Theremin
Encyclopedia
The theremin (ˈθɛrəmɪn), originally known as the aetherphone/etherophone, thereminophone or termenvox/thereminvox is an early electronic musical instrument
controlled without discernible physical contact from the player. It is named after its Russian inventor, Professor Léon Theremin
, who patented the device in 1928. The controlling section usually consists of two metal antennas
which sense the position of the player's hands and control oscillators
for frequency
with one hand, and amplitude
(volume) with the other, so it can be played without being touched. The electric signals
from the theremin are amplified
and sent to a loudspeaker
.
The theremin is associated with a very eerie sound, which has led to its use in movie soundtracks such as Miklós Rózsa
's for Spellbound
and The Lost Weekend and Bernard Herrmann
's for The Day the Earth Stood Still
and as the theme tune for the ITV drama Midsomer Murders
. Theremins are also used in concert music (especially avant-garde
and 20th- and 21st-century new music
) and in popular music genres such as rock
. Psychedelic rock
bands in particular, such as Hawkwind
, have often used the theremin in their work.
s. The instrument was invented by a young Russian physicist named Lev Sergeivich Termen (known in the West as Léon Theremin
) in October 1920 after the outbreak of the Russian civil war
. After positive reviews at Moscow
electronics
conferences, Theremin demonstrated the device to Bolshevik
leader Vladimir Lenin
. Lenin was so impressed with the device that he began taking lessons in playing it, commissioned six hundred of the instruments for distribution throughout the Soviet Union, and sent Theremin on a trip around the world to demonstrate the latest Soviet technology and the invention of electronic music
. After a lengthy tour of Europe, during which time he demonstrated his invention to packed houses, Theremin found his way to the United States
, where he patented his invention in 1928 . Subsequently, Theremin granted commercial production rights to RCA
.
Although the RCA Thereminvox (released immediately following the Stock Market Crash of 1929
), was not a commercial success, it fascinated audiences in America and abroad. Clara Rockmore
, a well-known thereminist, toured to wide acclaim, performing a classical repertoire in concert halls around the United States, often sharing the bill with Paul Robeson
.
During the 1930s Lucie Bigelow Rosen
was also taken up with the theremin and together with her husband Walter Bigelow Rosen provided both financial and artistic support to the development and popularisation of the instrument.
In 1938, Theremin left the United States, though the circumstances related to his departure are in dispute. Many accounts claim he was taken from his New York City
apartment by KGB agents, taken back to the Soviet Union
and made to work in a sharashka
laboratory prison camp at Magadan, Siberia. He reappeared 30 years later. In his 2000 biography of the inventor, Theremin: Ether Music and Espionage, Albert Glinsky suggested the Russian had fled to escape crushing personal debts, and was then caught up in Stalin's political purges. In any case, Theremin did not return to the United States until 1991.
After a flurry of interest in America following the end of the Second World War
, the theremin soon fell into disuse with serious musicians, mainly because newer electronic instruments were introduced that were easier to play. However, a niche interest in the theremin persisted, mostly among electronics enthusiasts and kit-building hobbyists. One of these electronics enthusiasts, Robert Moog
, began building theremins in the 1950s, while he was a high-school student. Moog subsequently published a number of articles about building theremins, and sold theremin kits which were intended to be assembled by the customer. Moog credited what he learned from the experience as leading directly to his groundbreaking synthesizer
, the Moog
.
Since the release of the film Theremin: An Electronic Odyssey
in 1994, the instrument has enjoyed a resurgence in interest and has become more widely used by contemporary musicians. Even though many theremin sounds can be approximated on many modern synthesizers, some musicians continue to appreciate the expressiveness, novelty and uniqueness of using an actual theremin. The film itself has garnered excellent reviews.
Today Moog Music
, Dan Burns of soundslikeburns.com, Chuck Collins of theremaniacs.com Wavefront Technologies, Kees Enkelaar and Harrison Instruments manufacture performance-quality theremins. Theremin kit building remains popular with electronics buffs; kits are available from Moog Music, Theremaniacs, Harrison Instruments, PAiA Electronics
, and Jaycar
. On the other end of the scale, many low-end Theremins, some of which have only pitch control, are offered online and offline, sometimes advertised as toys.
The theremin uses the heterodyne
principle to generate an audio signal. The instrument's pitch circuitry includes two radio frequency
oscillators. One oscillator operates at a fixed frequency. The frequency of the other oscillator is controlled by the performer's distance from the pitch control antenna. The performer's hand acts as the grounded
plate (the performer's body being the connection to ground) of a variable capacitor
in an L-C (inductance-capacitance) circuit, which is part of the oscillator and determines its frequency.
(Although the capacitance
between the performer and the instrument is on the order of picofarad
s or even hundreds of femtofarads, the circuit design gives a useful frequency shift.) The difference between the frequencies of the two oscillators at each moment allows the creation of a difference tone in the audio frequency
range, resulting in audio signals that are amplified and sent to a loudspeaker.
To control volume, the performer's other hand acts as the grounded plate of another variable capacitor. In this case, the capacitor detunes another oscillator; that detuning is processed to change the attenuation in the amplifier circuit. The distance between the performer's hand and the volume control antenna determines the capacitance, which regulates the theremin's volume.
Modern circuit designs often simplify this circuit and avoid the complexity of two heterodyne oscillators by having a single pitch oscillator, akin to the original theremin's volume circuit. This approach is usually less stable and cannot generate the low frequencies that a heterodyne oscillator can. Better designs (e.g. Moog, Theremax) may use two pairs of heterodyne oscillators, for both pitch and volume.
that is inherent in the instrument's continuously-variable-pitch design.
Pitch control is challenging because, like a violin or trombone, a theremin can generate tones of any pitch throughout its entire range, including those that lie between the conventional notes. And, unlike all other instruments, the theremin has no physical feedback (other than sound), like string tension or the tactile fingerboard for strings, or air column resistance in wind instruments. The player has to rely solely on what is heard, and can only correct a pitch when its volume is not at zero. (Some professional theremin models, including Moog Etherwave Pro, have a pitch-preview feature - i.e. an additional headphone output that allows the pitch to be monitored before the volume is changed.) In the case of some string instruments, the range is divided along the strings by use of length divisions (e.g., frets on a guitar). By contrast, in the case of the theremin, the entire range of pitches is controlled by the distance of the performer's hand or fingers from the pitch antenna in mid-air. Precise control of manual position coupled with an excellent sense of pitch is required, since the oscillator tuning tends to change slowly over time, resulting in changing positions for individual pitches.
Because some portamento
is inevitable in theremin performance and because only the most experienced performers can reduce it to an inconspicuous level, the theremin repertoire of beginner/intermediate players is limited to compositions that were written to be performed legato
, especially those for voice or continuously-variable-pitch instruments, and in which it is acceptable or even traditional to include some degree of portamento and glissando
. Examples of works well suited for performance on the theremin include Massenet
's Thaïs-Méditation (originally for violin), Rachmaninoff
's Vocalise
, and Saint-Saëns
' Le cygne
(The Swan) (originally for violoncello).
Using rapid and exact hand movements, however, highly skilled players can reduce undesired portamento and glissando to a level enabling them to play individual notes and even achieve staccato
effects. Small and rapid movements of the hands can create tremolo or vibrato effects. Although pitch is governed primarily by the distance of the performer's hand to the pitch antenna, most precision thereminists augment their playing techniques with a system called "aerial fingering," largely devised by Clara Rockmore
and subsequently adapted by Léon Theremin
and his protege, Lydia Kavina
. It employs specific hand and finger positions to alter slightly the amount of capacitance relative to the pitch antenna to produce small changes in tone quickly and in a manner that can be reliably and quickly reproduced.
An alternate and controversial "hands on" technique is called "angling." In this method the pitch control hand is actually set on the top of the theremin, thus violating the "no touch" creed of traditionalists. The performer changes the angle of the hand and fingers to alter the pitch and repositions the hand if the pitch interval is too large for "angling." Touching the instrument damps the effect of extraneous movement on pitch. This permits the use of steady pitches without vibrato and without the performer's remaining perfectly still. An alternate to touching the instrument is to rest the elbow of the pitch arm on a tripod while standing, or the arm of a chair, or one's knees while seated in order to provide a steady reference point and pivot for the arm allowing for steady pitch play over the entire pitch range.
