Obsessive Compulsive Sound Tweaking

Coalport, you just did a great impression of my late, great-aunt who lived in NY. :)

It's interesting to note what the theremin scene was like back then. I agree with you. But I do wonder what such an event would sound like today, or 20 years into the future, now that more people are at least starting to learn the instrument using the resources currently available, as well as learning their limitations regarding the theremin.

Coalport wrote:

[i]"...when it comes to the theremin, people can be thoroughly entertained without being musically uplifted in any way."[/i]

This is true with ALL entertainment. Most entertainment is designed to tittilate, amuse, humor, or otherwise distract. Little art is created -- or tolerated -- that attempts to uplift.

To say that the theremin may be nothing more than novel entertainment is to say it is as good as just about everything else that passes as entertainment.

The premise of "Joe Theremin" -- that a person has a capacity for self-delusion -- is not limited to thereminists.

When playing the theremin, people can often get away with things that would never be tolerated from a musician on a traditional instrument: shoddy playing, poor musicianship and sometimes laughably bad pitch. These things would be unacceptable from a serious violinist or singer. It is often tolerated from thereminists because the mystery of "space control" is so beguiling.

I don't think this is such a bad thing. It just seems to be a fact of life with the theremin, and it has been since the instrument was introduced in the 1920's.

Yes, the capacity of human beings to delude themselves seems to know no bounds, but with the theremin the delusion can sometimes be supported by the "novelty effect", and the thereminist can mistake general curiosity about the instrument for appreciation of his or her imagined musical genius. I have seen it many times and have experienced it personally.

I just think that, as thereminists, we need to be aware of this. I have found in the past that those who don't know what the hell I'm even talking about, are often the perfect examples of what I am trying to point to. Of course, this is all my own perspective and, as the old internet acronym goes, WTFDIK!