Last year in my Halloween mix I included a track that used an instrument called the Ondes Martenot. I new a little bit about it - that it was an old instrument played with a ring on a wire. But that was all I really knew. Then a listener pointed me in the direction of a piece for the Ondes Martenot written in 1937. Yikes, 1937?! I had no idea that "Oraison" by Olivier Messiaen was one of the first electronic pieces of music ever written. Of course this lead me down a Ondes Martenot rabbit hole and this mix is the result.

The Ondes Martenot was invented in 1928 by the French inventor Maurice Martenot. It sounds very much like a Theremin with it's wavering tones produced by oscillators. The Ondes Martenot can be played with a metal ring worn on the right index finger. Sliding the ring along a wire produces "theremin-like" tones. The music definitely can have a spooky, other-worldly sound. But it can also be quite expressive in the right hands.