Equally important in theremin articulation is the use of the volume control antenna. Unlike touched instruments, where simply halting play or damping a resonator silences the instrument, the thereminist must "play the rests, as well as the notes," as Ms. Rockmore observes. Although volume technique is less developed than pitch technique, some thereminists have worked to extend it, especially Pamelia Kurstin
with her "walking bass" technique and Rupert Chappelle.
Skilled players who overcome these challenges by a precisely controlled combination of movements can achieve complex and expressive performances, and thus realize a theremin's potential.
Some thereminists in the avant-garde
openly rebel against developing any formalized technique, viewing it as imposing traditional limitations on an instrument that is inherently free form. These players choose to develop their own highly personalized techniques. Other avant-garde
players use strict form and techniques other than aerial fingering. The question of the relative value of formal technique versus free form performances were hotly debated among thereminists. Theremin artist Anthony Ptak uses antenna interference
in live performance.
Recent versions of the theremin have been functionally updated: the Moog Ethervox, while functionally still a theremin, can also be used as a MIDI controller
, and as such allows the artist to control any MIDI-compatible synthesizer with it, using the theremin's continuous pitch to drive modern synths. The Harrison Instruments Model 302 Theremin uses horizontal plates to control pitch and volume requiring techniques other than "aerial fingering".
Concert composers who have written for theremin include Bohuslav Martinů
, Percy Grainger
, Christian Wolff
, Joseph Schillinger
, Moritz Eggert
, Iraida Yusupova
, Jorge Antunes, Vladimir Komarov
and Anis Fuleihan
.
Maverick composer Percy Grainger chose to use ensembles of four or six theremins (in preference to a string quartet) for his two earliest experimental Free Music compositions (1935–37) because of the instrument's complete 'gliding' freedom of pitch .
Musician Jean Michel Jarre
used the instrument in his concert Space of Freedom
in Gdańsk
, providing also a short history of Léon Theremin's life.
from the end of the 1940s (with a series of Samuel Hoffman/Harry Revel
collaborations) and this continued, with varying popularity, to the present.
While The Beach Boys
' "Good Vibrations
" features an instrument that sounds much like a Theremin, in fact the sound is made by an instrument called the Tannerin
.
Jimmy Page
of Led Zeppelin
used a variation of the theremin (minus the loop) during performances of "Whole Lotta Love
" and "No Quarter
" throughout the performance history of Led Zeppelin, an extended multi-instrumental solo featuring theremin and bowed guitar in 1977, as well as the soundtrack for Death Wish II
released in 1982. Brian Jones of The Rolling Stones
also used the instrument on the group's 1967 albums "Between the Buttons
" and "Their Satanic Majesties Request
".
Lothar and the Hand People
, formed in Denver in 1965, used a Theremin (named "Lothar") onstage and on their LP.
The Lothars are a Boston-area band formed in early 1997 whose CDs have featured as many as four theremins played at once—a first for pop music.
Although credited with a "Thereman" [sic] on the "Mysterons" track from the album Dummy, Portishead actually used a monophonic synthesizer to achieve theremin-like effects, as confirmed by Adrian Utley
, who is credited as playing the instrument; he has also created similar sounds on the songs "Half Day Closing", "Humming", "The Rip" and "Machine Gun".
was one of the first composers to include parts for the theremin in orchestral pieces, including a use in his score for the 1931 film Odna
. While the theremin was not widely used in classical music performances, the instrument found great success in many motion pictures, notably, Spellbound
, The Red House
, The Lost Weekend (all three of which were written by Miklós Rózsa
, the composer who pioneered the use of the instrument in Hollywood scores), The Spiral Staircase, The Day the Earth Stood Still
, The Thing (From Another World), The Ten Commandments
(the 1956 DeMille film). The theremin is prominent in the score for the 1956 short film "A Short Vision" which was aired on "The Ed Sullivan Show" the same year used by the Hungarian composer Matyas Seibel. More recent appearances in film scores include Monster House
, Ed Wood
and The Machinist
(both featuring Lydia Kavina
). The DVDs for Ed Wood, Bartleby and The Day the Earth Stood Still and Spellbound (Criterion Collection) include short features on the theremin. Robby Virus, the founder and theremin player of the band Project:Pimento, was featured on the soundtrack to the movie Hellboy
(2004).
A theremin was not used for the soundtrack of Forbidden Planet
, for which Louis and Bebe Barron
built "disposable" oscillator circuits and a ring modulator to create the "electronic tonalities" for the film.
Los Angeles-based thereminist Charles Richard Lester is featured on the soundtrack of Monster House
and has performed the US premiere of Gavriil Popov's 1932 score for Komsomol—Patron of Electrification with the L. A. Philharmonic
and Esa-Pekka Salonen
in 2007.
Electronic musical instrument
An electronic musical instrument is a musical instrument that produces its sounds using electronics. Such an instrument sounds by outputting an electrical audio signal that ultimately drives a loudspeaker....
controlled without discernible physical contact from the player. It is named after its Russian inventor, Professor Léon Theremin
Léon Theremin
Léon Theremin was a Russian and Soviet inventor. He is most famous for his invention of the theremin, one of the first electronic musical instruments. He is also the inventor of interlace, a technique of improving the picture quality of a video signal, widely used in video and television technology...
, who patented the device in 1928. The controlling section usually consists of two metal antennas
Antenna (radio)
An antenna is an electrical device which converts electric currents into radio waves, and vice versa. It is usually used with a radio transmitter or radio receiver...
which sense the position of the player's hands and control oscillators
Oscillation
Oscillation is the repetitive variation, typically in time, of some measure about a central value or between two or more different states. Familiar examples include a swinging pendulum and AC power. The term vibration is sometimes used more narrowly to mean a mechanical oscillation but sometimes...
for frequency
Frequency
Frequency is the number of occurrences of a repeating event per unit time. It is also referred to as temporal frequency.The period is the duration of one cycle in a repeating event, so the period is the reciprocal of the frequency...
with one hand, and amplitude
Amplitude
Amplitude is the magnitude of change in the oscillating variable with each oscillation within an oscillating system. For example, sound waves in air are oscillations in atmospheric pressure and their amplitudes are proportional to the change in pressure during one oscillation...
(volume) with the other, so it can be played without being touched. The electric signals
Signal (electrical engineering)
In the fields of communications, signal processing, and in electrical engineering more generally, a signal is any time-varying or spatial-varying quantity....
from the theremin are amplified
Amplifier
Generally, an amplifier or simply amp, is a device for increasing the power of a signal.In popular use, the term usually describes an electronic amplifier, in which the input "signal" is usually a voltage or a current. In audio applications, amplifiers drive the loudspeakers used in PA systems to...
and sent to a loudspeaker
Loudspeaker
A loudspeaker is an electroacoustic transducer that produces sound in response to an electrical audio signal input. Non-electrical loudspeakers were developed as accessories to telephone systems, but electronic amplification by vacuum tube made loudspeakers more generally useful...
.
The theremin is associated with a very eerie sound, which has led to its use in movie soundtracks such as Miklós Rózsa
Miklós Rózsa
Miklós Rózsa was a Hungarian-born composer trained in Germany , and active in France , England , and the United States , with extensive sojourns in Italy from 1953...
's for Spellbound
Spellbound (1945 film)
Spellbound is a psychological mystery thriller film directed by Alfred Hitchcock in 1945. It tells the story of the new head of a mental asylum who turns out not to be what he claims. The film stars Ingrid Bergman, Gregory Peck, Michael Chekhov and Leo G. Carroll. It is an adaptation by Angus...
and The Lost Weekend and Bernard Herrmann
Bernard Herrmann
Bernard Herrmann was an American composer noted for his work in motion pictures.An Academy Award-winner , Herrmann is particularly known for his collaborations with director Alfred Hitchcock, most famously Psycho, North by Northwest, The Man Who Knew Too Much, and Vertigo...
's for The Day the Earth Stood Still
The Day The Earth Stood Still (soundtrack)
- Remake soundtrack :Tyler Bates was brought in to compose the score for 2008 remake of The Day the Earth Stood Still after Derrickson heard his work on The Devil's Rejects and Slither...
and as the theme tune for the ITV drama Midsomer Murders
Midsomer Murders
Midsomer Murders is a British television detective drama that has aired on ITV since 1997. The show is based on the books by Caroline Graham, as originally adapted by Anthony Horowitz. The lead character is DCI Tom Barnaby who works for Causton CID. When Nettles left the show in 2011 he was...
