How much music theory is necessary to learn the theremin?

[i]"It's all very well to tell a beginner whose playing you have never heard to adjust to the correct pitch, but there is an assumption that the person in question is able to recognize the correct pitch in the first place."[/i]

I agree with you, Coalport. My comments were written with Lexiboo in mind -- who already plays the violin and, as such, is written with the notion that a violinist has a good sense of pitch.

[i]"Do you have a piece of music playing in your musical imagination every waking hour?"[/i]

Sorry, but I strongly doubt that any person could have "music playing in your musical imagination every waking hour".. Most people have times when absolute concentration on something non-musical is required - When "foreground" neurological activity demands the shutting down of all non-essential processes.

Neurology is advancing more rapidly at this time than perhaps any other science - we are actually able to see how brain activity gets steered to specialist centres.. It has also recently been shown that a huge distributed mass of neurones are active ALMOST all the time, but become inactive when the subject must focus intently on a specific task, or when the subject must cope with a crisis requiring rapid complex decisions.

If the statement was [i] "music playing in your musical imagination every waking LEISURE hour?"[/i] I might agree that this was possible.

Fred, I think you might enjoy Dr Oliver Sacks's book, Musicophilia.

[i]"It really is a very odd business, that all of us, to varying degrees, have music in our heads."[/i]

(Review (http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2007/nov/03/scienceandnature.music), mentioning a few interesting examples - apparently shrapnel in the brain helps, or massive amounts of amphetamine or being struck by lightning.)

That looks like a really interesting book, Gordon - I must get it.

I have had several musical "hallucinations" without the aid of schrapnel or drugs.. but perhaps brought on by extremely low blood sugar (I am insulin dependent diabetic, so can get lower blood sugars than 'normal' people) - I literally hear wonderful orchestral compositions being played.. and can mentally improvise in these, and hear the improvisations.. These "hallucinations" can continue even after I have eaten enough to bring my blood sugar back to normal - But they terminate as soon as I try to 'capture' some of the music by playing the keyboards and recording it, or even if I try hum to record the melodies.. The strangest thing is that, 10 minutes after the music stops, I cannot recall any detail of what I have heard - but I can easily recall most music I hear - even if I only hear it once... loss of short-term memory is one of the known effects of hypoglycaemea - but usually only occurs of one has a siezure as a result of low blood sugar.

I suppose my reason for posting what I did is that I cannot buy into any set of "conditions" which must be "met" for a person to "verify" that they have "music in their soul".. Give me a definition of music, give me a definition of soul, and give me an empirical set of rational justifications for the hypothesis, and I will explore the matter if it interests me - Make a statement with undefined parameters and conditions which are unexplained and unverifiable, and it becomes too close to religeous dogma for my liking.

Fred,

At any given time there is a tune playing in my head and it sounds like a record or CD player. If you asked me at any given time I could identify the music and the specific recording.

It is always there... even when I'm focused on something non-musical. It is as if my brain supplies background music for my life.

I'm not saying this because I think that this is some kind of claim to musicianship -- I'm just saying that that's the way it is for me -- for better or worse.

Sometimes the tune playing in my head is the same few measures over and over -- it can be frustrating at times.

Kevin,

Thanks for disclosing that.. I find it astounding, and, quite honestly, cannot relate to your expierience.. but I believe you.

Presumably, when you are creating / performing / composing a piece of music, this music "turns off" your inner "background" music? I cannot imagine trying to play / improvise / compose music with some other piece of music 'playing' in my head.. !?

I think a continuous background would drive me nuts! - I get great pleasure from going to quiet places.. and my most vivid "inner music" (other than when there is a possible biochemical cause) is heard or created in my head when I am in quiet places.. My most enjoyable musical expieriences occur each morning when I go outside as the dawn chorus starts - I hear the chorus as music [this first happened to me about 25 years ago, in Cornwall - I had smoked an excessive quantity of mind bending grass, and drunk a bottle of fermented honey - I was in a tent, and the dawn chorus woke me up .. I thought my musical 'understanding' of the chorus was a hallucination which would pass away - but it stayed with me from that moment on], and my brain adds improvisations which I can also hear as clearly as the birdsong.. Sometimes this extends to the time when human generated sounds (cars starting up etc) start to increase - and these sounds become part of the music.. but when the 'noise' increases, and the birdsong fades, the music from my brain gets softer until I can no longer hear it.. The music I hear is not as rich as what I have heard when I have had a hypoglycaemic episode, but it is still 'via the ears' - and it shares the annoying feature that I cannot remember the composition minutes after it has ended.

The thing which most facinates me is actually hearing the music - For me, there are two distinct modes of 'head' music - in one 'mode' I can 'imagine' music and sounds, and it is a bit like 'hearing' this music / sounds, but weaker, and not via my ears, so to speak - In this'mode' I have absolute control over the music / sounds, but they are limited to only a few 'parts' - probably something like a total of 8 note polyphony with perhaps a maximum of 3 voices..

The other 'mode' however is, as far as I can tell, unlimited - it is sometimes incredibly complex, and can contain every instrument I have ever heard, and often sounds I have never heard and have absolutely no way of describing or duplicating.. I have little control over the sounds or compositions, and am usually limited to adding monophonic improvisations to the composition.

I have often wondered whether, in this mode, there is actually a neurological signal which could be directly tapped, so that I could get this stuff into a recording device - it feels like my ears are hearing it.. are there, in fact, signals at the auditory nerves (or a neurone cluster close to these) corresponding to what I am hearing?

Alas, this thread has been hijacked - and I am probably the main culprit.. So I will shut up! I may start a thread on this topic after I have read the book Gordon reccomends.

Like Kevin, I always have music in my head, like a constant soundtrack. Sometimes, it's something I know, or a really bad case of "earworm". Other times, it's an never ending bit of improvisation
I can't even sleep without talk radio or a TV running in the background, or I can't sleep analyzing the music in my head.

Andy

I've been playing for over a month, am now I am finally starting to see it pay off. I have been working hard on intonation, and I've found this advice from Ms. Rockmore to be invaluable:

[i]"Alaways aim not only for the desired note, but the very center of the note."[/i]

I am still very much a beginner, but this is probably the most important thing I have learned so far. While it can be tempting to slide up and down to find a note, I have been trying to avoid this. It sounds like real music when you hit the note perfectly!

It is also important to know [b]what[/b] you are trying to play. With the violin, I could get away with sight-reading everything instead of really knowing the music. But with theremin, I have been trying to internalize the music first and then playing by ear.

I do admit I have been neglecting my left hand. Does anyone have any advice for volume technique?

kkissinger wrote:

At any given time there is a tune playing in my head ....... It is always there... even when I'm focused on something non-musical. .........
I'm not saying this because I think that this is some kind of claim to musicianship -- I'm just saying that that's the way it is for me ........

***********************

Kevin, that is EXACTLY what it is like for me. It is continual and often annoyingly repetitive. Sometimes I am obliged to "re-program" whatever is going on in my head by consciously focusing my musical imagination on some piece of music other than what is automatically looping in my mind. If I keep doing that, the old loop will be replaced by the new one but SOMETHING is always playing!

Currently, the piece playing in my head is a melody from Gluck's opera ORFEO ED EURIDICE which I plan on turning into a theremin video sometime in the next few days.

Maybe then it will GO AWAY! (LOL)