Rhodes piano

The Rhodes piano (also known as the Fender Rhodes piano or simply Fender Rhodes or Rhodes) is an electric piano invented by Harold Rhodes, which became particularly popular throughout the 1970s. It generates sound using keys and hammers in the same manner as an acoustic piano, but the hammers strike thin metal rods of varied length, connected to tonebars, which are then amplified via an electromagnetic pickup.

The instrument evolved from Rhodes' attempt to manufacture pianos to teach recovering soldiers during World War II under a strict budget, and development continued throughout the 1940s and 1950s. Fender started marketing the Piano Bass, a cut-down version of the piano, but the full-size instrument did not appear until after the sale to CBS in 1965. CBS oversaw mass production of the Rhodes piano in the 1970s, and it was used extensively through the decade, particularly in jazz, pop and soul music. It fell out of fashion for a while in the mid-1980s, principally due to the emergence of polyphonic and later digital synthesizers, especially the Yamaha DX7, and partly through inconsistent quality control in production due to cost-cutting measures. The company was eventually sold to Roland, who manufactured digital versions of the Rhodes without authorization or approval from its inventor.