. Theremins are also used in concert music (especially avant-garde
Experimental music
Experimental music refers, in the English-language literature, to a compositional tradition which arose in the mid-20th century, applied particularly in North America to music composed in such a way that its outcome is unforeseeable. Its most famous and influential exponent was John Cage...
and 20th- and 21st-century new music
Contemporary classical music
Contemporary classical music can be understood as belonging to the period that started in the mid-1970s with the retreat of modernism. However, the term may also be employed in a broader sense to refer to all post-1945 modern musical forms.-Categorization:...
) and in popular music genres such as rock
Rock music
Rock music is a genre of popular music that developed during and after the 1960s, particularly in the United Kingdom and the United States. It has its roots in 1940s and 1950s rock and roll, itself heavily influenced by rhythm and blues and country music...
. Psychedelic rock
Psychedelic rock
Psychedelic rock is a style of rock music that is inspired or influenced by psychedelic culture and attempts to replicate and enhance the mind-altering experiences of psychedelic drugs. It emerged during the mid 1960s among folk rock and blues rock bands in United States and the United Kingdom...
bands in particular, such as Hawkwind
Hawkwind
Hawkwind are an English rock band, one of the earliest space rock groups. Their lyrics favour urban and science fiction themes. They are also a noted precursor to punk rock and now are considered a link between the hippie and punk cultures....
, have often used the theremin in their work.
History
The theremin was originally the product of Russian government-sponsored research into proximity sensorProximity sensor
A proximity sensor is a sensor able to detect the presence of nearby objects without any physical contact.A proximity sensor often emits an electromagnetic or a beam of electromagnetic radiation , and looks for changes in the field or return signal. The object being sensed is often referred to as...
s. The instrument was invented by a young Russian physicist named Lev Sergeivich Termen (known in the West as Léon Theremin
Léon Theremin
Léon Theremin was a Russian and Soviet inventor. He is most famous for his invention of the theremin, one of the first electronic musical instruments. He is also the inventor of interlace, a technique of improving the picture quality of a video signal, widely used in video and television technology...
) in October 1920 after the outbreak of the Russian civil war
Russian Civil War
The Russian Civil War was a multi-party war that occurred within the former Russian Empire after the Russian provisional government collapsed to the Soviets, under the domination of the Bolshevik party. Soviet forces first assumed power in Petrograd The Russian Civil War (1917–1923) was a...
. After positive reviews at Moscow
Moscow
Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...
electronics
Electronics
Electronics is the branch of science, engineering and technology that deals with electrical circuits involving active electrical components such as vacuum tubes, transistors, diodes and integrated circuits, and associated passive interconnection technologies...
conferences, Theremin demonstrated the device to Bolshevik
Bolshevik
The Bolsheviks, originally also Bolshevists , derived from bol'shinstvo, "majority") were a faction of the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party which split apart from the Menshevik faction at the Second Party Congress in 1903....
leader Vladimir Lenin
Vladimir Lenin
Vladimir Ilyich Lenin was a Russian Marxist revolutionary and communist politician who led the October Revolution of 1917. As leader of the Bolsheviks, he headed the Soviet state during its initial years , as it fought to establish control of Russia in the Russian Civil War and worked to create a...
. Lenin was so impressed with the device that he began taking lessons in playing it, commissioned six hundred of the instruments for distribution throughout the Soviet Union, and sent Theremin on a trip around the world to demonstrate the latest Soviet technology and the invention of electronic music
Electronic music
Electronic music is music that employs electronic musical instruments and electronic music technology in its production. In general a distinction can be made between sound produced using electromechanical means and that produced using electronic technology. Examples of electromechanical sound...
. After a lengthy tour of Europe, during which time he demonstrated his invention to packed houses, Theremin found his way to the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, where he patented his invention in 1928 . Subsequently, Theremin granted commercial production rights to RCA
RCA
RCA Corporation, founded as the Radio Corporation of America, was an American electronics company in existence from 1919 to 1986. The RCA trademark is currently owned by the French conglomerate Technicolor SA through RCA Trademark Management S.A., a company owned by Technicolor...
.
Although the RCA Thereminvox (released immediately following the Stock Market Crash of 1929
Wall Street Crash of 1929
The Wall Street Crash of 1929 , also known as the Great Crash, and the Stock Market Crash of 1929, was the most devastating stock market crash in the history of the United States, taking into consideration the full extent and duration of its fallout...
), was not a commercial success, it fascinated audiences in America and abroad. Clara Rockmore
Clara Rockmore
Clara Rockmore was a virtuoso performer of the theremin, an electronic musical instrument.-Biography :Born as Clara Reisenberg in Vilnius, Lithuania, Rockmore was a child prodigy on the violin and entered the Imperial conservatory of Saint Petersburg at the age of five...
, a well-known thereminist, toured to wide acclaim, performing a classical repertoire in concert halls around the United States, often sharing the bill with Paul Robeson
Paul Robeson
Paul Leroy Robeson was an American concert singer , recording artist, actor, athlete, scholar who was an advocate for the Civil Rights Movement in the first half of the twentieth century...
.
During the 1930s Lucie Bigelow Rosen
Lucie Bigelow Rosen
Lucie Bigelow Rosen was a Theremin soloist known for popularising the use of the instrument in the 1930s and 1940s, and founder of the Caramoor festival.-Life:...
was also taken up with the theremin and together with her husband Walter Bigelow Rosen provided both financial and artistic support to the development and popularisation of the instrument.
In 1938, Theremin left the United States, though the circumstances related to his departure are in dispute. Many accounts claim he was taken from his New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
apartment by KGB agents, taken back to the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
and made to work in a sharashka
Sharashka
Sharashka was an informal name for secret research and development laboratories in the Soviet Gulag labor camp system...
laboratory prison camp at Magadan, Siberia. He reappeared 30 years later. In his 2000 biography of the inventor, Theremin: Ether Music and Espionage, Albert Glinsky suggested the Russian had fled to escape crushing personal debts, and was then caught up in Stalin's political purges. In any case, Theremin did not return to the United States until 1991.
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, the theremin soon fell into disuse with serious musicians, mainly because newer electronic instruments were introduced that were easier to play. However, a niche interest in the theremin persisted, mostly among electronics enthusiasts and kit-building hobbyists. One of these electronics enthusiasts, Robert Moog
Robert Moog
Robert Arthur Moog , commonly called Bob Moog was an American pioneer of electronic music, best known as the inventor of the Moog synthesizer.-Life:...
, began building theremins in the 1950s, while he was a high-school student. Moog subsequently published a number of articles about building theremins, and sold theremin kits which were intended to be assembled by the customer. Moog credited what he learned from the experience as leading directly to his groundbreaking synthesizer
Synthesizer
A synthesizer is an electronic instrument capable of producing sounds by generating electrical signals of different frequencies. These electrical signals are played through a loudspeaker or set of headphones...
, the Moog
Moog synthesizer
Moog synthesizer may refer to any number of analog synthesizers designed by Dr. Robert Moog or manufactured by Moog Music, and is commonly used as a generic term for older-generation analog music synthesizers. The Moog company pioneered the commercial manufacture of modular voltage-controlled...
.
Since the release of the film Theremin: An Electronic Odyssey
Theremin: An Electronic Odyssey
Theremin: An Electronic Odyssey is a 1993 documentary film directed by Steven M. Martin about the life of Leon Theremin and his invention, the theremin, a pioneering electronic musical instrument....
in 1994, the instrument has enjoyed a resurgence in interest and has become more widely used by contemporary musicians. Even though many theremin sounds can be approximated on many modern synthesizers, some musicians continue to appreciate the expressiveness, novelty and uniqueness of using an actual theremin. The film itself has garnered excellent reviews.
Today Moog Music
Moog Music
Moog Music is an American company based in Asheville, North Carolina which manufactures electronic musical instruments. The current Moog Music is the second company to trade under that name.-R.A. Moog Co. and the original Moog Music:...
, Dan Burns of soundslikeburns.com, Chuck Collins of theremaniacs.com Wavefront Technologies, Kees Enkelaar and Harrison Instruments manufacture performance-quality theremins. Theremin kit building remains popular with electronics buffs; kits are available from Moog Music, Theremaniacs, Harrison Instruments, PAiA Electronics
PAiA Electronics
PAiA Electronics, Inc. is an American synthesizer kit company that was started by John Simonton in 1967. It sells various musical electronics kits including analog synthesizers, theremins, mixers and various music production units designed by founder John Simonton, Craig Anderton, Marvin Jones,...
, and Jaycar
Jaycar
Jaycar is an Australian based electronics retailer dealing in electronic components and related products for the electronics enthusiast. It was founded in 1981 when a former Dick Smith Electronics employee, Gary Johnston, purchased John Carr & Co...
