Gordon's Progress

There is a but of noise from the ART I use but it is not too bad to play with.

There are enough controls over the incomgin and outgoing signal to minimalize the noise in a live setting.

So far, when I have recorded with it, it has been in a live type set-up with each of us going into the board and our amps miked.

I will have to see what happens when I plug it straight into the board.

Do any of those cheap noise reducing pedals do any good? (It's my birthday next month. :-)

Kevin, that gives me an idea. Instead of summing the velocity with a pitch from a keyboard, one could sum it with the pitch of the theremin, and use that to drive a voltage controlled oscillator (one with a nice thereminish sound). What do I think that would achieve?

During a gliss, or stroke, a delay box gives ghost trails that start and end a fixed time after the start and end of the stroke.

A pitch shifter gives copies of the theremin's output at different pitches that move in parallel with the theremin, like a line of advancing soldiers.

This is more like an eager puppy - while the note hangs around in one place the puppy stays close by - set off in any direction and the puppy rushes off ahead of you, slowing down as you slow down so that by the time you are standing relatively still he is already bouncing around your feet again.

Or invert the velocity and attenuate it a bit before summing it with the theremin pitch for an echo attached by bungee, that sets off at the same time as you do, but slower, and catches up with you as you slow down to stop.

Or instead of inverting and attenuating, invert and amplify for a pitch that ends up back at your feet like a bungee delay, but initially rushes off in the opposite direction.

So there you are: to ghost trails and advancing soldiers add eager puppies, bungee delays and scaredy-cats.

Now there's something people don't say every day. :-)

Last night I saw Dorit Chrysler play, and met up with Alexander Thomas, upstairs at Spitz - a bistro/bar on the site of Old Spitalfields Market.

Dorit was playing as part of a celebration of Women Of Electronica. The sound system was not exactly performer friendly, very muddy. As Alexander pointed out to me, the music played between sets was indistinguishable from the first two acts and as a consequence the audience was very laid back about them. Then came Dorit.

Dorit has a powerful stage presence - no doubt helped by her looks, she's a statuesque lady (so no Dickens jokes!) with a bright red dress and an ePro, so even before she started she had the audience out of their seats and on the floor. And she held their attention - she spoke to them, told them the names of her pieces (and dedicated the first one to the thereminists in the audience :-) and the pure tones of the theremin (and her voice) cut through all that horrid muddiness and gave the audience something worth listening to. The music was intelligent, accessible and varied. Excellent. Backing was supplied by an iBook.

(This is a dilemma recently discussed on levnet - bands aren't really theremin friendly - many want a theremin, but mostly for a few musical effects - not enough to justify a whole thereminist. So you can loop like Pamelia and accept that your music is not so accessible to a mass audience, or take the one-man-band route like Ninki V which inevitably leads to less actual theremin playing, or play to a backing track. I think it would be interesting to see, for instance Dorit playing with Ninki - as a multi-instrumental theremin player Ninki could provide a live, theremin-friendly backing as well as second theremin and backing vocals.)

Afterwards we discussed Hands Off - with her experience of the New York Experimental Theremin Orchestra and the way she knows just about everyone worth knowing - and her infectious enthusiasm for the event - she makes an invaluable asset. There's a bit of diary checking to be done, so keep your fingers crossed and with a bit of luck I might just have an announcement to make. Let's wait and see.

One last little note. On parting I was treated to a hug and a kiss, and came away with a pair of Dorit's panties in my pocket.

OK, Buddy Craigg, you can pick yourself up off the floor now. The h&k was of the social variety, and Mrs Charlton was delighted with the knickers, which she described as an astute piece of marketing. (They have a theremin design on the front.) Dorit explained they were something for the menfolk to take home as a gift for their girlfriend. Mrs C also pointed out that if one met a man at a gig and left with him as a spur of the moment thing, at least one could be sure of having clean underwear in the morning. (The young woman at the merchandise stall gave me a rather disapproving look when I bought them, so I grinned and asked if they were my size. Oh, I'm so naughty. :-)

I just found an online transcription of an essay by William Burroughs called "The Discipline of DE (Do Easy)"

http://wikilicious.org/index.php?page=TheNow

I mention this as it is something I am very often mindful of when practicing on the theremin. I think it helps. :-)





[i](How fast can you take your time, kid?)[/i]

Another little step in Gordon's Progress happened a couple of days ago. I didn't mention it then because I had something to listen to first.

