Hello! I just started to play theremin and I have found on the internet the method written by Clara Rockmore which seems to me that explains the technique used by 90% of thereminists I have seen on youtube, in fact I know that she invented the way to keep fingers in different position when we change notes, is it true? It's a very interesting method and also difficult! What do you think about that?
Clara Rockmore's method
Posted: 10/3/2011 7:26:54 AM
Yes, it's true, Clara Rockmore invented the "aerial fingering" technique that is very useful for precision playing, since it will allow you to change notes in a more reliably way that if you just moved your arm.
However, different players have come up with their own variants of the technique, for example in Clara Rockmore's method you will read that she describes four finger positions, with a range of a fourth, but there are players that use more positions to get a whole octave without moving their arm.
If you want to do precision playing you should learn one of these methods, at the beginning it may seem counterproductive until you get the hang of it, but then it will pay off!
However, different players have come up with their own variants of the technique, for example in Clara Rockmore's method you will read that she describes four finger positions, with a range of a fourth, but there are players that use more positions to get a whole octave without moving their arm.
If you want to do precision playing you should learn one of these methods, at the beginning it may seem counterproductive until you get the hang of it, but then it will pay off!
Posted: 10/3/2011 7:25:26 PM
SamuWild wrote:I just started to play theremin and I have found on the internet the method written by Clara Rockmore which seems to me that explains the technique used by 90% of thereminists I have seen on youtube....
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Hi Signor Selvaggio,
Welcome to the world of the theremin. If you think that 90% of the thereminists you have seen on YT use Clara Rockmore's "aerial fingering" playing style, that is because you have not watched or listened carefully enough. Everyone uses some form of aerial fingering, but Clara's style is unique to her. As you begin to study the instrument you will find there are subtle differences between techniques that will become increasingly obvious as you attempt to play the instrument yourself.
Most of us, in spite of everything we are told, start out believing that playing the theremin will be fairly easy. When I got my first Etherwave theremin about 15 years ago, I set the instrument up, began to play, and said to myself, "Porco Dio! Questo maledetto strumento e terribilmente difficile - putana la madonna!!" Or words to that effect. (Sorry, but I learned to speak Italian in a bordello in Trieste).
Overcoming the difficulties is extremely rewarding but as Clara Rockmore herself once said: "People expect to go over to the theremin and IT PLAYS. No! It takes hard work, sensitivity, sensibility....attention to detail. You have to learn it and it's not easy. The music comes from the heart, the mind, and years and years and years of the study of music."
Who is your favorite thereminist? Who inspired you to take up the instrument in the first place? Whoever it may be, that is the person whose technique you should emulate as closely as possible until your own playing style kicks in naturally.
Remember, the theremin is an instrument on which everyone is an expert. Do not take any advice on how to play it from anyone whose playing you have not heard, or do not like.
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Hi Signor Selvaggio,
Welcome to the world of the theremin. If you think that 90% of the thereminists you have seen on YT use Clara Rockmore's "aerial fingering" playing style, that is because you have not watched or listened carefully enough. Everyone uses some form of aerial fingering, but Clara's style is unique to her. As you begin to study the instrument you will find there are subtle differences between techniques that will become increasingly obvious as you attempt to play the instrument yourself.
Most of us, in spite of everything we are told, start out believing that playing the theremin will be fairly easy. When I got my first Etherwave theremin about 15 years ago, I set the instrument up, began to play, and said to myself, "Porco Dio! Questo maledetto strumento e terribilmente difficile - putana la madonna!!" Or words to that effect. (Sorry, but I learned to speak Italian in a bordello in Trieste).
Overcoming the difficulties is extremely rewarding but as Clara Rockmore herself once said: "People expect to go over to the theremin and IT PLAYS. No! It takes hard work, sensitivity, sensibility....attention to detail. You have to learn it and it's not easy. The music comes from the heart, the mind, and years and years and years of the study of music."
Who is your favorite thereminist? Who inspired you to take up the instrument in the first place? Whoever it may be, that is the person whose technique you should emulate as closely as possible until your own playing style kicks in naturally.
Remember, the theremin is an instrument on which everyone is an expert. Do not take any advice on how to play it from anyone whose playing you have not heard, or do not like.
Posted: 10/4/2011 9:15:11 AM
Clara Rockmore's method book is useful only if you can watch video of Clara Rockmore. Few thereminists use Clara Rockmore's aerial fingering method -- in fact, few use a method that is identifiable as a variant.
Clara's technique is efficient. Her hand moves in a plane between her shoulder and the rod without much extraneous (side-to-side) movement.
To view a video of Clara Rockmore is the best way to associate the comments in the method book with her actual technique.
Clara's technique is efficient. Her hand moves in a plane between her shoulder and the rod without much extraneous (side-to-side) movement.
To view a video of Clara Rockmore is the best way to associate the comments in the method book with her actual technique.
Posted: 10/4/2011 12:36:20 PM
To re-inforce what Kevin said, Clara's book (and watching her videos) is a very good tool in forming a good base which you'll launch from that into your own technique many months later. Clara is Clara. I am who I am, hence the difference in technique. Per example, Clara has a VERY fast vibrato (almost constantly switched to the "on" position) and not everyone likes that or can do it without their arm falling off.
In my Theremin journey, I constantly keep asking myself this one questions: How can I play efficiently, for an extended period of time without getting tired or hurt myself. By going on this simple "thought" I am able to modify my technique slightly for increased stamina and precision. I have to remind myself that how I play now will impact how I'll play in the future without physical ailments inflicted by a bad technique.
I'd like to think of myself of a lazy thereminist. The least amount of movements you do, you'll save energy...
