He Cranked a Vibrato Too Far and Invented the Sound of the 80s: John Chowning and FM Synthesis

Stanford professor John Chowning was experimenting with vibrato in 1967 and pushed the wobble speed far past any normal range, accidentally discovering FM synthesis. Yamaha later licensed the technology to build the DX7, which defined the sound of 1980s pop music. In February 2026, Chowning finally received a Technical Grammy Award for the discovery. References: John Chowning - Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Chowning FM synthesis - Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frequency_modulation_synthesis Yamaha DX7 - Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yamaha_DX7 CCRMA (Stanford Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics): https://ccrma.stanford.edu/