Released in 1981, Computer World was the eighth studio album from German band Kraftwerk. Back in the early 1980s, pocket computers were very new and experimental. But the band foresaw what was the come and understood their then present, using the Casio fx-501P programmable calculator as an instrument for the first single from Computer World: Pocket Calculator (German: Taschenrechner).
In case the lyrics in the video above from the band’s concert at the Musikhalle, Hamburg on 9th of June 1981 are unclear, here they are in English:
I’m the operator with my pocket calculator
I’m the operator with my pocket calculator
I am adding and subtracting
I’m controlling and composing
I’m the operator with my pocket calculator
I’m the operator with my pocket calculator
I am adding and subtracting
I’m controlling and composing
By pressing down a special key, it plays a little melody
By pressing down a special key, it plays a little melody
I’m the operator with my pocket calculator
I’m the operator with my pocket calculator
Kraftwerk went on to record a versions of Pocket Calulator in Japanese (Dentaku), French (Mini Calculateur) and Italian (Mini Calcolatore).
Play Along With Kraftwerk
Kraftwerk commissioned Casio to adapt its VL-80 model into a musical synthesizer. You can see and hear the basic, non-Kraftwerk version played in the video above. And the band produced a score so anyone could play along:
The calculator keys each correspond to a note in the major scale:
= : Sol
. : La
0 : Ti (or Si)
1 : Do
2 : Re
3 : Mi,
etc
The “#” before some keys in the notation stands for pressing the ± button along with the key, which plays a semitone higher than the indicated note.
If you program these in as a sequence, it plays a little melody.
With the Kraftwerk taschenrechner anyone could make music.
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