. On the other end of the scale, many low-end Theremins, some of which have only pitch control, are offered online and offline, sometimes advertised as toys.
Operating principles
The theremin is almost unique among musical instruments in that it is played without physical contact. The musician stands in front of the instrument and moves his or her hands in the proximity of two metal antennas. The distance from one antenna determines frequency (pitch), and the distance from the other controls amplitude (volume). Most frequently, the right hand controls the pitch and the left controls the volume, although some performers reverse this arrangement. Some low-cost theremins use a conventional, knob operated volume control and have only the pitch antenna. While commonly called antennas, they are not used for receiving or broadcasting radio frequency, but act as plates in a capacitor.The theremin uses the heterodyne
Heterodyne
Heterodyning is a radio signal processing technique invented in 1901 by Canadian inventor-engineer Reginald Fessenden where high frequency signals are converted to lower frequencies by combining two frequencies. Heterodyning is useful for frequency shifting information of interest into a useful...
principle to generate an audio signal. The instrument's pitch circuitry includes two radio frequency
Radio frequency
Radio frequency is a rate of oscillation in the range of about 3 kHz to 300 GHz, which corresponds to the frequency of radio waves, and the alternating currents which carry radio signals...
oscillators. One oscillator operates at a fixed frequency. The frequency of the other oscillator is controlled by the performer's distance from the pitch control antenna. The performer's hand acts as the grounded
Ground (electricity)
In electrical engineering, ground or earth may be the reference point in an electrical circuit from which other voltages are measured, or a common return path for electric current, or a direct physical connection to the Earth....
plate (the performer's body being the connection to ground) of a variable capacitor
Variable capacitor
A variable capacitor is a capacitor whose capacitance may be intentionally and repeatedly changed mechanically or electronically. Variable capacitors are often used in L/C circuits to set the resonance frequency, e.g. to tune a radio , or as a variable reactance, e.g...
in an L-C (inductance-capacitance) circuit, which is part of the oscillator and determines its frequency.
(Although the capacitance
Capacitance
In electromagnetism and electronics, capacitance is the ability of a capacitor to store energy in an electric field. Capacitance is also a measure of the amount of electric potential energy stored for a given electric potential. A common form of energy storage device is a parallel-plate capacitor...
between the performer and the instrument is on the order of picofarad
Farad
The farad is the SI unit of capacitance. The unit is named after the English physicist Michael Faraday.- Definition :A farad is the charge in coulombs which a capacitor will accept for the potential across it to change 1 volt. A coulomb is 1 ampere second...
s or even hundreds of femtofarads, the circuit design gives a useful frequency shift.) The difference between the frequencies of the two oscillators at each moment allows the creation of a difference tone in the audio frequency
Audio frequency
An audio frequency or audible frequency is characterized as a periodic vibration whose frequency is audible to the average human...
range, resulting in audio signals that are amplified and sent to a loudspeaker.
To control volume, the performer's other hand acts as the grounded plate of another variable capacitor. In this case, the capacitor detunes another oscillator; that detuning is processed to change the attenuation in the amplifier circuit. The distance between the performer's hand and the volume control antenna determines the capacitance, which regulates the theremin's volume.
Modern circuit designs often simplify this circuit and avoid the complexity of two heterodyne oscillators by having a single pitch oscillator, akin to the original theremin's volume circuit. This approach is usually less stable and cannot generate the low frequencies that a heterodyne oscillator can. Better designs (e.g. Moog, Theremax) may use two pairs of heterodyne oscillators, for both pitch and volume.
Performance technique
Easy to learn but difficult to master, theremin performance presents two challenges: reliable control of the instrument's pitch with no guidance (no keys, valves, frets, or finger-board positions), and minimizing undesired portamentoPortamento
Portamento is a musical term originated from the Italian expression "portamento della voce" , denoting from the beginning of the 17th century a vocal slide between two pitches and its emulation by members of the violin family and certain wind instruments, and is sometimes used...
that is inherent in the instrument's continuously-variable-pitch design.
Pitch control is challenging because, like a violin or trombone, a theremin can generate tones of any pitch throughout its entire range, including those that lie between the conventional notes. And, unlike all other instruments, the theremin has no physical feedback (other than sound), like string tension or the tactile fingerboard for strings, or air column resistance in wind instruments. The player has to rely solely on what is heard, and can only correct a pitch when its volume is not at zero. (Some professional theremin models, including Moog Etherwave Pro, have a pitch-preview feature - i.e. an additional headphone output that allows the pitch to be monitored before the volume is changed.) In the case of some string instruments, the range is divided along the strings by use of length divisions (e.g., frets on a guitar). By contrast, in the case of the theremin, the entire range of pitches is controlled by the distance of the performer's hand or fingers from the pitch antenna in mid-air. Precise control of manual position coupled with an excellent sense of pitch is required, since the oscillator tuning tends to change slowly over time, resulting in changing positions for individual pitches.
Because some portamento
Portamento
Portamento is a musical term originated from the Italian expression "portamento della voce" , denoting from the beginning of the 17th century a vocal slide between two pitches and its emulation by members of the violin family and certain wind instruments, and is sometimes used...
is inevitable in theremin performance and because only the most experienced performers can reduce it to an inconspicuous level, the theremin repertoire of beginner/intermediate players is limited to compositions that were written to be performed legato
Legato
In musical notation the Italian word legato indicates that musical notes are played or sung smoothly and connected. That is, in transitioning from note to note, there should be no intervening silence...
, especially those for voice or continuously-variable-pitch instruments, and in which it is acceptable or even traditional to include some degree of portamento and glissando
Glissando
In music, a glissando is a glide from one pitch to another. It is an Italianized musical term derived from the French glisser, to glide. In some contexts it is distinguished from the continuous portamento...
. Examples of works well suited for performance on the theremin include Massenet
Jules Massenet
Jules Émile Frédéric Massenet was a French composer best known for his operas. His compositions were very popular in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and he ranks as one of the greatest melodists of his era. Soon after his death, Massenet's style went out of fashion, and many of his operas...
's Thaïs-Méditation (originally for violin), Rachmaninoff
Sergei Rachmaninoff
Sergei Vasilievich Rachmaninoff was a Russian composer, pianist, and conductor. Rachmaninoff is widely considered one of the finest pianists of his day and, as a composer, one of the last great representatives of Romanticism in Russian classical music...
's Vocalise
Vocalise (Rachmaninoff)
Vocalise, Op. 34, No. 14 is a song by Sergei Rachmaninoff, published in 1912 as the last of his Fourteen Songs, Op. 34. Written for voice with piano accompaniment, it contains no words, but is sung using any one vowel...
, and Saint-Saëns
Camille Saint-Saëns
Charles-Camille Saint-Saëns was a French Late-Romantic composer, organist, conductor, and pianist. He is known especially for The Carnival of the Animals, Danse macabre, Samson and Delilah, Piano Concerto No. 2, Cello Concerto No. 1, Havanaise, Introduction and Rondo Capriccioso, and his Symphony...
' Le cygne
Le Cygne
Le Cygne is a scholarly journal, published once a year, in April, by the International Marie de France Society.It is included in the Modern Language Association International Bibliography database....
(The Swan) (originally for violoncello).
Using rapid and exact hand movements, however, highly skilled players can reduce undesired portamento and glissando to a level enabling them to play individual notes and even achieve staccato
Staccato
Staccato is a form of musical articulation. In modern notation it signifies a note of shortened duration and separated from the note that may follow by silence...
effects. Small and rapid movements of the hands can create tremolo or vibrato effects. Although pitch is governed primarily by the distance of the performer's hand to the pitch antenna, most precision thereminists augment their playing techniques with a system called "aerial fingering," largely devised by Clara Rockmore
Clara Rockmore
Clara Rockmore was a virtuoso performer of the theremin, an electronic musical instrument.-Biography :Born as Clara Reisenberg in Vilnius, Lithuania, Rockmore was a child prodigy on the violin and entered the Imperial conservatory of Saint Petersburg at the age of five...
and subsequently adapted by Léon Theremin
Léon Theremin
Léon Theremin was a Russian and Soviet inventor. He is most famous for his invention of the theremin, one of the first electronic musical instruments. He is also the inventor of interlace, a technique of improving the picture quality of a video signal, widely used in video and television technology...
and his protege, Lydia Kavina
Lydia Kavina
Lydia Kavina is a Russian theremin player, and is currently the leading performing musician on the instrument.The grandniece of Léon Theremin, Kavina was born in Moscow and began studying the instrument under the direction of Theremin when she was nine years old...
