Theremin and jazz?

jo, you must also remember that when you want once play bm, you have to redesign your theremin by adding of some bat wings and evil long thorns on it and this also will take some while :-)

It will need more than that!  I believe a black metal bands theremin must have the inductors wound around the former vocalists bone fragments.  This can require a lot of time for calculating turns ratios, winding, finding someones unkle to borrow a z-meter from, testing in circuit, unwinding, and trying again until the Theremin has a truly blasphemous voice.

I love that metal population density map!

Maybe I'll build my Theremax in a baby coffin and drive some nails out from the inside and wrap it in machine gun bandoliers then.

jo wrote: .....I think I've heard Thomas Grillo say to take about a year before you expose yourself to the public, but I do feel like I'm making progress pretty fast, so we'll see.

I have lost count of how many times I have heard people say that they are really making progress on the theremin, only to be genuinely astonished at how deluded they are when they actually go public.

Performing before you are truly ready (as opposed to when you THINK you are ready) can invite a negative response from listeners that is like having a bucket of ice cold water thrown in your artistic face. I have seen people who have been so disheartened and discouraged by this that they have abandoned the dream altogether.

My advice to anyone in your situation is to contact a thereminist whose playing you admire and ask them if they will give you an honest PRIVATE appraisal of your work before posting your performances to any public access websites.

Do not trust yourself to be objective and do not trust mom, dad, or anyone with whom you are having any sort of intimate relationship either.

My advice to anyone in your situation is to contact a thereminist whose playing you admire and ask them if they will give you an honest PRIVATE appraisal of your work before posting your performances to any public access websites.

Do not trust yourself to be objective and do not trust mom, dad, or anyone with whom you are having any sort of intimate relationship either.

Advice taken and filed away in case I need it. But I've been performing in public with various instruments and styles for almost twenty years, and I've gotten reviews ranging from absolutely terrible to shining depending on what I was doing, how well I was doing it, and in front of whom.  I'm not too worried about being completely discouraged if I get some harsh criticism if and when I decide to show something to the general public for evaluation purposes.

There ARE some people who are instant naturals with the theremin - I would not have believed it if I had not seen it myself -

At the South Bank Centre in 2010, I must have seen 500+ noobs playing my (pitch only) theremins for the first time - when it was busy, it was impossible to deal with or evaluate how people were doing.. but when there were no people waiting for their turn to play, I gave basic instruction to those who were interested.

Of those who were really interested (several of whom returned daily) there were many who believed they could play, some who brought their friends a few days later to show off, but who were awful.

There were quite a number (mainly visiting musicians for other shows at the RFH, who passed through the theremin display and had a go) who were reasonable and quite good, despite it being their first attempt.

But there was one man who walked in one day when it was quiet (Clara was playing Hebrew Melody on the background video) who took my breath away - he played along on his chosen theremin, and played astoundingly, managing to get the vibrato and intonations just right - he was limited by the fact that these instruments never had volume antennas, only beyond-null-point active muting, but his performance was magnificent.. He then went on to play numbers of other tunes perfectly.

I assumed he had been playing theremins for years, but when discussing it with him, discovered that he had only been playing theremins for a few days - his first encounter had been on one of my theremins a few days earlier.. He had visited each of my 16 theremins, and picked one whose response and sound (each theremin had been adjusted to give different timbres) suited him best, and come back daily to play it.

I have never heard anyone play the pitch so perfectly, I thought he had a destiny as the worlds greatest thereminist, I offered to build him a theremin based on the one he liked, in exchange for a few demo videos, I bought him a drink  - I told him how great I thought he was... He just looked at me and said something like "I can play any instrument I touch, its no big deal" and that he was traveling the world and had no interest in focussing on anything.

So yes - There are lots of people who think they can play but need to do a lot of work before they really can play..

But there are some people (at least one!) who can play, after a couple of days, as well as anyone I have ever heard.

Great story Fred.  I wouldn't say I'm picking it up quite that fast, but it does feel pretty natural to me as long as I can manage to hold still and not breathe too much.  I am kind of one of those people who can pick up an instrument for the first time and have it figured out pretty well in a week or two usually without too much help, and I have a good enough ear to tell whether my pitches are on or not.  But I'm trying not to get too arrogant about tackling the theremin, staying as objective and self-critical as possible. 

After three days, I can roughly pick out a tune with some fumbling, play scales and arpeggios with some occasional overshooting, etc.  I can play a note on the piano, play a song in that key, and play the note again to verify that I haven't drifted off key with mostly success. 

Obviously I haven't developed muscle memory sufficiently in three days to have nice, crisp pitch changes or make wide jumps without a fair amount of fishing, so I guess those are some of the things that just require drilling, drilling, and more drilling. Also my back and lungs tire out faster than I'd like them to.

Sorry I keep writing walls of text.  This is an awesome new experience for me that I've wanted to try for a long time now, so I'm pretty excited about it.

In an interview several years ago, concert violinist Itzhak Perlman was discussing the relative difficulty of various musical instruments. He said that the degree of difficulty of any instrument can be judged by how long it takes a complete newcomer to learn how to play a simple melody accurately and consistently.

Keyboards are the easiest instruments. Violins, cellos & trombones are among the most difficult. Clara Rockmore once said, "The theremin is the most difficult of all musical instruments. It is much harder than the violin which I played for years."

Precision theremin performances are usually regarded as positively triumphant if the thereminist manages to get through the piece without going significantly off key. What is taken for granted on traditional instruments is considered a major accomplishment on the theremin. Part of this is because the theremin community consists almost entirely of hobbyists and amateurs (as opposed to full time professional musicians).

This morning I watched the video that is on the front page of Theremin World, introducing the new "ThereMy" instrument with built-in FX being manufactured in Brazil. What struck me instantly was that the person demonstrating the ThereMy doesn't know how to play it. The description reads, "Unfortunately, the performer in the videos really only plays the pitch antenna but we can imagine how the volume loop would work in conjunction with it."

If someone were introducing a new make of harp, oboe, or bassoon (or any other traditional instrument) I can't imagine them using someone who can't play for their first public presentation. It doesn't make sense, and it is the kind of thing that the communities of players surrounding traditional instruments would not tolerate, but we see it in the world of the theremin all the time. 

The emperor may be naked but we can use our imaginations.

This may be the heart of the problem. Could it be that because we are a community of amateurs and hobbyists with a great love of music but little or no formal training or professional experience in it, we use our imaginations instead of our ears?

Could this be why we, who are least equipped, seem so willing to take on the most difficult musical instrument ever devised?

"He said that the degree of difficulty of any instrument can be judged by how long it takes a complete newcomer to learn how to play a simple melody accurately and consistently"

For me then, the guitar is the most difficult instrument! (or any instrument where one needs to squeeze a fretboard!)

By comparison, the theremin is a doddle! ;-)

On the scale of 1 to 10, the guitar (and other fretboard instruments) is probably somewhere around a 5. It is a "complete instrument" which means that it can play melody, harmony and rhythm. It is ideal for accompanying the voice and, unlike the piano, you can take it with you to the park.

So, the theremin is a "doddle" by comparison is it?

Ever since the instrument was invented there have been those who have confidently made this claim, and RCA stated in its brochures that it is as easy to play as humming or whistling a tune.