Sitting Vs Standing

Hmmm your reply went right over my head and I suspect that real understanding could take many lifetimes and more.

For now I'll just settle for the fact that if I wave my hands near the pointy bits it goes WoooOOOooo.

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Edit: Okay Fred I can't resist having another stab at it just for fun :)

Here's goes... The theremin's field is the space surrounding an electric charge that exerts a force on objects with the ability to hold an electric charge (i.e. hands).

The theremin relies upon the electromagnetic force,a fundamental property of the universe or a physical property of spacetime. The electromagnetic force is the means of communicating the behavior of the hands to the theremin instrument.

With regular touch, say for instance my finger tips touching the neck of my violin, is it not this same electromagnetic force that operates? At an atomic level there is no 'touch' when I play violin. The charged electrons in the molecules interact with the charged electrons in the violin neck repelling each other. Our senses perceive this force as touch. It is the electromagnetic force that communicates the behavior of the bow and the hands to the instrument.

If the theremins electromagnetic field is part of the theremin instrument, and I see no reason to not include it, when we play the theremin do we not touch the instrument so lightly, below the threshold of perception but the same underlying physics are governing?

I've tried both standing and sitting in my short career, and found I prefer sitting. I seem to have more *repeatable* control over the pitch if I'm sitting. I learned at first while sitting, and then when I tried standing, I lost control over the pitch using the hand fingerings I was used to. I suppose I could learn to control while standing, but why make it difficult?

I play a Burns B3 Deluxe, and always position myself with the volume knob directly in front of my navel, about 18" away from the box, and then tune the pitch knob for "zero". But as someone else pointed out, the knees can exert some influence over the volume antenna - which I found to be the case. So my playing position includes extending my left leg out from under the volume antenna by unbending my knee. This leaves my right foot available to work my FX pedals, which doesn't seem to effect the pitch much, if at all. I sit on a drummer's throne, set somewhat higher than a typical chair, so I can still "lean" forward and back to control really low notes.