. It employs specific hand and finger positions to alter slightly the amount of capacitance relative to the pitch antenna to produce small changes in tone quickly and in a manner that can be reliably and quickly reproduced.
An alternate and controversial "hands on" technique is called "angling." In this method the pitch control hand is actually set on the top of the theremin, thus violating the "no touch" creed of traditionalists. The performer changes the angle of the hand and fingers to alter the pitch and repositions the hand if the pitch interval is too large for "angling." Touching the instrument damps the effect of extraneous movement on pitch. This permits the use of steady pitches without vibrato and without the performer's remaining perfectly still. An alternate to touching the instrument is to rest the elbow of the pitch arm on a tripod while standing, or the arm of a chair, or one's knees while seated in order to provide a steady reference point and pivot for the arm allowing for steady pitch play over the entire pitch range.
Equally important in theremin articulation is the use of the volume control antenna. Unlike touched instruments, where simply halting play or damping a resonator silences the instrument, the thereminist must "play the rests, as well as the notes," as Ms. Rockmore observes. Although volume technique is less developed than pitch technique, some thereminists have worked to extend it, especially Pamelia Kurstin
Pamelia Kurstin
Pamelia Kurstin is a theremin player who has performed and recorded with artists such as David Byrne, Richard Cheese, Béla Fleck and the Flecktones, and Ulver and has performed on the television show Saturday Night Live...
with her "walking bass" technique and Rupert Chappelle.
Skilled players who overcome these challenges by a precisely controlled combination of movements can achieve complex and expressive performances, and thus realize a theremin's potential.
Some thereminists in the avant-garde
Avant-garde
Avant-garde means "advance guard" or "vanguard". The adjective form is used in English to refer to people or works that are experimental or innovative, particularly with respect to art, culture, and politics....
openly rebel against developing any formalized technique, viewing it as imposing traditional limitations on an instrument that is inherently free form. These players choose to develop their own highly personalized techniques. Other avant-garde
Avant-garde
Avant-garde means "advance guard" or "vanguard". The adjective form is used in English to refer to people or works that are experimental or innovative, particularly with respect to art, culture, and politics....
players use strict form and techniques other than aerial fingering. The question of the relative value of formal technique versus free form performances were hotly debated among thereminists. Theremin artist Anthony Ptak uses antenna interference
Electromagnetic interference
Electromagnetic interference is disturbance that affects an electrical circuit due to either electromagnetic induction or electromagnetic radiation emitted from an external source. The disturbance may interrupt, obstruct, or otherwise degrade or limit the effective performance of the circuit...
in live performance.
Recent versions of the theremin have been functionally updated: the Moog Ethervox, while functionally still a theremin, can also be used as a MIDI controller
MIDI controller
MIDI controller is used in two senses.*In one sense, a controller is hardware or software which generates and transmits MIDI data to MIDI-enabled devices....
, and as such allows the artist to control any MIDI-compatible synthesizer with it, using the theremin's continuous pitch to drive modern synths. The Harrison Instruments Model 302 Theremin uses horizontal plates to control pitch and volume requiring techniques other than "aerial fingering".
Concert music
Bohuslav Martinu
Bohuslav Martinů was a prolific Czech composer of modern classical music. He was of Czech and Rumanian ancestry. Martinů wrote six symphonies, 15 operas, 14 ballet scores and a large body of orchestral, chamber, vocal and instrumental works. Martinů became a violinist in the Czech Philharmonic...
, Percy Grainger
Percy Grainger
George Percy Aldridge Grainger , known as Percy Grainger, was an Australian-born composer, arranger and pianist. In the course of a long and innovative career he played a prominent role in the revival of interest in British folk music in the early years of the 20th century. He also made many...
, Christian Wolff
Christian Wolff (composer)
Christian G. Wolff is an American composer of experimental classical music.-Biography:Wolff was born in Nice in France to German literary publishers Helen and Kurt Wolff, who had published works by Franz Kafka, Robert Musil, and Walter Benjamin. After relocating to the U.S...
, Joseph Schillinger
Joseph Schillinger
Joseph Schillinger was a composer, music theorist, and composition teacher. He was born in Kharkiv, Ukraine and died in New York City.-Life and career:...
, Moritz Eggert
Moritz Eggert
Moritz Eggert is a German composer and pianist.- Life :Moritz Eggert began his studies in piano and composition in 1975 at Dr. Hoch's Konservatorium in Frankfurt , at the Musikhochschule Frankfurt and at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater München...
, Iraida Yusupova
Iraida Yusupova
Iraida Yusupova is a Turkmenistani composer of half Russian-half Tatar ethnicity who currently lives in Moscow, Russia....
, Jorge Antunes, Vladimir Komarov
Vladimir Komarov
Vladimir Mikhaylovich Komarov was a Soviet test pilot, aerospace engineer and cosmonaut in the first group of cosmonauts selected in 1960. He was one of the most highly experienced and well-qualified candidates accepted into "Air Force Group One"....
and Anis Fuleihan
Anis Fuleihan
Anis Fuleihan was a Cypriot-born American composer, conductor and pianist.A native of Kyrenia, Fuleihan belongs to a Christian Lebanese family; he attended the English School in that town before coming to the United States in 1915...
.
Maverick composer Percy Grainger chose to use ensembles of four or six theremins (in preference to a string quartet) for his two earliest experimental Free Music compositions (1935–37) because of the instrument's complete 'gliding' freedom of pitch .
Musician Jean Michel Jarre
Jean Michel Jarre
Jean Michel André Jarre is a French composer, performer and music producer. He is a pioneer in the electronic, ambient and New Age genres, and known as an organiser of outdoor spectacles of his music featuring lights, laser displays, and fireworks.Jarre was raised in Lyon by his mother and...
used the instrument in his concert Space of Freedom
Space of Freedom
Space of Freedom was a concert performed by French musician Jean Michel Jarre in Poland, at the Gdańsk Shipyard, on August 26, 2005, to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the Solidarity trade union's foundation...
in Gdańsk
Gdansk
Gdańsk is a Polish city on the Baltic coast, at the centre of the country's fourth-largest metropolitan area.The city lies on the southern edge of Gdańsk Bay , in a conurbation with the city of Gdynia, spa town of Sopot, and suburban communities, which together form a metropolitan area called the...
, providing also a short history of Léon Theremin's life.
Popular music
Theremins and theremin-like sounds started to be incorporated into popular musicPopular music
Popular music belongs to any of a number of musical genres "having wide appeal" and is typically distributed to large audiences through the music industry. It stands in contrast to both art music and traditional music, which are typically disseminated academically or orally to smaller, local...
from the end of the 1940s (with a series of Samuel Hoffman/Harry Revel
Harry Revel
Harry Revel was an English composer of musical theatre.Revel was born in London. Before emigrating to the United States in 1929, he wrote musicals for productions in Paris, Copenhagen, Vienna and London....
collaborations) and this continued, with varying popularity, to the present.
While The Beach Boys
The Beach Boys
The Beach Boys are an American rock band, formed in 1961 in Hawthorne, California. The group was initially composed of brothers Brian, Dennis and Carl Wilson, their cousin Mike Love, and friend Al Jardine. Managed by the Wilsons' father Murry, The Beach Boys signed to Capitol Records in 1962...
' "Good Vibrations
Good Vibrations
"Good Vibrations" is a song by American rock band The Beach Boys. Composed and produced by Brian Wilson, the song's lyrics were written by Wilson and Mike Love....
" features an instrument that sounds much like a Theremin, in fact the sound is made by an instrument called the Tannerin
Electro-Theremin
The Electro-Theremin, often called the Tannerin, is an electronic musical instrument developed by trombonist Paul Tanner and amateur inventor Bob Whitsell in the late 1950s to produce a sound to mimic that of the theremin. The instrument features a tone and portamento similar to that of the...
.
Jimmy Page
Jimmy Page
James Patrick "Jimmy" Page, OBE is an English multi-instrumentalist, songwriter, and record producer. He began his career as a studio session guitarist in London and was subsequently a member of The Yardbirds from 1966 to 1968, after which he founded the English rock band Led Zeppelin.Jimmy Page...
of Led Zeppelin
Led Zeppelin
Led Zeppelin were an English rock band, active in the late 1960s and throughout the 1970s. Formed in 1968, they consisted of guitarist Jimmy Page, singer Robert Plant, bassist/keyboardist John Paul Jones, and drummer John Bonham...
used a variation of the theremin (minus the loop) during performances of "Whole Lotta Love
Whole Lotta Love
"Whole Lotta Love" is a song by English rock band Led Zeppelin. It is featured as the opening track on the band's second album, Led Zeppelin II, and was released in the United States and Japan as a single. The US release became their first hit single, it was certified Gold on 13 April 1970, when it...