My House Resounds is now available on iTunes, as part of the compilation Electronic Bible Volume Three - a double album - chock full of more then two and a half hours of electronica, 59 seconds of which is little me.

There's some other thereminery there too. K.G.B. Theremin by Black Saint is Mrs C's favourite track. I rather like Man From Uranus's Speedworm, but he shows off his melodic theremin skills on Crashlanded, in collaboration with Agaskodo Teliverek.

There's another familiar name from these forums there too. I'm guessing he hasn't mentioned it because it's not a theremin piece, but Kevin Kissinger's P.C.T. 125 is more than worth a listen.

So go on, help me pay for the clip-frame I bought to put my contact in...

link to iTunes (http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewAlbum?id=209745183&s=143444)

:-)

I've been in a bit of a rut of late. I've been having fun with The Great Gig In The Sky, not exactly working towards recording it, just playing and being ready for that Zen archery moment when everything drops into place and the arrow's path is there in the mind's eye like a prophecy as the fingers release the string... Other than that, just doing the same old things, honing technique, passing time.

I think it's down to the Sonic Weekender. I'm not nervous about it, but there is a whiff of anticipation, a restlessness, the greasy tingling air before the lightning bolt. (And for an other, non-sonic weekender reason, but I can't talk about that yet, which only adds to it.)

So how wonderful yesterday to be served two new lines of enquiry on a plate, courtesy of the denizens of Theremin World. First up is an accidental neologism with thanks to unclechristo - a loga[i]rhythm[/i]ic scale - what a lovely term to bring to Partch's assertion that in free music there is a relationship between pitch and tempo - and an answer came to me - very obvious once said, but kind of neat - free music is not a beats per minute thing, it's octaves per second.

"So how does that work in practice, Gordon?"

Slow, slow, quick, quick, slow.

And Alexander Thomas's observation that spreading the pitch field out way beyond where I have been putting zero-beat relaxes the compression in the high notes and makes them far more playable. Yes. Soprano theremin is really nifty. And I feel like I'm hitting notes better. I imagine it is like being presented with a full-sized keyboard after learning on a fiddly little one. And it works well with the pitch shifter.

Octave Down with 100% wet, 0% dry and no feedback puts the pitch back to a more familiar range and something adds an interesting artefact - quantisation (I want to say "comb filter" but I'm not actually sure if that is what they do) - something like an air harp or a stylophone, but not quite. It is desperately lo-fi and noisy, but that's just a thing, whether it is a good thing or a bad thing depends on the music you are playing. For the Sonic Weekender I'm inclined to say good thing - there's a definite love of lo-fi at White Label Music.

Octave Up is fun too - blackboard chalk screeches and polystyrene on glass have never sounded so musical.

So, less than two weeks to go and a nice bunch of ideas drop into my lap. Sweet.

I guess the family have noticed I have a theremin.

Laura, 5, singing the dreadful "I am the music man" song.

[i] ...and I can play-ay, I play the the-re-min,
ooo-eee-ooo-eee-ooo-eee-ooo
ooo-eee-ooo
ooo-eee-ooo...[/i]

Gordon, you should write a book. "Zen and the art of theremin playing"...

Diggy, I think you may have something there. This forum could very well be the beginning of a good read. That is, if our humble narrator felt so inclined to turn it into one. It certainly wouldn't be the first time a forum posting or blog turned into a book (ie Mixerman, Riverbend).

Who knows, maybe a slim pamphlet one day, heralding an age where blind theremin masters beat their students with a Zentherstick and call them [i]Spacehopper[/i].

"Ah, Spacehopper, you have done well, but now you must face a most difficult challenge. You will play the finale of the William Tell overture with your hands tied behind your back. If you are successful in this you will be accorded the title of Clever Dick or Shodan."

In the meantime, preparations are under way for the sonic weekender. Seems there is going to be a video crew present, and there was mention of a DVD. So, just in case they want a "what is a theremin" section, I have been working out a bunch of lies.

"Yes, this is a Weirding Module, invented by Benny Gesserit as a sonic weapon intended to bewilder and disorient the enemy. It operates by generating a Kirlean field which attracts a small poltergeist and traps it between the antennae with its head resting on this loop. If I remove my hand from over its mouth like this and tickle it just here..."