Bagpipes and Theremin Together On Stage

Thanks Fred. Good point. I'm agree with you.

Gordon, Like the Klee description. And the comparison paintings/drawings too. Very revealing.

Hello Javier,

No thereminist should ever fear being lynched by an angry mob of music lovers no matter how badly he plays. This is one of the great things about the theremin - audiences will applaud anything you do because they are not clapping for YOU, the musician. They are cheering for the instrument and the magic of space control.

Now you know how easy it is to insult people in the theremin community, even when you don't mean to. I do believe, however, that we must all take a moment to reflect on the fact that the amount of personal satisfaction we get from creating the music we make is not, I repeat NOT, an indicator of the quality of what we are doing.

Do not confuse bad precision thereminists who cover up their lack of technique through the use of FX, with avant garde aleatoric experimentalists. The former are often quite lucid about how wretched their theremin playing is and that is why they cover it up with massive amounts of reverb, chorusing, distortion. ping pong, etc.

The aleatoric experimentalists, on the other hand, are True Believers.

The world of music is an amazing and wonderful place. I have lived in it all my life and, from the sonic point of view, there is nothing you cannot find in it and there is no genre of music, no matter how absurdly outlandish it is, from the din of jackhammers to the classic refinement of the Chinese guqin, that does not have its aficionados. 

There is room for EVERYONE.

Oh ho! You've got to watch out for those True Believers - they're everywhere.

The distinguishing characteristic of the True Believer is the cognitive dissonance or internal contradiction.

An excellent litmus is this quote from John Cage's The Future of Music: Credo (1936)

When Theremin provided an instrument with genuinely new possibilities, thereminists did their utmost to make the instrument sound like some old instrument, giving it sickeningly sweet vibrato and performing on it, with difficulty, masterpieces of the past.

 

The Classical True Believer will deny this to the end of their infinite breath, whilst simultaneously insisting that a skilled classical thereminist MUST be deeply involved in the design of any theremin, which will inevitably cause theremins to be designed to suit their requirements, which can be summarised as "having the qualities of an acoustic instrument."

The Experimental True Believer on the other hand will acknowledge the truth of Cage's observation, whilst agreeing that designing to classical requirements is A Good Thing.

It is a paradox. A most ingenious paradox.

"Oh ho! You've got to watch out for those True Believers - they're everywhere." - Gordon C

The ones the true believers hate most are the apostates!

'When Theremin provided an instrument with genuinely new possibilities, thereminists did their utmost to make the instrument sound like some old instrument, giving it sickeningly sweet vibrato and performing on it, with difficulty, masterpieces of the past.' - John Cage Via GordonC

I often wonder about this in so far as you have an instrument, which happens to be unique, with which is used to play the part of (say) a cello/flute/violin in musical pieces. If one wants the sound of a cello/flute/violin then why not use the proper instrument?

I'm reminded of Senor Coconut doing Kraftwerk covers: 5 minutes in and you want to listen to the real thing.

I often wonder about this in so far as you have an instrument, which happens to be unique, with which is used to play the part of (say) a cello/flute/violin in musical pieces. If one wants the sound of a cello/flute/violin then why not use the proper instrument? - RoyP

I think that question is perhaps more valid today than when Lev invented the theremin - Lev probably wasnt thinking in terms of synthesis, probably couldnt even begin to imagine the sounds we take for granted today..

Lev wasnt, IMO, out to design a new sound - he designed a new instrument interface, and crafted the sound for it based on the instrument he was familiar with.

It was probably Lev's failure to fully recreate the sound of the Cello or Violin which gave the theremin its desirable tonal qualities - If it had sounded identical, then all that the theremin would have had would have been novelty..

There is no point in copying a Cello or flute or whatever unless you can put this 'cloned' instrument into something which has some advantage - be this playability or cost or whatever.. Everyone can now play a "flute" and a "violin" on a cheap keyboard - but none of these instruments played on a keyboard sound anything like the original unless played by a master of THAT instrument IMO. The whole synthesis 'revolution' has had its primary commercial focus on replicating sounds people are used to hearing - and this has been the case all the way from Lev to today.. Analogue and other synthesis brought truly new sounds which are now watered down inferior 'patches' in cheap keyboards.

John Cage was a prophet!

Thank you Gordon - your post has shown me another side to this whole debate about the theremin - A side I have determinedly avoided looking at..

I have come to think that the theremin is a joke - that the effort required to learn to play it in any "acceptable" way is entirely disproportionate to the quantity of quality playing that has been produced since its invention - And that the technical challenges involved in producing instruments of "quality" make it unviable economically -

There has been much scorn for how the theremin is used, many expressions of anger over instruments and players who ruin its "reputation" or "demean" it, and strong judgment on instruments which drift or are non-linear - ie, "toy" theremins... And I have been a member of this 'clan' over a lot of aspects -

But actually - I now wonder if those producing "rubbish" instruments arent actually the ones who see the situation clearly - that it doesnt matter how "good" or "bad" the instrument is - there will always only be less than perhaps 100 people on the planet who will truly master ANY theremin for precision playing.. those not in this group, but trying to play 'tunes' will (and do) sound horrible to anyone else - they may as well be playing a Gakken or an E-Pro - it will make little difference.. Lydia will manage on a Gakken what these people could never achieve on any theremin!

It is probably only in the experimental music area that the theremin has potential as a musical instrument for the vast majority of players - And even in this area only a few will rise to do anything exceptional with it.

What can the theremin do ? - It can make spooky effects for Sci-Fi, And "good" ones in the hands of the few classical supremos (Clara ;-) it can make wonderful renditions of the classics, in the hands of present day precision thereminists it can produce great classical , modern, new-age whatever - and in the hands of good experimental musicians it can produce soundscapes which are awesome, and with effects and loops and skilled managment of the creation process can create whole pieces live... Perhaps a maximum of 100 players provide all the good music from the above groups today - IMO, everything else, all the thousands of recordings and you-tubes and whatever, are just mundane rubbish or worse.. regardless of what theremin they are playing.