" and "No Quarter
No Quarter (song)
"No Quarter" is a song by Led Zeppelin that appears on their album, Houses of the Holy, released in 1973. It was written by bassist/keyboardist John Paul Jones, guitarist Jimmy Page and singer Robert Plant.- Overview :...
" throughout the performance history of Led Zeppelin, an extended multi-instrumental solo featuring theremin and bowed guitar in 1977, as well as the soundtrack for Death Wish II
Death Wish II
Death Wish II is a 1982 sequel to the 1974 film. It stars Charles Bronson, was written by David Engelbach and directed by Michael Winner....
released in 1982. Brian Jones of The Rolling Stones
The Rolling Stones
The Rolling Stones are an English rock band, formed in London in April 1962 by Brian Jones , Ian Stewart , Mick Jagger , and Keith Richards . Bassist Bill Wyman and drummer Charlie Watts completed the early line-up...
also used the instrument on the group's 1967 albums "Between the Buttons
Between the Buttons
- American release:In the US, the album was released by London Records on February 11, 1967 . "Let's Spend the Night Together" and "Ruby Tuesday" were slotted onto the album while "Back Street Girl" and "Please Go Home" were removed ...
" and "Their Satanic Majesties Request
Their Satanic Majesties Request
Their Satanic Majesties Request is the sixth British and eighth American studio album by The Rolling Stones, released on 8 December 1967 by Decca Records in the United Kingdom and the following day in the United States by London Records...
".
Lothar and the Hand People
Lothar and the Hand People
Lothar and the Hand People was a late-1960s psychedelic rock band known for its spacey music and pioneering use of the theremin and Moog modular synthesizer....
, formed in Denver in 1965, used a Theremin (named "Lothar") onstage and on their LP.
The Lothars are a Boston-area band formed in early 1997 whose CDs have featured as many as four theremins played at once—a first for pop music.
Although credited with a "Thereman" [sic] on the "Mysterons" track from the album Dummy, Portishead actually used a monophonic synthesizer to achieve theremin-like effects, as confirmed by Adrian Utley
Adrian Utley
Adrian Francis Utley is an English musician and a member of the band Portishead.-Biography:Utley is self-taught on guitar, bass and keyboards, and played professionally from the age of 18 in working men's clubs, night clubs, holiday camps, and in cabaret, backing soul artists...
, who is credited as playing the instrument; he has also created similar sounds on the songs "Half Day Closing", "Humming", "The Rip" and "Machine Gun".
Film music
The Russian Dmitri ShostakovichDmitri Shostakovich
Dmitri Dmitriyevich Shostakovich was a Soviet Russian composer and one of the most celebrated composers of the 20th century....
was one of the first composers to include parts for the theremin in orchestral pieces, including a use in his score for the 1931 film Odna
Odna
Odna is a Soviet film released in 1931. It was written and directed by Leonid Trauberg and Grigori Kozintsev. It was originally planned as a silent film, but it was eventually released with a soundtrack comprising sound effects, some dialogue and a full orchestral score by Dmitri Shostakovich...
. While the theremin was not widely used in classical music performances, the instrument found great success in many motion pictures, notably, Spellbound
Spellbound (1945 film)
Spellbound is a psychological mystery thriller film directed by Alfred Hitchcock in 1945. It tells the story of the new head of a mental asylum who turns out not to be what he claims. The film stars Ingrid Bergman, Gregory Peck, Michael Chekhov and Leo G. Carroll. It is an adaptation by Angus...
, The Red House
The Red House (1947 film)
The Red House is a 1947 psychological thriller starring Edward G. Robinson. It is adapted from the novel The Red House by George Agnew Chamberlain, published in 1943 by Popular Library...
, The Lost Weekend (all three of which were written by Miklós Rózsa
Miklós Rózsa
Miklós Rózsa was a Hungarian-born composer trained in Germany , and active in France , England , and the United States , with extensive sojourns in Italy from 1953...
, the composer who pioneered the use of the instrument in Hollywood scores), The Spiral Staircase, The Day the Earth Stood Still
The Day the Earth Stood Still
The Day the Earth Stood Still is a 1951 American science fiction film directed by Robert Wise and written by Edmund H. North based on the short story "Farewell to the Master" by Harry Bates. The film stars Michael Rennie, Patricia Neal, Sam Jaffe, and Hugh Marlowe...
, The Thing (From Another World), The Ten Commandments
The Ten Commandments (1956 film)
The Ten Commandments is a 1956 American epic film that dramatized the biblical story of the Exodus, in which the Hebrew-born Moses, an adopted Egyptian prince, becomes the deliverer of the Hebrew slaves. The film, released by Paramount Pictures in VistaVision on October 5, 1956, was directed by...
(the 1956 DeMille film). The theremin is prominent in the score for the 1956 short film "A Short Vision" which was aired on "The Ed Sullivan Show" the same year used by the Hungarian composer Matyas Seibel. More recent appearances in film scores include Monster House
Monster House
Monster House is a Discovery Channel television program that documented the themed remodeling of a residence in a five-day time frame...
, Ed Wood
Ed Wood (film)
Ed Wood is a 1994 American comedy-drama biopic directed and produced by Tim Burton, and starring Johnny Depp as cult filmmaker Edward D. Wood, Jr. The film concerns the period in Wood's life when he made his best-known films as well as his relationship with actor Bela Lugosi, played by Martin Landau...
and The Machinist
The Machinist
The Machinist is a 2004 English-language Spanish psychological thriller film directed by Brad Anderson and written by Scott Kosar....
(both featuring Lydia Kavina
Lydia Kavina
Lydia Kavina is a Russian theremin player, and is currently the leading performing musician on the instrument.The grandniece of Léon Theremin, Kavina was born in Moscow and began studying the instrument under the direction of Theremin when she was nine years old...
). The DVDs for Ed Wood, Bartleby and The Day the Earth Stood Still and Spellbound (Criterion Collection) include short features on the theremin. Robby Virus, the founder and theremin player of the band Project:Pimento, was featured on the soundtrack to the movie Hellboy
Hellboy (film)
Hellboy is a 2004 supernatural superhero film, starring Ron Perlman, John Hurt and Selma Blair, directed by Guillermo del Toro. The film is based on the Dark Horse Comics work Hellboy: Seed of Destruction by Mike Mignola. It was produced by Revolution Studios, and distributed by Columbia Pictures...
(2004).
A theremin was not used for the soundtrack of Forbidden Planet
Forbidden Planet
Forbidden Planet is a 1956 science fiction film directed by Fred M. Wilcox, with a screenplay by Cyril Hume. It stars Leslie Nielsen, Walter Pidgeon, and Anne Francis. The characters and its setting have been compared to those in William Shakespeare's The Tempest, and its plot contains certain...
, for which Louis and Bebe Barron
Louis and Bebe Barron
Bebe Barron and Louis Barron were two American pioneers in the field of electronic music...
built "disposable" oscillator circuits and a ring modulator to create the "electronic tonalities" for the film.
Los Angeles-based thereminist Charles Richard Lester is featured on the soundtrack of Monster House
Monster House (film)
Monster House is a 2006 computer animated motion capture horror/comedy film produced by ImageMovers and Amblin Entertainment, and distributed by Columbia Pictures. Executive produced by Robert Zemeckis and Steven Spielberg, this is the first time since Back to the Future Part III that they have...
and has performed the US premiere of Gavriil Popov's 1932 score for Komsomol—Patron of Electrification with the L. A. Philharmonic
Los Angeles Philharmonic
The Los Angeles Philharmonic is an American orchestra based in Los Angeles, California, United States. It has a regular season of concerts from October through June at the Walt Disney Concert Hall, and a summer season at the Hollywood Bowl from July through September...
and Esa-Pekka Salonen
Esa-Pekka Salonen
Esa-Pekka Salonen is a Finnish orchestral conductor and composer. He is currently Principal Conductor and Artistic Advisor of the Philharmonia Orchestra in London and Conductor Laureate of the Los Angeles Philharmonic.-Early career:...
in 2007.
