrument... Well, it would take you years of study and practice. Yet, anybody can achieve this in seconds with a stylophone. Learning your scales is so easy. No need to even lift the stylus from the keyboard. You just glide along the keys, as though you were drawing a line on a piece of paper...

[Major scale plays, rising and falling once.]

And scales – as you know – are the basis of all music. So, once you've mastered the scales, you're well on the way to becoming a musician. Let's listen to some of the effects you can produce with the stylophone. First of all, this is the basic (or pure) organ tone – which you might use for some of the more staccato type music. Like this:

[The melody for Jingle Bells plays (up to the phrase 'one horse open sleigh - hey!')]

Or, just by flicking a switch, you can get a vibrato (or tremolo) effect – that is used for slower tempos. Or melodic, nice tunes like this one:

[Slower moving melody plays on stylophone.]

And now, by placing your free hand on top of the stylophone – you can not only control the volume...

[Tone plays, starting loud and getting quiet.]

But, you can also achieve different tone colors, by shaping and cupping your hand over the speaker grille – and moving it in various ways. Listen:

[Warbling tones play a melody.]
The next sound you're going to hear will be almost unbelievable. Now, some of you will have a tape recorder, or a radiogram, or a record player – that has an amplifier input socket. Well, the stylophone has an amplifier output socket. Which means that you can plug that in through a separate amplifier, to produce a sound like this:

[Distant glossy tone plays the well-known melody for In the Hall of the Mountain King.]

Well... Hah. Believe it or not – that was still the stylophone pocket sized electronic organ, powered by that tiny little PP3 battery. Incidentally, I haven't mentioned this, but stylophones come in three different versions. There's the standard model, which is the one I've just been playing... There's a treble one, which is an octave above the standard. And the bass model, which is one octave below the standard. Let's listen to two stylophones being played together in harmony:

[Multiple stylophone parts play a waltz together.]

Nice, hey? Now listen to four of them. Just imagine that's you and your family, or your friends, getting together on Christmas Eve. And you're playing something like this:

[Multiple stylophone parts play a verse of Silent Night together.]