The \"Trautonium Schule\" [Trautonium tutorial] from 1933, when German electronics company Telefunken offered its \"Volkstrautonium\" to the masses (but eventually did not succeed). It was published by Schott’s Söhne (Mainz, Germany) and had a preface written by Trautonium inventor Dr. Ing. Friedrich Trautwein (*11 Aug. 1888 † 20 Dec. 1956). The educational content of the booklet had been elaborated by Trautonium designer and player Oskar Sala (*18 Jul. 1910 † 26 Feb. 2002), the music samples in chapter C were worked out by German composer Paul Hindemith (*16 Nov. 1895 † 28 Dec. 1963). The technical instructions were drafted by Telefunken employee Dipl. Ing. Walter Germann (bibliographic data not available), who also led the technical development of the \"Volkstrautonium\" (official name \"Ela T 42\").
On the whole, this little instruction book was an economic failure, since Telefunken only produced a rather small number of Trautonia due to sluggish sales of the device. It’s been said that probably up to 100 instruments were manufactured, but very few found their way to musicians. Much of the unsold units went back later to Trautwein, who presumably used their innards for other technical tasks.
The out-of-print \"Trautonium Schule\" is presented here for educational purpose only (!) because of enquiries in the past by several music students, who could not get hold of a copy. A glimpse of the tutorial had been shown here so far: https://youtu.be/sKSjvn7pTcM
But this was difficult to read due to the small video resolution. The above video finally offers HD resolution now.
An English translation is not available (any volunteers?). But even so, the drawings and musical scores provide an interesting insight into the technique, learning and playing of this early electronic instrument.
You can find some more information on the Telefunken Trautonium by the same author here: https://youtu.be/pOB6A26tfVY
Background music: Oskar Sala, Grotesker Marsch (1951) - abridged to fit video length