Television
- Apart from a few episodes where an electric organElectric organIn biology, the electric organ is an organ common to all electric fish used for the purposes of creating an electric field. The electric organ is derived from modified nerve or muscle tissue...
or synthesizerSynthesizerA synthesizer is an electronic instrument capable of producing sounds by generating electrical signals of different frequencies. These electrical signals are played through a loudspeaker or set of headphones...
were used, the theremin-like sound on the original Star TrekStar TrekStar Trek is an American science fiction entertainment franchise created by Gene Roddenberry. The core of Star Trek is its six television series: The Original Series, The Animated Series, The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, Voyager, and Enterprise...
theme was actually provided by renowned studio soprano Loulie Jean NormanLoulie Jean NormanLoulie Jean Norman was a famous coloratura soprano who worked with famed arranger Gordon Jenkins. Jenkins and Norman collaborated on a number of albums...
until her voice was removed in later seasons. Soprano Elin Carlson sang part of the theme when CBS-Paramount TV remastered the program's title sequence in 2006. - The British television series Midsomer MurdersMidsomer MurdersMidsomer Murders is a British television detective drama that has aired on ITV since 1997. The show is based on the books by Caroline Graham, as originally adapted by Anthony Horowitz. The lead character is DCI Tom Barnaby who works for Causton CID. When Nettles left the show in 2011 he was...
uses a theremin in its popular theme tune as well as frequently in underscore. The theremin part is played by Celia Sheen. - In May 2007, the White CastleWhite Castle (restaurant)White Castle is an American regional fast food hamburger restaurant chain in the Midwestern United States and in the New York metropolitan area, and the first of its kind in the US. It is known for its small, square hamburgers. Sometimes referred to as "sliders", the burgers were priced at five...
American hamburger restaurant chain introduced a television ad featuring a theremin performance by musician Jon Bernhardt of the band The Lothars. - In October 2008, comedian, musician and theremin enthusiast Bill BaileyBill BaileyBill Bailey is an English comedian, musician and actor. As well as his extensive stand-up work, Bailey is well known for his appearances on Black Books, Never Mind the Buzzcocks, Have I Got News for You, and QI.Bailey was listed by The Observer as one of the 50 funniest acts in British comedy in...
played a theremin during his performance of Bill Bailey's Remarkable Guide to the Orchestra at the Royal Albert Hall, which has subsequently been televised. He has previously also written an article, presented a radio show and incorporated the theremin in some of his televised comedy tours. - Episode 12 of season 4 of The Big Bang Theory features Sheldon CooperSheldon CooperSheldon Lee Cooper, B.S., M.S., M.A., Ph.D., Sc.D. is a fictional character from Texas on the CBS television series The Big Bang Theory, portrayed by actor Jim Parsons...
, played by Jim ParsonsJim ParsonsJames Joseph "Jim" Parsons is an American television and film actor. He is best known for playing Sheldon Cooper on the CBS sitcom The Big Bang Theory, with his performance often cited as a significant reason for the program's success...
, tries to sabotage Leonard'sLeonard HofstadterLeonard Leakey Hofstadter, Ph.D., is a fictional character on the CBS television series The Big Bang Theory, portrayed by actor Johnny Galecki. Leonard is an experimental physicist from New Jersey who shares an apartment with colleague and best friend Sheldon Cooper...
differential equationDifferential equationA differential equation is a mathematical equation for an unknown function of one or several variables that relates the values of the function itself and its derivatives of various orders...
smartphoneSmartphoneA smartphone is a high-end mobile phone built on a mobile computing platform, with more advanced computing ability and connectivity than a contemporary feature phone. The first smartphones were devices that mainly combined the functions of a personal digital assistant and a mobile phone or camera...
appApplication softwareApplication software, also known as an application or an "app", is computer software designed to help the user to perform specific tasks. Examples include enterprise software, accounting software, office suites, graphics software and media players. Many application programs deal principally with...
project by playing a theremin while he works, causing Leonard to kick him out of the apartment. Sheldon cites the theme to Star Trek (erroneously, see above) as the source of his interest in the instrument. - episode 20 of season 22Homer Scissorhands"Homer Scissorhands" is the twentieth episode of the 22nd season of The Simpsons. It first aired on the Fox network in the United States on May 8, 2011. Kristen Schaal guest stars in the episode as Taffy. This major episode sees Milhouse dating Taffy after Lisa rejected his romantic confession...
of The SimpsonsThe SimpsonsThe Simpsons is an American animated sitcom created by Matt Groening for the Fox Broadcasting Company. The series is a satirical parody of a middle class American lifestyle epitomized by its family of the same name, which consists of Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa and Maggie...
features Millhouse wooing Lisa with a love song in the school cafeteria using a theremin. The segment ends with Principal Skinner commenting how purchasing a theremin was a great investment for the school.
Books
- The theremin is used as a literary device in "Constellations for Theremin" by Andrew JoronAndrew JoronAndrew Joron is an American writer of experimental poetry. He began by writing science fiction poetry. Joron's later poetry, combining scientific and philosophical ideas with the sonic properties of language, has been compared to the work of the Russian Futurist Velimir Khlebnikov...
.
Video games
- Composer Garry SchymanGarry SchymanGarry Schyman is an American film, television, and video game music composer. He graduated from the University of Southern California with a degree in music composition in 1978, and began work in the television industry, writing music for such television series as Magnum, P.I. and The A-Team. By...
used a Theremin for the musical score of the 2005 videogame Destroy All Humans!Destroy All Humans!Destroy All Humans! is a video game developed by Pandemic Studios and published by THQ. It was released for the Xbox and PlayStation 2 on June 21, 2005. The game is set in the late 1950s in the U.S. and parodies the lifestyles, pop culture, and politics of this time period... - Lydia KavinaLydia KavinaLydia Kavina is a Russian theremin player, and is currently the leading performing musician on the instrument.The grandniece of Léon Theremin, Kavina was born in Moscow and began studying the instrument under the direction of Theremin when she was nine years old...
's solo theremin is featured on the soundtrack for the 2006 MMORPGMMORPGMassively multiplayer online role-playing game is a genre of role-playing video games in which a very large number of players interact with one another within a virtual game world....
computer game Soul of the Ultimate NationSoul of the Ultimate NationSoul of the Ultimate Nation is a fantasy-based massive multiplayer online role-playing game produced by Webzen, a Korean-based company. It is operated in Korea by WebZen and in mainland China by The9...
, composed by Howard ShoreHoward ShoreHoward Leslie Shore is a Canadian composer, notable for his film scores. He has composed the scores for over 80 films, most notably the scores for The Lord of the Rings film trilogy, for which he won three Academy Awards. He is also a consistent collaborator with director David Cronenberg,...
. - The Homestar RunnerHomestar RunnerHomestar Runner is a Flash animated Internet cartoon. It mixes surreal humor with references to retro pop culture, notably video games, classic television, and popular music.The cartoons are nominally centered on the title character, Homestar Runner...
character Homsar plays a theremin in the 2008 point-and-click adventure game Strong Bad's Cool Game for Attractive People - Episode 3: Baddest of the Bands.
Similar instruments
- The Ondes-Martenot also uses the principle of heterodyning oscillators, but has a keyboard as well as a slide controller and is touched while playing.
- The Electro-ThereminElectro-ThereminThe Electro-Theremin, often called the Tannerin, is an electronic musical instrument developed by trombonist Paul Tanner and amateur inventor Bob Whitsell in the late 1950s to produce a sound to mimic that of the theremin. The instrument features a tone and portamento similar to that of the...
(or Tannerin after Paul TannerPaul Tanner-Career:Tanner gained fame by playing trombone with Glenn Miller's band from 1938 until 1942, later working as a studio musician in Hollywood. He was a professor at UCLA and also authored or co-authored several academic and popular histories related to jazz....
who played it in several productions including three tracks for The Beach BoysThe Beach BoysThe Beach Boys are an American rock band, formed in 1961 in Hawthorne, California. The group was initially composed of brothers Brian, Dennis and Carl Wilson, their cousin Mike Love, and friend Al Jardine. Managed by the Wilsons' father Murry, The Beach Boys signed to Capitol Records in 1962...
), built by Bob Whitsell in the 1950s, does not use heterodyning oscillators and has to be touched while playing, but it allows continuous variation of the frequency range and sounds similar to the theremin. - The Persephone, an analogue fingerboard synthesizer with CV and MIDI, inspired by the trautoniumTrautoniumThe trautonium is a monophonic electronic musical instrument invented about 1929 by Friedrich Trautwein in Berlin at the Musikhochschule's music and radio lab, the Rundfunkversuchstelle. Soon Oskar Sala joined him, continuing development until Sala's death in 2002. Instead of a keyboard, its manual...
