Articles / Miscellaneous

Theremins and Music Therapy

Kip Rosser

I've long thought the theremin could be useful in music therapy, and apparently now Moog Music agrees. According to a press release issued today, Moog Music will be participating in this year’s American Music Therapy Association Conference entitled, “A Wellspring of Innovation in Music Therapy.” The conference is scheduled from November 14-19th, 2006 and will take place in Kansas City, Missouri. Moog is partnering with one of their endorsed Moog Theremin artists, Kip Rosser, to demonstrate how the Moog Theremin can be used as an innovative tool in music therapy.

According to Wikipedia, music therapy is "the use of music by a trained professional to achieve therapeutic goals. Goal areas may include, but are not limited to, motor skills, social/interpersonal development, cognitive development, self-awareness, and spiritual enhancement."

Congratulations to Kip for being selected to represent Moog Music and the theremin at this event. I hope he'll post some notes on his experience when he returns from the conference!

Read the full press release here (PDF).

Jason

Posted by

November 7, 2006

4 comments

buddycraigg
buddycraigg - 6723 days ago
kevin kissinger and (oh hell, i cant remember his/her name) is going to be there too.i would like to check it out, but the tickets cost too much for me to just "drop by"
kkissinger
kkissinger - 6723 days ago
Hi,Just to clarify, I live in Kansas City and hope to get a little time off work and see Kip in action at the convention. However, I won't be playing Theremin at the convention. This is Kip's gig! :)Kip is a fine Thereminist who also brings touches of drama and humor to his performances.Among Kip's innovative ideas is a "Theremin Daily Dose" webpage where you can select from dozens of short Theremin sounds that Kip has created (along with animations):http://www.performancekr.com/d/Kip has been playing the Theremin for around eight years and brings to it great enthusiasm.Since I'm not a music therapy person I already asked Kip if I can get a pass or something to get in.Buddy, suggest you contact Kip and see if he can get you a pass, too.
kkissinger
kkissinger - 6418 days ago
A few days ago, my friend and fellow thereminist Kip Rosser informed me that he had added content to his "Theremin Daily Dose" page.About a year ago, Kip came up with an idea to do short Theremin improvisations and post them along with animations. Well, this page has come a long way since then and it now contains 64 "daily doses".Each "dose" is a little self-contained vignette of music and animation. Some are very short -- only lasting a few seconds and then looping. Some are longer.One of them #34, a mock history lesson about the great unknown thereminist Alexi Ouspenskaya, is intentionally overly-long.#51 features Kip's theremin version of a rollicking Russian Dance (I don't know the title of the music, though).#54 is an irreverent rap song featuring an imitation of Leon Theremin's voice.#20 is a riot... the voice-over is a diatribe that rails against "Schpooky theremin music". Along with the rant we hear scary theremin music and see a UFO flying saucer flying around outside the window!The latest vignette is Kip's Theremin rendition of "Pomp and Circumstance". The picture includes a theremin however when the cover opens the interior changes every time. (Are there vacuum tubes or dancers inside that theremin??!)Each "dose" is unique and demonstrates the large variety of moods and textures available from both precision and freeform playing. The animations are fun to watch. Also, the "Daily Dose" idea is an original approach to present short electronic music works.To access the daily dose page, click on the link below and then click on the theremin icon to the left of the "A Theremin Dose" heading.http://performancekr...
Brian R
Brian R - 6417 days ago
Kevin, thanks for alerting all to this collection. #35: "Find the zero beat of your own heart"... er, ah, is that medically advisable? :-/