Harold Rhodes

Harold Burroughs Rhodes ( born December 28, 1910 in San Fernando, California, USA, † December 17, 2000 in Canoga Park, California ) is the inventor of an electronic piano, one of the most important musical instruments of popular music of the 20th century. Developed by him "Fender Rhodes Electric Piano " became an important part of jazz, rock (music), pop and soul. All styles of music originated with and to call this instrument, here is primarily the fusion ( Miles Davis: Bitches Brew, 1968) and jazz funk ( Herbie Hancock: Head Hunters, 1973).

Early years

Rhodes was very early attention by the record collection of his older brother to the jazz and began playing the piano. In the 1930s, he made himself as a piano teacher and founded three Harold Rhodes School of Popular Piano in Los Angeles. His concept was so successful that by 1940 a number of schools throughout the United States were distributed. He developed a theory that complex jazz improvisations in the tradition of Duke Ellington and Art Tatum in just four steps to learn made ​​, the students should develop their own style perfectly. Rhodes himself considered his life not the invention of his electric piano, but the development of his method of teaching piano as his most important work.