Enfant terrible (in the best sense of the phrase)

Grégoire,

I have to echo the previous sentiment.  I think you are an extremely talented.  I could care less about production values or techniques.  You are just a young person sharing their music and joy.  I see no reason that this should bring any unsolicited criticism.  I look forward to your future videos and thank you for sharing!

The recent criticism of Greg’s theremin videos and performances reminded me of the old joke about the great violinist Fritz Kreisler and his friend Sergei Rachmaninoff, when they went to hear the Carnegie Hall debut recital of the teenaged violin prodigy, Yehudi Menuhin. Halfway through the concert, Kreisler leaned over to Rachmaninoff and said, “Sergei, isn’t it awfully hot in here?”

Rachmaninoff replied, “Not for pianists!”

The recent criticism of Greg’s theremin videos and performances reminded me of the old joke about the great violinist Fritz Kreisler and his friend Sergei Rachmaninoff, when they went to hear the Carnegie Hall debut recital of the teenaged violin prodigy, Yehudi Menuhin. Halfway through the concert, Kreisler leaned over to Rachmaninoff and said, “Sergei, isn’t it awfully hot in here?”

Rachmaninoff replied, “Not for pianists!”

Coalport--touche!

As a theremin newbie, I am no expert about who plays well, but when someone asks me, "What's a theremin", I refer them to Peter Pringle "Over the Rainbow" and to Gregoire Blanc's theremin/saw duet with himself.  One of the reasons I enjoy Gregoire's performances is that I also play the saw.

Having lived in France several years (US Air Force), I know something of the difficult study load Gregoire is carrying just now.  I hope he will have time in the future for more music--I really enjoy seeing him play.

Hi Grégoire,  

Thanks for your comments and thoughtful response.  My 'criticisms' were actually observations based on my experience with audio engineering and production, placed for the benefit of the community. As you have probably experienced, it is a very small community and people share the work of others. Although you never intended to fool anyone, you must realize that many people that watch your videos are learning about the theremin for the first time, and many are unable to understand how truly difficult it is to play with precision. Many people who are long time thereminists, beginner theremin players or casual theremin hobbyists are unable to know an edited performance from one that is not edited. This creates a divide and gives you a technological advantage that is invisible to many people.

I can't speak for the wishes of other players, but I do not want people to get the wrong idea about the level of difficulty of the theremin. I say this because it is a rare skill, and I think it should be respected because the required dedication and discipline is easily equal to the study of any other serious musical instrument.  To re-iterate for clarity, it is because of the theremin's relative youth as a musical instrument that it is best to be honest about the music we create and the performances we make, because there is a good chance that the audience will not know what it takes to actually be a skilled theremin player. It's magic to most people.

I hope you share more. Edited or not edited. In my opinion, what matters is that you are open and honest about what you have created, especially to the audience. You have demonstrated that you are willing to do that here and I thank you for that.  I don't think it is a good idea to impose a "no-editing" rule on another person if that affects his/her creative vision.   

I've lived in Europe for a short while, and I have read and heard the worst butchering of English that is possible. I've noticed there were a lot of people that were self-conscious of their language skill, and for that reason they choose to be silent rather than speaking with few words. I think your English is very good.

I wonder if you have met Charlie Draper yet. When he began playing theremin he was fairly young, also in his mid-teens. He also had very limited time with theremin because he devoted the majority of his energy to his studies. He has also done very clever things with the theremin using multi-tracking.

It's great to know you are doing the best you can within such restrictive time constraints.  I'm looking forward to seeing more of your work. It's great to finally have an exchange with you.

Cheers,

Randy

Randy wrote: Many people who are long time thereminists, beginner theremin players or casual theremin hobbyists are unable to know an edited performance from one that is not edited. This creates a divide and gives you a technological advantage that is invisible to many people.

As I see it, the name of the game is ENTERTAINMENT. The notion that the full use of all the technology that is available to us in the creation of an audio/visual work is somehow misleading unless the magic is exposed, seems to me like a rather ingenuous point of view. Would it make sense for a magician to reveal his secrets, so that his audience is no longer mystified? I mean...gee...some of the people in the audience might think the blond actually was cut in two! If this is truly the way you feel, you had better advise the music industry because it has been creating videos for more than thirty years in which every “invisible” trick in the book is used! 

