Gordon's Progress

i played the game online and got all 6 shiny things...

i'm too cool for school.

I'm glad you enjoyed yourself.

I'm all packed, and tomorrow I'm looking forward to a night under canvas and "Breezy and cooler with rain and a thunderstorm" in which case I shall be playing inside the cafe, and hopefully to some good Frankenstein weather. Egor, the storm is at its height, the hour is nigh, connect the Jericho Horns, activate the [i]theremin[/i]! Initiate sonic assault upon the encroaching peasantry! Mwuhahahahahaaa!

omhoge - we have corroborative evidence for your theory, but not strongly so. This was a British Bank Holiday weekend, an event which also attracts bad weather.

It rained continuously from our setting off to arriving home. Tents these days are built using kite technology - lightweight flexible spars lending structure to a thin skin of nylon. It would not surprise me a bit if one could attach a string to a tent and fly it in a decent breeze. We pitched ours in a windswept field. It was mad fun!

(I just found this (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y9hH3EtfKWo) on YouTube.)

The organisers did not have any particular Plan B for if the busker could not play outside. As it turned out, they did not particularly need a Plan B as there was only one option anyway. There was a DJ playing downstairs.

So I played in the box office - fortunately it did not have protective glass, just open arches above the counter. Having negotiated the burly bouncers the audience would enter via a short corridor, passing by the box office as they turned 180 degrees to go down the stairs to the bar and main performance area. The space in the box office was the width of a bar stool. I filled it with two, one for my amp, one for my effects. My theremin occupied the entrance, just peeking over a half-height door or gate, and I stood behind it, in the cloakroom. The place was dark and dingy. I wore a black t-shirt with a white theremin logo on it and a pair of violet mirrored wraparounds.

Doing my best to be an animatronic diorama in a Museum of the Weird.

Which is how it felt.

I kind of sprang to life when the next batch of cold, wet, thirsty people came in, headed for the bar, with its warmth, seats and drinks. Trying something different each time to see if there was anything that would distract them from their goal. A few, momentarily. In the circumstances I consider that a success.

Still, it would have been nice to play outside and draw an audience.

As the show was starting my family turned up from the rather nice Italian meal that had occupied them, eager to return to the tent and play backgammon on a printed beach towel - it was an over 18 venue, so we could not stay. I packed up and slipped downstairs in time to see Sarah play the first few bars of the Donna Summer number I Feel Love. I would have liked to hear all of it, but I waited until she had found her intonation, and then I felt I could go.

Such is the life of "one of the UK's top players of this remarkable instrument". Playing in a box office for people on their way to the bar.

Sounds like you had fun.

I like when I am playing in a bar and I see the double-take, or the person who whips there head around to see what is making that crazy noise.

Or the ones who point and talk to each other. There is usually one who knows what it is and they share their knowlege and (mis)information with the others.

It sounds almost like you played in a Tardis. ;-) Glad you had a good time.

[i]one of the UK's top players[/i] - that phrase is going to haunt me, isn't it. Watch out Charlie D - I'm on your heels.

[i]good time[/i], [i]fun[/i] - probably not everyone's idea of fun or a good time, but... "When it's good make the most of it, when it's bad make the best of it."

[i]Tardis[/i] - yeah, some sort of crazy, backwards Tardis. "OMG!!! It's even [i]smaller[/i] on the inside!!!"

Here's another phrase to play with - "richly experienced."

'Voices of Experience' is on 21st June at 8pm in the Railway tavern next to Tulse Hill station, SE London.

It features poets, musicians and artists who are richly experienced, by which is meant "over 40." Apparently I qualified, and have accepted the invitation.

It's like getting the "you have won second prize in a beauty contest" card in Monopoly. A compliment with a little slap built into it.

http://www.myspace.com/heartssong

Made time to spend a half hour on the theremin.

Ha! I have felt for quite a while that any instrument with the expressive, mournful qualities of the theremin must have great comic potential.

I found a good one today. All it takes is a simple slapback delay. With the volume hand pluck a fast attack by snapping the fingers away from the side of the loop, hold it just a fraction of a second - just until the slapback comes, then slow release. Meantime hold the pitch steady until the slapback then a fast wide vibrato for the fade. And it goes:

PlongDoyoyoing

And of course the pitch can be rising or falling, making it respectively questioning or emphatic.

PlongDoyoyoing?

PlongDoyoyoing!

Works pretty well with a long delay too. Started developing a piece about going to sleep. Working title, Rusty Bedspring Blues. (Don't worry, it's not [i]The Blues[/i] - I have no idea how to do that, and little interest in learning.)

Here's a thought; a description of a theremin for synth-heads.

The theremin's sound is generated by two modules, an envelope shaper and a frequency generator/modulator. Each is controlled by a smart, variable geometry capacitor, the plates of which are called the loop or rod and the hand respectively. Both the volume and pitch hands are hardwired into a complex neural net which sequences their changes in shape and position relative to the loop and rod over time.

Hello Gordon,
Wow, i finished reading the complete thread!
Some evenings ago i started to read your "Gordon's Progress" Thread and completed reading it today... Congratulations, it's a damn good essay!

Some questions:

- I'm very interested in the Pitch to CV discussion and the modular synth system. I'd like also to buy a smaller modular system but i'm not really sure which one. Gordon did you now buy that Nord G2?

- Did you work further on the "great gig in the sky"

- What do you guys think about a Zoom G-2 effect ?

- Gordon you mentioned your various experiments with the Latte Macchiato mixer and the Dremel kind mini driller. Did you ever try other instruments for modulation of the pitch antenna field? For example electromagnetic sources ?
Did you ever try to use a pitch shifted signal of the Theremin output to drive a transducer to modulate the Theremin Antenna field ? (Maybe this is nonsens, but i could imagine with some phase shifting there could be nice beats result?? if it's feasible??)

- Did you succeed in the CV output of your etherwave ? If this works i would maybe think about buying me a eteherwave too.
This in combination with a little Phatty...

- What do you guys think about the liitle Phatty (if you have experienced it)?

Lot's of remarks and questions... sorry, don't answer if it's boring... no problem for me

BTW. Gordon, look forward to meet you brilliant experimental musician at the sonic weekend 2... the theme is exciting for me.

All the best
arthur