What cannot be denied though is that for the producers of this mediocre rubbish (whether these be aspiring tune players or experimentalists) and for those who strive to bring the theremin into the 21st century, its highly absorbing and can be a lot of fun.. which can continue as long as they never get dissilusioned.

Fred

I think that it was one of the factors which made the Ondes Martenot more successful than the Theremin at the beginning: The Ondes had (in 1930) a "new" sound which was basically a pure sine wave. It only could be altered by using different loudspeakers. Besides the main speaker, a "reverb" speaker with a heavy metal membrane, suspended with steel springs, could be added. Martenot conceived only later some circuitry to alter the sound electronically and to add white noise, and invented the "Palme", a speaker with additional resonating steel strings. But all this was not "really his thing" as he said himself, his priorities have never been the timbre, but articulation and musical expression based on the pure sound. That's why the Ondes lost the battle against the modern Synth in the seventies.

Fred, I think that your message above and Gordon's messae from which I quoted pretty much sum up how the theremin is positioned in today's world of music production.

Not to say though that there is no place for the instrument in today's music-scape, indeed I believe there absolutely is!

I think it was Thierry who said (in a thread over in Levnet) that more original works should be written for the theremin and this would help sustain it's future. Damn right!

Yesterday I suggested to a musical friend who is a budding composer that it would be pretty cool if he composed a piece for the theremin (and maybe orchestra)-after a moments thought, he suggested that firstly he come round and see what the instrument can do before he tries to write a score. Classical composers always knew the constraints of the instruments they were composing for.

RoyP wrote: "If one wants the sound of a cell/flute/violin then why not use the proper instrument?"

I remember back in the late 90's, before the Levnet or TW existed, a woman wrote to "alt.musicmakers.theremin" (the only theremin group on the internet at the time) that she was about to undertake the challenge of learning to play the theremin because she wanted to play only one collection of compositions - the Bach unaccompanied suites for cello.

In response to this, I replied that if the cello suites were all the woman wanted to play then she should invest her time in learning to play the cello, which is a far easier instrument to play than the theremin (I know because I have played both). Not only that, the suites require a good deal of double stopping (playing two notes at once) and a number of other fancy bowing techniques that the theremin cannot even come close to emulating.

So RoyP asks a very good question: "....why not use the proper instrument?"

There is one traditional sound, however, that one cannot achieve no matter how much studying one is prepared to do, and that is the sound of the human voice. Either you are born with a great singing voice, or you are not. 

Broadly speaking, anyone with the time and motivation can learn to play the flute, the violin, or the cello but not just anyone can learn to sing. The theremin is a surrogate human being and it is its unique human quality that gave the instrument its reputation as the spooky sound effect 'par excellence'.

If someone (such as myself) wishes to explore the traditional soprano repertoire, the only recourse is to learn to play precision theremin because the "proper instrument" is not an option.

"Arnold Schoenberg said I would never be able to compose because I had no ear for music, and it's true that I don't hear the relationship of tonality and harmony."   John Cage

Fred. Yup. The state of theremin playing is similar on both the electronic and the classical side - a lot of mediocracy and a few exceptions. And I don't think the toy-makers are right. They merely occupy the more lucrative part of the market, it seems.

I don't personally see any conflict between the requirements of the classical and the experimental thereminist. The former is merely a subset of the latter.

I haven't been following the technical discussions recently - you guys have gone way beyond me and you get on with it better without dilettante interruptions all the time so I'm just letting you get on with it. :-) Nonetheless I'm going to share my opinion.

I would like a modular theremin. That is to say, a good quality base instrument that can be extended. This I think there is a market for. A small one. Pretty much what classical musicians appreciate in an instrument is something that is very pure, very simple, very elegant, that has a good sound to it and facilitates a good playing technique. The same applies to purists in the world of electronic music. By catering for classical purists, we can cater for analog purists too. And analog purists appreciate CV outs and effects loops too. Not exactly expensive additions, but they extend the market significantly. Moog know this about CV.

There is not quite so much call for CV and effects loops in the classical side, although formant filters are of interest - so far we only really have proof-of-concept with the Talking Machine and wah pedals, but I think there might be some other possibilities that they might like. Having a range of voices to chose from must be appealing. :-)

I understand that being able to share information about the RF oscillators between instruments is beneficial for group performances as it can prevent interference problems. It would also be good for theremin teachers teaching to a group for the same reason. And it would be a Unique Selling Point.

I guess that the same information could be digitally processed to provide ultra-low-latency pitch and volume information in some suitable encoding for computer/tablet/digital-whatever consumption. That would be a module.

And we can do the ePro trick to provide switchable registers (I have never heard of a classical thereminist with an ePro who doesn't use it - it is A Good Thing) by using suitably processed information from the base theremin to drive an independent heterodyning oscillator and amp (i.e. a rack-mount theremin without antennas) which might be of interest to the wider synth community, or might not, who knows. And some classical thereminists might want to upgrade to it. So another possibility to consider.

And a lot more sophisticated control than just bass/alto/treble is available for the cost of a few more logic gates. Personally I would like the full audible spectrum most of the time, but I would also like to be able to have a one octave instrument - where the octave is of my choosing - or anything in between.

And for me the crowning module would be your much talked about xyz-axis sensor as an optional replacement for the volume loop. But not until there is a volume loop for it to replace. (And until I suddenly become able to afford all this lovely gear I am fantasising about. I think that might be the longer wait. Let's get the base model sorted first...)