. The Persephone allows continuous variation of the frequency range from 1 to 10 octaves. The ribbon is pressure and position sensitive. - The ElectrondeElectrondeAn Electronde is an electronic musical instrument invented in 1929 by Martin Taubman. It is an early prototype of a theremin. It has an antenna for pitch control, a handheld switch for articulation and a foot pedal for volume control....
, invented in 1929 by Martin Taubman, has an antenna for pitch control, a handheld switch for articulationArticulation (music)In music, articulation refers to the musical direction performance technique which affects the transition or continuity on a single note or between multiple notes or sounds.- Types of articulations :...
and a foot pedal for volume control. - The SynthereminSynthereminSyntheremin is a portmanteau of “Synthesizer” and “Theremin”, and an original musical instrument that a Japanese composer AQi Fzono conceived and invented with the cooperation of a Japanese engineer Michio Kurahashi in 1995...
is an extension of the theremin. - The Croix SonoreCroix SonoreThe Croix Sonore is an early electronic musical instrument with continuous pitch, similar to the theremin. Like the theremin, the pitch of the tone is dependent on the nearness of the player's arm to an antenna; unlike the theremin, the antenna was in the shape of a cross, and the electronics were...
(Sonorous Cross), is based on the theremin. It was developed by Russian composer Nicolas ObouchovNikolai ObukhovNikolai Borisovich Obukhov was a modernist and mystic Russian composer, active mainly in France. An avant-garde figure who took as his point of departure the late music of Scriabin, he fled Russia along with his family after the Bolshevik Revolution, settling in Paris...
in France, after he saw Lev Theremin demonstrate the theremin in 1924. - The terpsitoneTerpsitoneThe terpsitone was an electronic musical instrument, invented by Léon Theremin, which consisted of a platform fitted with space-controlling antennae, through and around which a dancer would control the musical performance. By most accounts, the instrument was nearly impossible to control...
, also invented by Theremin, consisted of a platform fitted with space-controlling antennae, through and around which a dancer would control the musical performance. By most accounts, the instrument was nearly impossible to control. Of the three instruments built, only the last one, made in 1978 for Lydia Kavina, survives today. - The Z.Vex EffectsZ.Vex EffectsZ.Vex Effects is a boutique effects pedal company based in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Their name derives from the name of founder Zachary Vex. The company's most famous product is the Fuzz Factory. All of their pedals are hand painted at their factory in Minnesota...
Fuzz Probe, Wah Probe and Tremolo Probe, using a theremin to control said effects. The Fuzz Probe can be used as a theremin, as it can through feedback oscillation create tones of any pitch. - The Haken Continuum Fingerboard uses a continuous, flat playing surface along which the player slides his fingers to create the desired pitch and timbre values. Describable as "a continuous pitch controller that resembles a keyboard, but has no keys."
- The MC-505 by Roland being able using the integrated D-BeamD-BeamThe D-Beam Controller is a Roland Synthesizers interface that controls sound and effects via hand movements interacting with an infrared beam of light. Although controlled in a similar manner to a theremin, it should not be confused with one. The theremin operates with radio frequencies.It was...
-sensor like a Theremin. - The OtamatoneOtamatoneThe Otamatone is a Japanese musical instrument developed by the Cube Works Company along with Maywa Denki and Novmichi Tosa. It is a musical-note shaped singing toy which requires two hands to be played: while one hand holds and/or squeezes the "head", the other hand controls the pitch of the song...
by the Cube Works company which is played by sliding the fingers up and down a stem to control a three-level pitch sound. - The AudiocubesAudiocubesThe AudioCubes are a collection of wireless intelligent light emitting objects, capable of detecting each other's location and orientation, and user gestures, and were created by Bert Schiettecatte...
by Percussa are light emitting smart blocks which have 4 sensors on each side. The sensors measure the distance to your hands to control an effect or sound - A musical sawMusical sawA musical saw, also called a singing saw, is the application of a hand saw as a musical instrument. The sound creates an ethereal tone, very similar to the theremin...
, also called a singing saw, is the application of a hand saw as a musical instrument. The sound creates an ethereal tone, very similar to the theremin. The musical saw is classified as a friction idiophone with direct friction (131.22) under the Hornbostel-Sachs system of musical instrument classification.
See also
- American Museum of Radio and ElectricityAmerican Museum of Radio and ElectricityThe American Museum of Radio and Electricity is an interactive museum located in Bellingham, Washington, which offers educational experiences for audiences of all ages through galleries and public programs that illustrate the development and use of electricity, radio and the related inventions that...
, which features a theremin that visitors can play. - The ExploratoriumExploratoriumThe Exploratorium is a museum in San Francisco with over 475 participatory exhibits, all of them made onsite, that mix science and art. It also aims to promote museums as informal education centers....
in San Francisco has a restored RCA Theremin playable by visitors. - The Pacific Science CenterPacific Science CenterThe Pacific Science Center is a science museum in Seattle, Washington.-Organization:Pacific Science Center is an independent, non-profit science museum based in Seattle, Washington...
also has a theremin on display that guests can try to play. It is located in the lobby of the BoeingBoeingThe Boeing Company is an American multinational aerospace and defense corporation, founded in 1916 by William E. Boeing in Seattle, Washington. Boeing has expanded over the years, merging with McDonnell Douglas in 1997. Boeing Corporate headquarters has been in Chicago, Illinois since 2001...
IMAXIMAXIMAX is a motion picture film format and a set of proprietary cinema projection standards created by the Canadian company IMAX Corporation. IMAX has the capacity to record and display images of far greater size and resolution than conventional film systems...
Theater building. - The Music Museum in Stockholm, Sweden has a theremin that visitors can play.
- The first theremin concert for aliens in the Teen Age MessageTeen Age MessageThe Teen Age Message was a METI message, transmitted from the Yevpatoria Planetary Radar to 6 nearby Sun-like stars during August–September 2001. Unlike the previous digital-only Messages, Arecibo-1974 and Cosmic Call 1, the TAM has complex, three-section structure with different forms of...
sent to space. - A playable theramin is on display at Cardiff Techniquest (UK)
Publications
- Rockmore, Clara (1998). Method for Theremin. Edited by David Miller & Jeffrey McFarland-Johnson. Made publicly available at Clara Rockmore Method for Theremin [pdf]
Portals and general information
- ThereminWorld.com
- ThereminVox.com
- TECI: Theremin Enthusiasts Club International
- Etheremin: Theremin website for the French speaking
- The Solar Powered Theremin (Heliophone)
Further information
- A course in Theremin Basic Theremin information and an interview with Italian thereminist Fabio Pesce.
- Leon Theremin by Lirego!
- oddmusic.com theremin page
- Canadian singer and thereminist Peter Pringle's Theremin website, with pictures, audio, and text
- Dr. Samuel Hoffman, Hollywood's premiere thereminist
- Art's Theremin Page: Complete construction plans for solid state and vacuum tube theremins
- CamTheremin: A freeware program simulating theremin with your webcamera.
- What Is A Theremin?
- THE WIEN-BRIDGE THEREMIN This page contains a good, basic explanation of the physics and electronics behind a heterodyne Wien BridgeWien bridge oscillatorA Wien bridge oscillator is a type of electronic oscillator that generates sine waves. It can generate a large range of frequencies. The oscillator is based on a bridge circuit originally developed by Max Wien in 1891....
theremin. Also contains design schematic of the parts of a heterodyne Wien Bridge theremin. - The Harrison Instruments Model 302 Theremin A battery operated horizontal plate theremin with a seven octave range.
Audio and Video
- Clara Rockmore playing "The Swan" (Saint-Saëns)
- Ted.com: Pamelia Kurstin plays and discusses her theremin
- Theremin Music Gaining Popularity - Audio: KPLU's Bellamy Pailthorp reports.
- Pekkanini Swedish composer and thereminist
- Examples of "angling" technique using the Model 302 theremin while seated (Rupert Chappelle)
- Spellbound, a brief program of music for theremin - weekly Internet radio program playing music featuring the theremin, offers audio and video podcasts
- YouTube Theremin Guide - A video with 70+ links to theremin websites, books, lessons, theremin makers, and thereminists around the globe
- The Cosmists (experimental theremin/percussion duo)