Google Doodle honours Oskar Sala, pioneering electronic music composer

Oskar Sala electrified the world radio, film and television.

The Google Doodle on July 18 honoured pioneering German music composer and physician Oskar Sala, marking his 112th birth anniversary. He is known for refining the trautonium -- the precursor to the synthesiser.

Born in 1910, Oskar Sala was exposed to music since a very young age. His mother was a singer and father an ophthalmologist with musical abilities. Sala was playing piano and violin by the age of 14.

Later in life, he shifted his focus to  trautonium -- an electronic musical instrument. He dedicated himself to mastering the instrument and refining it.

Sala was a qualified composer and an electro-engineer. He used that knowledge to create his own instrument -- the mixture-trautonium.

"The mixture-trautonium’s architecture is so unique that it was capable of playing several sounds or voices simultaneously," Google said in a note accompanying the doodle.

He build more versions of the trautonium -- quartett-trautonium, concert trautonium and the volkstrautonium.

"His efforts in electronic music opened the field of subharmonics," Google said. "With his dedication and creative energy, he became a one-man orchestra. "

Sala is credited with electrifying the radio, film and television worlds. His instruments could generate noises like bird cries and doors and windows slamming shut.

The German composer famously created sound effects for Alfred Hitchcock's iconic horror film The Birds.

Sala's original mixture-trautonium is a part of the collection of the German Museum for Contemporary Technology.

The German composer received many accolades for his work, including an honorary German Film Award. He also served as the honorary senator of Berlin.

Sala passed away at age of 91 in 2002.