Pitch arm - relaxed or tense?

as funny as it sounds, practicing 'air theremin' is probably pretty helpful. it's all muscle memory...just like air guitar and running scales in your head helps practice.

but yea, i saw the person doing air theremin at the concert and i thought it was one of the funniest things i'd seen in a long time...

He looked [i]very[/i] serious as he played. Earlier, he was sitting, but the for the encore, he was right up there at the edge of the stage. The other 2 guys at the edge of the stage drooling over Pamelia cracked me up too :)

It's official - thereminists [b]can[/b] have groupies!

I find if you play with the thumb and forefinger connected in a circle-- like the traditional "okay" symbol-- then you can create tension in the hand without the whole arm being tense. I try to keep my wrist stationary in "pivot pints" but keep the arm pretty relaxed. But if you're going for the classic Hollywood 'weird menace' theremin sound popularized by Spellbound, the instrument is supposed to sound nervous.

I used to practice sitting on a stool with arm rests, and found this very helpful. I now sit on a stool without the arm rests, as it's lighter and less of a pain to transport around. I find it very hard to stay in pitch when standing.