As an artist, your first duty is to YOURSELF. If you feel that it is somehow incumbent upon you to show the world how difficult it is to play the theremin then by all means go that route, but I doubt many are going to follow your lead! 

Some of my favorite recording artists are TERRIBLE in concert, but live performance is a very different art form. Great film actors are often disappointing on stage - and vice versa. We live in an increasingly technological era and I think we are fully justified in using that technology in any way we want, without any need to explain it or make excuses for it. 

The late Glenn Gould, one of the finest keyboard virtuosos of the 20th century, wrote in 1984: “In an unguarded moment some months ago, I predicted that the public concert as we know it today would no longer exist a century hence, that its functions would have been entirely taken over by electronic media. It had not occurred to me that this statement represented a particularly radical pronouncement. Indeed, I regarded it almost as self-evident truth and, in any case, as defining only one of the peripheral effects occasioned by developments in the electronic age. But never has a statement of mine been so widely quoted - or so hotly disputed.”

Ironically, the vast majority of theremin videos these days actually DO demonstrate how difficult it is to play the instrument but the players themselves seem woefully unaware of it! 

Anyone who has not heard Glenn Gould's recording of Bach's Goldberg variations, needs to! He was taken far too soon away from us.

I remember in music school I was taking a course in Medieval musicology and we were talking about performance practice (which is a thorny topic in this area) and out of the blue the professor tells us all to go listen to Gould's recording. Nothing really to do with Medieval music - but everything to do with how a human being can pick a work of art and express it in a way that takes the music to a sublime place in a creative way. No one ever played Bach quite like this before (or since if you ask me). I think she was trying to say "you need to make the music sing and you should be creative in how you approach that goal".

My hope is that Grégoire [editing or no] will be able to take us all to that place with his playing.

Peter, this is not that complicated.

What I really hope for is that people take the instrument as seriously as any other when played with precision in an authentic display of skill.  I am not an artist when I write this stuff. I am just me speaking my point of view. 

If you go back to the original post of this thread, Rich said "More like enfant unbelievible!"  referring to the link of Grégoire's presentation.  I agreed that it was actually unbelievable in the literal sense.  I then continued to cite evidence in the video of why I thought it was not a believable performance. 

I don't think the name of the game is Entertainment. I see it as being Expression. How each of us perceive an artist's expression is going to be different in most cases. In this case I saw a bit more, and decided to 'out' the magician because I felt that it was not convincing for me and I somehow felt like my point of view could be useful to the community.

Grégoire is a talented guy. He made a video. He had fun making it. We all appreciated it in our own way.  Grégoire felt inspired to leave a comment. We all know each other a little better. Carry on if you like.

Randy Rote: “…..Carry on if you like.”

LOL…..You KNOW I will! 

I think it still boils down to ENTERTAINMENT. Yes, “expression” is the basic stuff, but it is the expression that either entertains, or fails to entertain. 

The word “entertain” comes from two Latin words: “inter” = among, and “tenere” = to hold. 

Fact is, very few theremin videos hold my interest for more than just a few seconds (and I include a few of my own in that!!). Greg, and your esteemed self, are two thereminists whose performances have always held my interest from beginning to end, even when you screw up! 

“Let that thereminist among you who has never screwed up cast the first stone.”  😄

All I know is that as frustrating as the theremin can be, there is no way I am bringing a musical saw into my studio near my beloved Etherwave, though I reckon no one here would shed the slightest tear if I sawed my Theremini in half :-)

Let's make some music!

Many people find there is a similarity between the musical saw and the theremin, and within a very limited scope I suppose there is. The problem is that the saw cannot go beyond those parameters while the theremin can. 

The saw is an amusing novelty because the player is making music on a tool that is actually made for something else entirely. It’s like playing a flute made from a carrot - a surprising and very entertaining feat if you can pull it off. 

It’s like the elephant ballet. What holds our interest is not the beauty of the dance, but the fact that the great beasts can do it at all!