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The first Benioff Electro violin
Profile of the first Benioff Electro violin

The Benioff Violin
1938 - 1943

VERSION 1

Although there are dangers involved in ruminating on who actually invented the electric violin, discovering more about this person is possibly of paramount importance in coming to any conclusions about the subject of electric violins and their makers. These electric stringed instruments by Hugo Benioff have seemingly vanished from the face of the earth. The drawings reproduced here are from the Patent Specifications and are the only known images of Benioff's violins.
If you do not already know of Benioff's work it is probably because you are not a Geologist, Seismographer or Geophysicist, amongst other professions.

Hugo Benioff was born in California, September 14th 1899 and died, aged 69 before any significant interest in this lesser-known work was aroused. There is no mistake that Benioff succeeded in many ways. His name is honourably attached to work that continues to contribute to the world of science. The electric violin and Hugo Benioff are connected with the awesome power of the earthquake. He developed a method of electrifying stringed instruments that is still referenced today. His musical instruments are best known in connection to the Internationally reknowned concert pianist Roselyn Tureck and the hugely successful Baldwin Piano Company. Unfortunately, not even his surviving family have any idea where any of the original instruments are nowadays.

In 1938, Hugo Benioff was reported in the New York Times as being the inventor of the electric violin. The article describes how Benioff, studying seismographs of earthquakes, was inspired to attach meteorological equipment, i.e. vibration measuring technology to musical instruments. From this inspiration came an electric violin, cello and piano.
From the information in the article Benioff is said to have been inspired to start work in 1930. Definitely a bit late for being first. This is supported by the Patent records. Benioff applied for his "Stringed Musical Instrument" patent on 2 April 1938 and was granted it on 19 November, 1940. That is nearly ten years after John Compon and some eight years after Victor Pfeil, amongst a handful of other electric violin inventions. However, only Benioff's name has so far turned up in public records.

New York Times, Monday June 13, 1938
Quake Inspired Violin Invention; Tone Said to Astound Musicians. New Instruments, Developed by Dr. Hugo Benioff on Seismograph Principles, Are Played in California Concert
By The Associated Press

An earthquake helped to create a new type of violin, the invention of Dr. Hugo Benioff, Associate Professor of Seismology at the California Institute of Technology, that is said to have astounded musicians by the depth, volume and clarity of its tones.
After eight years of research with his "seismographic fiddle" and other string instruments, Dr. Benioff toady invited some of his associates to a concert in which the orchestra consisted exclusively of earthquake-born instruments.
The idea behind the new-type instruments came to Dr. Benioff as he watched the gyrations of a seismograph during an earthquake. Both earthquakes and music, he knew, consisted of vibrations. In his spare time he applied the principles of the seismograph to several stringed instruments. The success of the venture was such that the institute plans to establish a center of such research in the near future.
In the present forms, the violin and cello, for example, have the same outlines as their familiar counterpart, except that the wood fronts and backs are missing, and small aluminium containers beneath the strings substitute for the wood resonance chambers.
The container on the cello holds a crystal. Vibrations from the strings distort the crystal, causing it to vibrate and generate electrical current. A wire leads this infinitesimal current to amplifying devices and brings the tones through a special type of loud-speaker.
Many of Southern California's leading musicians have tested the new instruments. Without exception, they pronounced Dr. Benioff's inventions superior in tone to the orthodox counterparts. The violin, they said, has a startling new depth, with rich lower tone and clear, rounded high tone of unprecedented degree."

Detail of the pick up device used in the first Electro violin by Benioff
The second Benioff Electro violin

VERSION 2

Only four months after applying for his first violin patent, Benioff redesigned and re-worked his Electro violin. This instrument has many more traditional reference features such as a "normal" scroll and peg-box and a complete body outline. This "re-working" is common to other makers of this earliest period and can probably be attributed to player comments and reactions. Certainly the only known photograph of a Benioff electric instrument is clearly based on a more traditional body design than seen in his first violin invention.

Los Angeles Times, Sunday July 7, 1946
Electro Cello Scheduled for Introduction
"Hugo Benioff - California Institute of Technology, scientist, whose electrocello will be played by Stephen De'ak at his Bovard Auditorium, S.C., concert tomorrow night.
The first public performance of the new experimental "electro-cello" will be given by Stephen De'ak, University of Southern California School of Music faculty member, Monday night in Bovard Auditorium. He will be accompanied at the piano by Margaret Shanklin.
Considered as a new type of instrument with a more uniform timbre throughout, deeper and higher tones than those of the conventional cello, it was developed by Dr. Hugo Benioff of the California Institute of Technology after 18 years of research. "No sound is produced by the strings" explained the inventor "but vibrations actuate electrical current to produce the amplified tones."

The only known photograph of a Benioff Electro Cello

BENIOFF IN CONTEXT

From records in McGraw-Hill encyclopaedia of "Modern Scientists & Engineers" (pg76-77) it can be proposed that Benioff may well have been in contact with, known or knew of the work of any number of the better known electric violin makers of this early period. He was based in California during the 1930s and although a very big place, it would not be impossible to think that maybe there is more to be said on Benioff's grandly titled "Seismographic fiddle". Whatever it is however, it is not obvious.
The instrument is described in the newspaper article as being similar to the traditional violin but with back and sides missing. The pickup device is described as being a small metal box containing a crystal and working by the piezo effect of vibration registered as an electrical charge. As a description this bears striking resemblance to at least one other back and sideless violin from the same period. Lloyd Loar was already well attached to musical instrument design and had already been a chief engineer at the Gibson Guitar company. The type of body design described as being utilised by Benioff is still found today in mass marketed factory made electric violins coming from Japan. The connection is far from tenuous. The most recent Patents for electric violins make reference to inventions that lead directly to Benioff's Electro violins.

It would be insteresting to find out how Benioff's crystal-type electric pickup was made and how well it worked. Were the New York Times really hasty to ascribe the title of Inventor of the Electric Violin to Benioff? Did Benioff print out performances, were these presumably line graphs representing the various frequencies present in the sound ? If so perhaps Benioff was doing something more incredible. The graphs I have seen seismologists study, okay from television, show the type that is an ink version of an early stylus system.
Personally, as a violinist I would find it very useful to be able to analyse violin sound in performance in this way. Backed up with the playback facility - the undesirable when earthquakes are being recorded ! - the visual line, where and how it breaks up, the shapes, densities and distances between sections would all become a good study tool. Of course this can now be done using computers. The big problem with the computer screen is the limited size. What is needed sometimes is a long strip that can be seen as one thing. Did Benioff do this???

There is more known about the work of Hugo Benioff than many other so-called inventors of the electric violin put together. He actually has a part of this planet named after him - for his work in understanding what we live on - called Benioff Zones He is also a notable figure at least in current educational ideas of cross-curricular teaching, whether he knew it or not. However, he is proving to be the most obscure and difficult inventor of electric violins to trace today.
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