2 theremins next to eachother

Fred, could the logo be a basketball for the blind?? You could hear it whenever it got close to you, and you could easily grab it by its volume antenna.

"I have another question. What would happen if I put the pitch antenna of a theremin through the loop of a volume antenna of another theremin? It is not dangerous to try?"

I have tried mutual pitch rod loop insertion. They mute each other.

" a basketball for the blind " ....

You are just getting silly now !  ;-) .. But it does give an idea about the logo... The bouy could incorporate a theremin so that, as a blind swimmer approaches it, they are guided by the sound. The flaw is that this would only work in extremely calm conditions....It might be interesting to float a theremin on a bouy, and record the sound made as the sea moves it.. Hey, the ideas just keep streaming......... ;-)

"I have tried mutual pitch rod loop insertion"

- No law against it.. Yet !   ;-)

"They mute each other".

In all probability, the increased capacitance seen by the abused antennas pushes their related oscillators operating frequencies down to an extent where (a) any pitch oscillator frequency is reduced such that the resulting difference frequency is way above hearing, and (b) any volume oscillator frequency is reduced to below the "mute" level.. It only takes one of the above for them to "mute each other"...

.... But "mute each other" does not mean that nothing is going on inside the theremins... All manner of mayhem could be occurring within the circuitry - sum and difference frequencies possibly up into the MHz... Not likely to do any damage, but it could be a bad idea to think of the instruments as "muted" or "inactive" !

But now QM and Gordon, I have a question.... What on earth is the reason for thinking about such an "experiment" let alone actually bothering to try it ?

Fred

Thinking about a theremin on the ocean, "playing" as a result of its movement / waves etc, I remembered this...

And then I found this one - which to me sounds superb:

Another perfect video finale to a Thereminworld thread!

I live on a lake that freezes over during the winter months, and every year I look forward to the phenomenon of the "singing lake". The ice on the surface is about 20 inches thick (or more) but beneath that there is an air space, a sort of bubble, between the bottom of the ice sheet and the surface of the water. As the air moves under the surface of the ice, it plays music that is reminiscent of whale song.

This winter, I walked my dogs out into the middle of the frozen ice sheet and they were fascinated by the great organ playing beneath them. They are young, so they had not heard it before.

I am not so young, but I never get tired of hearing it.

Why think of such an experiment? 

I have an overproductive innuendo gland that influences my thinking much of the time.

Why try? 

At Hands Off 2007 I tried playing two etherwaves at once, pitch with my left and right hands and volumes with my hips. The result was chaotic - as you said, all kinds of mayhem, and lots of noisy fun. :-)

When I recreated this with my Kees and my etherwave there was no chaotic interaction so I thought to put them as close as possible, with one upside-down on top of the other - thinking I might control the pitch of one and the volume of the other with one hand and vice versa with the other hand and then ring-modulate the output of one against the other to give a different sort of chaos. When nothing happened I was puzzled for a moment before it dawned on me that putting the pitch rods through the volume loops would mute them both.

"I have an overproductive innuendo gland ..... "

LOL ;-) .. Thanks Gordon!  For some reason that is one of the funniest things I have read for a long time!

;-)

"Another perfect video finale to a Thereminworld thread!" - Bisem

LOL ;-) .. The irony is that I am not into videos at all - but its getting so that one cannot find music on-line without some acompanying video.. A real waste of bandwidth IMO - I often have a you-tube stream running in the background with the page minimized down in the task bar while I work - all that video data is just being wasted.

I have, however, just discovered some really good internet "radio" stations playing music much to my taste.. But for TW I have no choice but to use you-tube.

"The result was chaotic - as you said, all kinds of mayhem, and lots of noisy fun. :-)" - Gordon

I have just been listening to your album again, and your one song/poem just must be repeated here:

"My house resounds with howls and screams
from nightmares filled with gruesome scenes
and ghastly shrieks, unearthly moans
that freeze the blood and chill the bones.

Did I dance naked under Satan's spell,
commune with things from deepest hell?
That would explain the banshee wail;
I called forth demons, bid them "Hail,
and welcome, fiends, please, enter in..."

No, I just bought a theremin."

- Gordon Charlton.

Back in 1996, an event was organized in New York City to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the birth of theremin inventor, Lev Termen. People came from all over and brought their theremins with them to participate in the general cacophony. What owners of Etherwave theremins discovered to their dismay when they set up their instruments near RCA's, is that the presence of an RCA once it was turned on, muted all the other theremins around it. 

You can't play an Etherwave anywhere near an RCA because you will get no sound from your instrument. 

So much for 2 theremins next to each other!

Thanks for all the replies! Now I asked myself 3 different questions, probably not worthy to open a new topic for them so I'll just ask them here...

1)) I was walking around the house when I saw a standard radio in the kitchen. Is it possible to mount the antenna of this radio on a theremin? I assume it will change the pitch, because the electric field around it will also change due to the different diameter of the antenna. My question is: these antennas are smaller at the top than they are at the bottom. does this have an effect to the shape of the electric field around it, or not?

2)) My second question is: can I connect the antenna with a copper wire to a metal birdcage, and then play the birdcage? Would it harm a bird inside the cage? I guess it will require different pitch-settings...

3)) My third question is: if I touch the theremin, sometimes it makes no sound, sometimes it does. I thought it did not make sound when I was not grounded (standing on thick rubber doormat). What I saw was that me or my friend touching the theremin had the same effect: there came no sound. When i touched the theremin and my friend touched me, than it DID make sound. Is that so because of the change of capacitance when my friend suddenly 'joins' the electricity?

Thanks for your replies. These things make the theremin a very interesting instrument for some experiments!