In my Theremin journey, I constantly keep asking myself this one questions: How can I play efficiently, for an extended period of time without getting tired or hurt myself. By going on this simple "thought" I am able to modify my technique slightly for increased stamina and precision. I have to remind myself that how I play now will impact how I'll play in the future without physical ailments inflicted by a bad technique.
I'd like to think of myself of a lazy thereminist. The least amount of movements you do, you'll save energy...
Posted: 10/4/2011 3:27:01 PM
With theremin playing, vibrato is not always a matter of artistic choice or personal taste. A good singer (which you definitely ARE, Amey) is able to switch vibrato on, off, faster, slower, etc...at will, regardless of the intervals involved.
The theremin has the dubious distinction of being one of a very few musical instruments that cannot be played without vibrato (that old theremin nemesis, the musical saw, may be another).
Unlike most other instrumentalists, the thereminist MUST execute vibrato in order to play the instrument with an illusion of accuracy. Vibrato gives us a certain leeway in finding pitch and allows us to mask the countless pitch corrections we are constantly making when we play. Try playing without vibrato and you will quickly realize it is impossible to remain consistently in tune without it. With the theremin, vibrato is an integral and essential part of technique, hiding many of the inevitable inaccuracies, while warming and "humanizing" the voice of the instrument at the same time.
I have found that one of the hardest things to master in theremin technique, is the ability to vary the depth and rate of my vibrato accurately and precisely and to use that to emotionally colour my playing. If you listen to Clara Rockmore's 1945 recording of the Fuleihan CONCERTO FOR THEREMIN AND ORCH., you will hear much more variation in vibrato technique than you will on the 1976 recording THE ART OF THE THEREMIN. Her advice in her instruction book METHOD FOR THEREMIN is "please, please, not a wide vibrato, but as fast and as much in place as possible - not to be mistaken for a trill".
This, like most of Clara's method book, is rather vague. Her suggestion that the vibrato be "as fast as possible" suggests that she herself was executing it as fast as she could, but it is not good advice for ALL thereminists. There are plenty of people out there who are physically capable of producing an arm motion that is much too fast, producing what vocalists call "a flutter" (which is a vibrato with a rate of more than about 6 cycles per sec). If you widen the amplitude (the depth) you get into the domain of the dreaded "wobble".
In 19th and 20th century vocal music, the rate of vibrato (i.e. the number of cycles per second) seems to be largely a matter of fashion. When you listen to the vintage recordings of both popular and classical singers, what strikes you is that their vibratos are very fast when compared to their counterparts today.
The theremin has the dubious distinction of being one of a very few musical instruments that cannot be played without vibrato (that old theremin nemesis, the musical saw, may be another).
Unlike most other instrumentalists, the thereminist MUST execute vibrato in order to play the instrument with an illusion of accuracy. Vibrato gives us a certain leeway in finding pitch and allows us to mask the countless pitch corrections we are constantly making when we play. Try playing without vibrato and you will quickly realize it is impossible to remain consistently in tune without it. With the theremin, vibrato is an integral and essential part of technique, hiding many of the inevitable inaccuracies, while warming and "humanizing" the voice of the instrument at the same time.
I have found that one of the hardest things to master in theremin technique, is the ability to vary the depth and rate of my vibrato accurately and precisely and to use that to emotionally colour my playing. If you listen to Clara Rockmore's 1945 recording of the Fuleihan CONCERTO FOR THEREMIN AND ORCH., you will hear much more variation in vibrato technique than you will on the 1976 recording THE ART OF THE THEREMIN. Her advice in her instruction book METHOD FOR THEREMIN is "please, please, not a wide vibrato, but as fast and as much in place as possible - not to be mistaken for a trill".
This, like most of Clara's method book, is rather vague. Her suggestion that the vibrato be "as fast as possible" suggests that she herself was executing it as fast as she could, but it is not good advice for ALL thereminists. There are plenty of people out there who are physically capable of producing an arm motion that is much too fast, producing what vocalists call "a flutter" (which is a vibrato with a rate of more than about 6 cycles per sec). If you widen the amplitude (the depth) you get into the domain of the dreaded "wobble".
In 19th and 20th century vocal music, the rate of vibrato (i.e. the number of cycles per second) seems to be largely a matter of fashion. When you listen to the vintage recordings of both popular and classical singers, what strikes you is that their vibratos are very fast when compared to their counterparts today.
Posted: 10/4/2011 6:40:57 PM
First of all, I would like to thank you all for your answers! I was wondering if Clara Rockmore's method was good to make practice, I mean to begin. In fact someone asked me which is my favourite thereminist and something like "who would you like to emulate..." or something like this I think... The answer is that I have seen lot of people playing theremin, and I liked various ideas from them, could be melodies or style. What I like is the actual instrument and I just want to make it play good. I have noticed that is so hard. To be honest the first time I tried I thought something like that italian sentence (better not to translate that in english!!!XD) I think you all are confirming my idea that there is not THE STYLE or THE TECHNIQUE. Sorry but I play guitar (in two different metal bands) and piano, I come from a very different world!
Posted: 10/5/2011 9:35:38 AM
Coalport ~
One soprano that always piqued my interest is Amelita Galli-Curci (1882-1963). Aside of her extraordinary high notes that rival with song birds, her vibrato is fascinating...
If you don't know her, find her on youtube... :)
PS: Thank you for the compliment about me being a good vocalist. now I need to get that way on the theremin as well :) *hugs*
One soprano that always piqued my interest is Amelita Galli-Curci (1882-1963). Aside of her extraordinary high notes that rival with song birds, her vibrato is fascinating...
If you don't know her, find her on youtube... :)
PS: Thank you for the compliment about me being a good vocalist. now I need to get that way on the theremin as well :) *hugs*
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