Fred: "bias" towards the 'tangible' elevates the importance of precision...."
Fred, it is my impression from what you have written that technique (i.e. "precision") is less important for you than it is for me. Without technique, all those wonderful "intangibles" you refer to cannot be communicated.
I watched a theremin performance recently given by an excellent, professional musician who is relatively new to the instrument and was not quite ready, from the technical standpoint, to perform the composition he was playing.
He was beautifully accompanied by a small orchestra, and all the timing and phrasing were in place, and the performance certainly contained the all the elements of a sensitive, "soulful" rendition of the piece, but none of that came through because of the basic lack of precision. Fortunately, the theremin "novelty factor" prevailed and everyone was thrilled.
Years ago, I got into bit of a scuffle with British thereminist "Hypnotique" when I pointed out that a particular performance was seriously off key. Hypnotique responded by saying "That's YOUR opinion!"
Here's the interesting thing. There actually is an element of OPINION when it comes to subjective assessments of pitch accuracy. For someone who does not naturally possess a highly developed sense of pitch, the performance was brilliant. Such people are not at all disturbed by an off-key musician because they are unaware that the musician is off key.
The theremin attracts an inordinate number of these people, who are able to find a level of satisfaction with the instrument that is impossible for those with a keener sense of pitch.
A number years ago, I designed a test for the Levnet subscribers that consisted of a number of interpretations of a simple familiar melody, each one of which was slightly flat or sharp of the accompaniment. On a scale of one to ten, I asked people to listen to the recordings and gauge how far flat or sharp each performance was. I did not use a theremin because I had to control the degree of variation to the cent.
What I found was that not only did opinions about pitch vary greatly, but opinions about how much deviation was acceptable varied as well. There were those who said, "Gee, it sure sounds fine to me!" and others who said of the same selection, "It's a little bit sharp of the accompaniment, but not enough to bother me. I really liked it." Then, of course, there were those (like Charlie Draper who was about 16 at the time) who said, "I couldn't listen to this because it's about ten cents sharp and it made me feel slightly woozy!" (a "cent" is 1/100 of a semitone).
What I am saying here is that there is a highly subjective component to what is otherwise a measurable, objective level of precision.
