Eric Siday

Eric Siday (1 November 1905 – 26 March 1976) was a British-American composer and musician. While most commonly known for his pioneering work in electroacoustic music, his early career was that of a hot-jazz violinist in the London dance bands in the Roaring ’20s, including Ray Starita's Piccadilly Revels. As a young violinist, his improvised soloing style was advanced for the time. He played with a modern chromatic style, verging on atonal, often incorporating multi-stops, playing up to four notes in harmony on the violin simultaneously using multiple fingers. In 1939, he emigrated to the United States. He was the first composer to systematically use electro-acoustic sound potential within the television medium, particularly with his invention of the sound logo and the Musical Rorschach test. His Maxwell House "Percolator" TV commercial was one of these first innovations. He commissioned Robert Moog to create the first percussion synthesiser, which he used extensively in his television work. Among his other contributions to the use of electro-acoustic music in television were numerous station IDs and commercials, including that of the National Educational Television network (the …

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