Georges Marcel Charles Jenny (29 April 1913 – 23 September 1975)[1] was a French musician, poet, and electronic instrument builder.
The Ondioline is monophonic, yet it is capable of generating an array of sounds, and features a keyboard that produces a natural-sounding vibrato via side-to-side finger movements when keys are depressed.
[1] By the time he began to manufacture it commercially in 1947,[4] the device, now christened the Ondioline,[1] was valve-based and contained a built-in amplifier.
Jenny determined that the raw waveform resultant from the super heterodyne technique was not as harmonically rich a starting point as desirable, and this led him to design the Ondioline’s cathodic coupling oscillator, for which he received his first patent.
The schematics were made available for amateur engineers to construct their own custom instruments, and they were encouraged to experiment with the amplifier, tone circuits and cabinetry.
To reduce manufacturing costs and keep retail prices affordable, Jenny often used poor quality components; as a result, the instruments required regular maintenance or they would become unplayable.
[4] The instrument was introduced to a wider audience in the 1950s by electronic music pioneer Jean-Jacques Perrey (who was also an early adopter of the Moog synthesizer).
In 1949,[9] Perrey, at the time a medical student, heard Jenny demonstrate the Ondioline on a French radio broadcast.
"With the audacity of youth he phoned the radio station and requested Georges Jenny's telephone number, which he was duly given," wrote historian Mark Brend.
After earning substantial commissions on sales made during a trip to Sweden (during which he performed on TV), Perrey quit medical school and devoted his career to electronic music.