Gimn t25 gimn institute

The State Institute for Musical Science (GIMN - the Russian abbreviation) was founded in Moscow in 1921 in an attempt to centralize all activities related to musical science including disciplines such as acoustics, musicology, psychology, physiology, construction of new musical instruments and ethnomusicology. Nikolai Garbuzov was elected Director.

From the beginning GIMN was oriented towards academic research. Among GIMN associates were many scholars and inventors from the realm of music and beyond, including Peter Zimin, Leonid Sabaneev, Leon Theremin, Nikolai Bernstein, Paul Leiberg, Boris Krasin and Emiliy Rosenov. Numerous research projects were conducted, articles published and experimental devices built.

In 1923 GIMN supported the performance of the Symphony of Sirens in Moscow and even applied for an additional nighttime show, which was never realized. In autumn 1923 Arseny Avraamov was involved in the reorganization of GIMN. He considered this institution his own creation since most of its research activities were based on ideas he had developed and published in numerous articles between 1914 and 1917. It came to represent a struggle between revolutionary artistic approaches and the increasingly conservative mentality. Although the draft program of the new GIMN was signed by Avraamov, Garbuzov and Gnesin, the final document contained neither Avraamov’s ideas nor his signature. Even though Mikhail Gnesin – one of Russia’s foremost composers – considered Arseny Avraamov one of the founders of Russian musical acoustics, in the official documentation of GIMN Avraamov’s name is not even mentioned.

In 1931 GIMN was closed and in 1933 Garbuzon established a new Research Institute for Musical Science (NIMI) at Moscow State Conservatory where in 1940s it was renamed as the Acoustical Laboratory. In the realm of music and its technology GIMN/NIMI was the highest-level organization in Moscow. Projects from all over Soviet Russia seeking a patent or financial support needed a positive review from the appropriate GIMN/NIMI experts. As many of these experts were undertaking similar research or having different aesthetical views, their responses were often negative, based on biased opinions and self-interest rather than scholarship, discourse and the greater good.

In a book “Five years of GIMN scientific activity 1921-26”, Moscow, 1926. Theremin Center archive.

Nikolai Garbuzov (in the centre). “Five years of GIMN scientific activity 1921-26”, Moscow, 1926. Theremin Center archive.

Peter Zimin was specializing in the research of musical instruments, especially organs and piano. He made very advanced research into rhythm and the temporal characteristics of instrumental musical performance, which was very similar to the research concurrently taking place in Leningrad, conducted by Evgeny Sholpo. Leonid Sabaneev undertook research into Alexander Skriabin’s music, microtonal ultrachromatic music, synesthesia and ‘colour hearing’. Paul Leiberg was exploring microtonal scales, combinational tones and beats, while Alexander Samoilov, supposing that the structure of a spatial lattice of musical intervals possesses the same features as the structure of a spatial lattice of crystals, conducted research into the multidimensional nature of sonic space, studying the locations of musical intervals on a line, on a plane and in space.

Among the many researchers and inventors involved were Leon Theremin, Nikolai Bernstein, Boris Krasin, Emil Rosenov, Mikhail Gnesin, and Arseny Avraamov. Numerous research projects were conducted, articles published and experimental devices built, including a harmonium in natural (overtone) scale, and a quarter-tone harmonium with two keyboards. Sergei Rzevkin built his radio-harmonium on cathodic valves, which was the second electronic musical instrument to have been built in Russia after the invention of the Theremin. It was a sort of three-voice oscillator, capable of producing polyphonic chords in any temperament. Nikolai Garbuzov built a device to study the phenomena of synopsia (colour hearing).

GIMN studio, 1920-s. Theremin Center archive.

In 1923 GIMN was equipped with a radio-station, developed by I. Homutov, to broadcast music and related discussion. Theremin Center archive.

One of the most popular areas of experimentation and research in the first decades of the 20th Century was microtonal music. It was stimulated in 1907 inde­pendently by Ferruccio Busoni in Europe and Nikolai Kulbin in Russia. But the first practical and theoretical work in Russia was developed and published in numer­ous articles by Arseny Avraamov in 1914-16. By the 1920s there were numerous musicians involved in this research and related composition. Among them were Leonid Sabaneev, Artour Lourie, Emiliy Rosenov, Georgy Rimsky-Korsakov. One of the most advanced studies on mi­crotonal music was developed by polymath Paul Leiberg - a teacher of mathematics and physics at Moscow Uni­versity as of the 1890s. Being very much involved in musical acoustics, he undertook substantial research on acoustical resonances and from 1923, working at GIMN, he developed a series of studies on microtonal music which he presented in a series of reports. He compared various microtonal scales as well as explored the physi­cal nature of microtonal scales and related problems of human perception.

Among other projects under development related to microtonal music were those of Leonid Sabaneev, who developed a mobile instrument based on a 28-tone ‘modulation scale’ as well as a 53-tone well-tempered scale and related harmonium with 4 musical keyboards. Emil Rozenov conducted research into the analysis of temperaments from 12 up to 48 steps based on Rimsky-Korsakov’s methods. He proposed the construction of a harmonium based on a 17-tone ‘overtone-untertone modulation scale’ (permitting transpositions between different tonalities), possessing 3 keyboards and special controls for transposition. Piotr Renchitsky was at work developing a 24-tone well-tempered system as a way of extending the common temperament. Arseny Avraamov made several studies on the ‘De-temperament of Music’, Ultrachromatism and the Universal Tone System (the Welttonsystem).

GIMN, 1923. Theremin Center archive.

GIMN, 1923-1927. Theremin Center archive.

GIMN, 1926. Theremin Center archive.

GIMN, 1926. Theremin Center archive.

In the field of music and its technology NIMI was the highest-level organization in Russia. Projects from all over Soviet Russia seeking a patent or financial support needed a positive review from the appropriate NIMI experts. The explosion of creativity in 1920-s resulted in the avalanche of proposals for invention, produced in early 1930-s all over the Soviet Russia. Dozens proposals, related to new musical instruments, new systems of harmony, new scales and temperaments, new musical ‘interfaces’, keyboards and fingerboards etc. are collected in the GIMN/NIMI archive, where one can find a number of surprising stories that illustrate the process of interaction between the authoritarian State and the creative community. According to NIMI correspondence, by the late 1930-s this avalanche almost finished and never came back again.

Moscow, 1930-s.

Negative expert review on the "straight violin” by the composer and artist Mikhail Matushin, who suggested the simplified construction facilitating mass production in conditions of total shortage of musical instruments.

Theremin Center archive.

The copyright certificate N 34173, field 4 May 1932.

Inventor proposed the method of magnetic sound recording, based on the system of rotating magnetic heads, very similar to those used in the modern video recorders.

NIMI archive, Theremin Center collection.

The new musical instrument, based on multiple used military cartridge cases proposed by the amateur musician Grigory Rakov from the village Budeny (South of Russia).

proposed in 1936 by the amateur inventor Mstislav Yagodnikov. NIMI archive, Theremin Center collection.