Progress Reports

Progress Report #2.

Well, it's been about a month since my first progress report and I think I'm starting to see a glimmer of hope for me and this wacky instrument. After the past two weeks basically practicing simple scalar pieces I wrote, most within a fifth, on a lark I took out the arrangement I wrote a week ago for theremin and strings of Elgar's Nimrod (from the Enigma Variations - one of my favorite pieces) and played in a version. This is it. This is the first shot after one practice run. No pitch correction or pitch preview used (though I kind of think you'll hear that). So a month an a half in or so this is where I stand. Added a lot more vibrato this time around to help get on pitch. Unfortunately, I ran out of distance and could not get to the high note - man I really wanted that high note!

Progress Report #2 - Nimrod

I was flabbergasted how much better my intonation was. A long, long, long way to go, but I see I'm going to be playing this thing till I die now. Sure, I'm pitch fishing a lot in there, but there are a lot of nice jumps on my own as well. I'm kind of just feeling where I have to put my hand in that ether. Surprising after playing nothing but scales within a fifth for most of the past two weeks I'm able to work my way around here in a piece that is almost totally disjunct (jumps as opposed to scalar motion).

I wonder how this would sound reworking with my recent pitch correction experiments. Think I'll use this as another test case and see how I can get it to sound. At least I can get that high climax note back in there.

I realize now, this instrument is like a fine guitar or violin. You need to let it warm up and acclimate. That instrument I'm talking about here is not the theremin - it's your EAR! The Theremin is just your voice. You need to train that voice with your ear.

Rich

Progress Report #3. Well, checking in again on progress close to the 2.5 month mark.

Definitely getting better hitting pitches though still a ways to go. I swear that the pitch preview throws me off a bit at the beginning of notes (and "off" even a little bit ain't no good with this instrument). Plus it seems to make a big difference which ear that pitch preview earbud is in (I think my left ear has more hearing loss than the right).

I thought I'd give a shot at a lower register for a change as I've been playing mostly up high. As usual, I tried a piece I probably have no business playing yet but it's just about my favorite Art Song so what the heck ("Ich Grolle Nicht" from Schumann's "Dichterliebe" - apologies to Fischer Dieskau). At least this one has an easy piano part to play. And for my money, no one ever used a circle of fifths motion to a better climax than Schumann in this piece.

My Etherwave Plus is sounding kind of like a trombone on me here through the ART Tube Pre-amp.

Ich Grolle Nicht

I have no idea where I should be at this point. But I guess the important thing is that I continue to see progress each week or two.

Rich

Rich, judging from your performance of ICH GROLLE NICHT, it would seem you have chosen to play without any identifiable vibrato. There are moments when I think I can detect a slight tremble of the pitch hand, but this is not a true vibrato, and it is not going to help you with the "trimming" process that is essential for precision theremin playing.

With the theremin, vibrato is not an option. It is part of the technique of masking the fact that we are off pitch most of the time. When we play, we listen carefully to the sound we are producing and constantly adjust our pitch. We do this by producing a gentle vibrato, similar to a classical singer, and we use it to hide the hundreds of minute adjustments we must make in the course of a performance. This is what Bob Moog called "trimming".

If you attempt to play without vibrato, or if your vibrato is so subtle as to be undetectable, your playing will inevitably be "pitchy".

Another element in your playing that I am not hearing is volume control. There are two levels of volume in your version of ICH GROLLE NICHT - loud and louder! Where are the gentle, delicate pianissimos that the theremin is so good at? This song is filled with opportunities to go to the softest, gentlest, most heartfelt sound but you are not taking advantage of this.

For someone who has been playing for less than three months, you are doing splendidly!! As you know, according to the late Clara Rockmore, this is the most difficult instrument ever invented....yes....I know, you take exception to this but you'll come around. 

Without being able to SEE you play, it is impossible to offer any advice about technique (presuming of course that you would be open to such advice in the first place). Like most beginner thereminists, I imagine you are "flyin' by the seat o' yer pants".  

"Coalport" - Thanks for the comments. I need all the help I can get. I know I need to get more vibrato in there. I am actually using it, just doesn't sound like it. Of course I'm so bent on just hitting pitches still that I know I need to pay more attention to the expressive elements more. 

I think I need to get rid of the accompaniment (or really turn it down) and just deal with the raw theremin output to hear what is going on. Part is setting things up so I can hear that theremin properly. I probably have not optimized that as well. Perhaps I need to start practicing through an amp, not through my mixer.

Also, it seems the way I have things set that I don't get a lot of volume variation much past six inches from the antenna (have to measure what that exact distance is). I may also be standing too close to the volume antenna and maybe have other studio stuff too close. I wonder if that is limiting volume on me. How much hand distance should there be between min and max volume (I realize there is likely no one answer here)?

And I know "I'll come around" real quickly once I start trying to play things that are taxing on my ear and memory!

Thanks Again.

Rich 

To those who know the Etherwave Plus- here's my volume issue. Not sure if this is me or the Etherwave Plus or if this is expected, but as I move my volume hand away from the antenna... 

1. Sound starts between 2-3 inches away from the antenna

2. I have about 3-4 inches of room from there where I get a really perceptible increase in volume, though for an inch of that it's really ppp-pp and then things get louder pretty fast. 

