A few days ago, I sold my last keytar. I used to have two; now I have none. I feel empty.

After a few days of sulking, I managed to raise my spirits a bit and do some keytar-related web searching. Then I did some keytar-related emailing. Then I took a nap.

I had keytar-related dreams.

When I woke up, I had received a keytar-related response to my keytar-related email! Delightful! It was from Tom Schuman, keyboard player from Spyro Gyra and owner of the first prototype of the first commercially-released keytar (the Moog Liberation). Though credited as the first keytar player, he tells it a bit differently:

Thank you for thinking about me. I cannot take credit for being the first keytar player. I saw Jan Hammer with a thing called “The Probe” back when I just starting touring with Spyro Gyra in 1978. I think George Duke also used a keytar called a “Clavitar”. However, I can take credit for the first one to set his keytar on fire. Moog Music made me a prototype to the Liberation which had a compartment on the back for smoke bombs. At a certain point in my keytar solo, I had the stage manager kneel behind me and light the wick of a smoke bomb which then gave the illusion that the keyboard was smoking. Well, one time it actually caught on fire when the whole back of the keyboard started flaming at which point I was forced to throw the thing off of me. Fortunately, I was not burned. I also got electrocuted in Japan when our lighting director decided to string the keytar with flashing Christmas lights. He would turn them on when I went running through the audience. The effect was great except when I took off the thing to set it back on the stage, I touched something that shot 110 volts through my body…once again, I was forced to throw it off of me!

Needless to say, I no longer desire to use a keytar.

TOM SCHUMAN