I bought a Muson, a child's battery operated musical instrument, when it was available in toy stores back in the late '70's. I was in high school and part of an embryonic rock band formed with my buddies. We played basic three chord rock songs and loved the rock format but at least two of us in the outfit admired strange, esoteric noise and the then popular style of Progressive Rock. We would have loved to have added an electric organ or keyboard to our sonic arsenal but couldn't possibly afford them.
Seeking a cheap synth substitute, I plunked down the money (a few lawns mowed later) and picked up the Muson Electronic Synthesizer. The Muson was a plastic orange-cased monstrosity with brightly colored pegs which attached in slots situated above the modest keyboard. The Muson sported its own speaker onboard. The tone the keys emitted when pressed was nothing more that a wailing siren. Quite annoying, in fact, and not particularly endearing or interesting.
It was the built in "sequencer" function which grabbed my attention. By selecting this feature, a series of notes could be picked and played back repeatedly. The colored pegs each represented a musical note. The order in which the pegs were seated could be changed thus providing a different combination of notes. The speed at which the sequencer combed the notes could also be sped up or slowed down. Instant "Baba O'Rielly"-like synth passages! Well, not quite. We spiced up the tonal range of the Muson by processing its output with guitar effects pedals. A little Electro Harmonix Micro Synth and some echo and reverb and you'd swear the UFO's were hovering over your rooftop! A lot of these Muson jams were recorded with a cassette deck propped close to an amplifier (the early days of lo-fi). Haven't come across any recently but I suspect they cozied up to used baby diapers in the local landfill some time ago.
The finest moment the Muson ever had was when I used it to audition for the high school's special "Gong Show" competition. I can't remember why my pals and I didn't bring our own equipment to play at the tryout (probably unrehearsed) but we worked out a deal with one of the organizers that if he liked the sample song I was going to play on the keyboard well enough, we would be permitted to be entered in the contest as a band. The other kids in bands who lugged all their gear to the tryouts didn't think much of this ploy but they all gathered round to hear this primitive approach. I played "Uncontrollable Urge" by Devo and made it about half way through the tune and then assured everyone that the rest of the song would go pretty much like what they had just heard. A swag all the way! Well, we got in as an act and we ended up changing our minds as to the material we would cover ("Mongoloid" by Devo, it was!). I think we finished in fifth place or something. We didn't use the Muson for the song. We decided to just go with a guitar/bass/drum augmentation.
The Muson stayed with me through the years. I used it to provide backing for crude music demos mainly. My dad even placed a 1/4" output jack on it so that I could play through an amp.
My enthusiasm for demo making subsided for a few years, but when it returned, I dug out the old toy and put it to use. The only problem was that I had left batteries inside the stored away toy and the batteries had leaked and corroded the contacts. The Muson played no more. I just recently tossed the thing into the trash. I still have the instruction manual/songbook, though, and hopefully a stray recordings of the Muson somewhere.
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