The Bothersome Man

Cool film, small but important theremin audio near the crux.

Gene

Gene you are very creative audibly and visually. Hope you hang around a while as you have something special to share.

Christopher

The theremin parts in the Norwegian film, THE BOTHERSOME MAN, were played by our very own Howard "Uncle Howie" Mossman, and lifted without his permission from a theremin website archive (I can't remember which site, possibly TW). 

I saw the film on the pay TV channel several years ago, recognized the sound of an RCA theremin, and wanting to know who it was I posted a clip of the performance taken directly from the movie soundtrack. Uncle Howie identified it immediately as his own, and to make a long story short, the producers of the film were advised that the theremin recording (an original theme by Uncle Howie) was used without authorization and that legal action for copyright infringement was imminent.

An out of court settlement was quickly reached for the sum of several thousand dollars.

Christopher:  Thank you!  Very nice words to hear, indeed!

Coalport:  Thanks for the info.  It is maddening and saddening to hear that.  I find the unauthorized use of media of any type reprehensible, especially since it is usually not that hard to either acquire the necessary permissions or to create one's own (media) for whatever project.  Nice to hear a settlement was reached!

"...and lifted without his permission from a theremin website archive (I can't remember which site, possibly TW)." - coalport

Most likely Thereminvox.com

http://www.thereminvox.com/filemanager/list/18/index.html

Uncle Howie played the BOTHERSOME MAN theremin theme on the RCA theremin that we believe was once the property of the late conductor, Leopold Stokowski. He affectionately calls the instrument "Stokie"!

Gene -

I really liked your film (you had trouble keeping a serious face at times - dont know how you managed to.. LOL ;-) and combining steel tongue drum with theremin is something I wanted to try after I first saw the Hang being played - Peter gave me a link to a site re making a tongue drum, and I hope to do this, perhaps this year..

Also, I loved your other film - both the music and visuals.. Alaska is one place I have always wanted to visit.

Thanks for sharing these wonderful pieces!

Fred.

Gene,

I liked the theremin and tongue drum piece too. May I ask what effects were applied to your B3?

Fred wrote: Peter gave me a link to a site re making a tongue drum, and I hope to do this, perhaps this year..

Gene plays a Kaizen tongue drum in his video, which is an excellent instrument at a fraction (and I mean a FRACTION) of the cost of a genuine Hang drum. You can buy a tongue drum on eBay for around $350.00  and there are many makes to choose from. Unless you have the time, the necessary power tools, and the proper workspace for the job, I would recommend not attempting to make your own propane tank tongue drum.

Don't try doing it on your knees with a hack saw in the living room of your modest flat in Budleigh Salterton!

There was an advantage to doing it yourself when tongue drums were rare, and of course you could tune your drum to any musical "mode" you wanted, but now there is a wide variety of makers and tunings to choose from. There are even double-sided drums with a different tuning on each side. Doing it yourself and ending up with a drum that is very obviously an upside down propane tank is perhaps a less attractive alternative than it was ten years ago.

Thanks fot that advice Peter.. I have been browsing some of the tongue drums available (the cheapest I found is the UK made "Dragon" brand at £95 - But its real difficult to know how good any of them are until one has played it - some of the you-tube videos of the under £300 drums are far from inspiring... But then, if one chose a theremin based on you-tube.....

There is something about making your own instrument though - even if its not as "good" as what one could buy, the act of constructing and tuning it gives an "intimacy" which is hard to beat - I have made "junk" instruments which only I can play, and which I love.

I was (am) exploring making a tongue drum by using a couple of steel woks - Alas, there finding a good range of woks to test isnt easy - but I have found a couple which seem to have almost the right sort of resonance when struck (quite funny the reactions of store staff when I wandered through the pots, pans and woks section of the store with a mallet, testing things I found).. But nothing yet which is as good as I am hoping for - its a bit like looking for musical Rocks in Cumbrian hills.. Perhaps I need a holiday in China! ;-)

My thinking is that the thinner (compared to a propane tank) metal should make a drum which is easier to strike.. I am hoping to find a couple of really good woks and etch the tounges (using PCB techniques) rather than cutting them.

But the above is just entirely hobby level - I may get no further than looking at woks ;-)

My youngest daughter loves the videos of the hang - she wants one badly.. This is more of a motivation to me than any other.. I am thinking in terms of having a small rechargable battery powered amplifier and transducers inside the drum, so its sound is amplified within the resonator to make playing easier, and fitting a small socket so the battery can be charged (possibly also an audio output socket).

Fred.