3. From there, a couple more inches to max volume but I'm already playing forte at this point it seems.

Is that expected? Most all the expressive dynamic shaping happens within 3-4 inches of the antenna?

Setting Volume knob all left vs. all right affects the max volume but the general linearity of the volume control itself seems to be pretty much  the same.

I tried this just using an amp outside the room where I normally play the theremin. Didn't seem too much different from in the studio connected to the mixer.

Is this the expected volume response for the Etherwave (or theremins in general)?

Maybe I'm a bit close to the volume antenna but stepping more to the right (I'm right handed) and back a bit doesn't change things that much.

Thanks

Rich

Hi Rich, 

It's always hard to know if a newcomer to the theremin is publicly posting his/her progress (which many do) in order to elicit helpful comments and suggestions from those who have already been there & done that, or if they are simply fishin' fer compliments. 

Ideally, your volume antenna should offer a SMOOTH crescendo and decrescendo from total silence to fortissimo, over a space of about six to eight inches. Some players prefer a very "snappy" start to the volume so they can play staccato. Personally, I love the theremin pianissimos and I want as much control over them as I can get. If I want to play BOOGIE WOOGIE BUGLE BOY FROM COMPANY B, I will choose a more appropriate instrument to play it on!

Since I have not seen you play, I'm not sure how you are producing vibrato but I suspect you are using some kind of "finger wiggle" or "wrist tremble" technique. If this is the case, you are not helping yourself cultivate a true vibrato. What you have (and I can hear it in ICH GROLLE NICHT) is what classical singers refer to as a "flutter". This is no help in the pitch trimming process essential to precision theremin playing. 

There is no established technique for the theremin, so no one can say (as they can with traditional instruments) that one particular method is RIGHT, while another one is WRONG. There are, however, techniques that will help you get where you want to go and others that will hinder your progress.

Self-taught beginners often come up with techniques of their own devising that seem efficient and easy at the outset, without realizing that their approach has a built-in invisible wall. I KNOW ALL ABOUT IT because I did it. 

I hit a brick wall after about four months of playing, and had to start over from scratch. 

"Coalport" - Believe me, I'm not fishing for compliments. I know what my playing should sound like and what it sounds like now. I'm not at all happy with it. It has no expression yet (though it has more when playing solo). It's not that musical. Some of this I think is also do to improper recording technique. Some due to obsession on pitch over other elements right now. Some due to learning how to play expressively on the instrument.

My main reason for keeping this log is to see how I progress so I can get some metric and try and get some constructive criticism (as you always provide so thoughtfully!). Perhaps I'll try and make little a video of my hands in motion (I have no real desire to post videos of myself playing).

Right now I'm creating vibrato by moving my whole hand. I don't wiggle fingers at all. I basically keep fingers fixed on any particular note. Now the direction of the hand relative to the antenna may be an issue as I'm playing more from volume antenna to pitch antenna on an angle than from body to pitch antenna (this may well be a major error and affect a good vibrato - I suspect that is the case and I need to start playing  more directly to the pitch antenna). The perpendicularity of hand to antenna is likely very important for an effective vibrato.

Actually when I started, I was playing horizontally between pitch and volume antenna as that let me get pitches much easier but its too limiting so I'm gradually moving that angle more and more to what I see most thereminists use. Though I definitely have a "sweet spot" that seems to work pretty well for me (but as you say that may well have to be abandoned as I come to "see the light").

I guess a video would be helpful here. Maybe a recording of just the theremin. All that accompaniment is really obscuring things.

Thanks for trying to help. I really appreciate it!!

Rich

I have posted my whole theremin journey on FB from 2011 to now... It keeps on changing :) I like to view from the early ones to now... there is a huge difference :)

A video would be much better than only an audio, at least for your own reference.

Playing your theremin laterally, from left to right across the top of the instrument's cabinet, (or in the space more or less between the loop and the rod) is not a good idea. This is very limiting and will ultimately hold you back.

French thereminist and ondiste, Claude-Samuel Lévine, plays this way because he is first and foremost an ondes martenot player, and he is playing the theremin as if he were playing the "ruban" of an ondes. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h8L2VBU3PQU

Well I really don't play horizontally at all anymore, but I do play more front to back across the theremin at an angle to the right, but not directly at the pitch antenna (I find it's much harder to play directly at the pitch antenna). I also find my arm shifting down instead of paying higher.  I'll have to see if I can somehow make a video. I have no video camera.  Maybe I can use an iPad as we're more talking what I look like than sound.

I tried really emphasizing more vibrato. 

Here's the way I would normally play the Purcell right now. Of course I likely would not want to overdo vibrato in any case with Baroque music, but I'm still using vibrato on all the longer notes here (but it really doesn't sound that pronounced as you said).

Dido's Lament as I would normally play

Here I tried really emphasizing more vibrato but at this point it kind of gets in my way a bit. I think I need to get that video done. I think I need to just create a solo theremin only version so I can better hear what's going on. It sounds so much differently when I'm playing than when I listen to the recording (part of that could be psychological).

Dido's Lament with Emphasizing Vibrato

I still have to figure out the volume. I think I have some recording issues as noted. For example when I brought these into the mastering program, one was -6 dB or so and the other -8 dB. I bumped them both up to about 0.5 dB max gain. I do notice that I get more dynamic variation when I just bump them up versus normalizing them. But I think my whole approach to recording levels and mastering here needs serious adjustment. 

Rich