As a music fan listening to music, whether you’re a kid imagining yourself a ROCK-/POPstar or an adult trying to “feel” the music, you often find yourself striking familiar poses. As if these poses are imprinted in our collective subconsciousness! You either grab the MIC and sing without sound (miming) or grab your invisible guitar and take wild swings at its even more invisible strings (playing air-guitar)! However there are also those like me who have ever since they remember been a fan of ELECTRONICA and as such fascinated with synthesisers and keyboards of different kinds. When I was a kid, listening to music and having the “urge” to close the eyes and striking a pose none of the common poses mentioned above were found suitable for the music played! Sure you could always imagine yourself by a stationary gear tapping on the keys, but since back then most keyboard players were more or less in the background while the vocalists and guitarists shone in the foreground it was nothing exciting or fun to imagine. Halleluiah, then the “remote keyboard” (MIDI REMOTE CONTROLLERS) or so called “belly synths” came into the picture! Although today a device often ridiculed and locked in the museum of music as a relic, it was the saviour of the charismatic keyboardists back then and not to forget a popular product in the Iranian industry (just watch the old music videos). Like a loyal sidekick it came and lifted its owner under the spotlight! Suddenly the keyboardist became just as famous as the vocalist and the guitarist! And the pinnacle of its popularity came when the French ELECTRONICA prodigy Jean M. Jarre adopted and developed it as his mighty EXCALIBUR. When he appeared on the city skyline, with the wind in his hair, the look in his eyes and the custom-made YAMAHA KX5 in his hands it was as if he RULED THE WORLD!!!
Still today I get incredibly nostalgic and excited whenever I see an image of the old “belly synths”! I remember its glory days and hope for a future resurrection and revival of this once so faithful servant of the stages!
