Theremin as double bass

Your success at emulating an acoustic bass using a theremin will depend on who you are trying to impress.

When it first came out, I played Pamelia’s video of AUTUMN LEAVES for a professional acoustic bass player and asked him what he thought. “I think it’s really AMAZING!” he said.

“Yabbut what do you think of the bass playing?”

“You gotta be fuckin’ kidding!” was the reply - OWTTE.

Yes, kind of like the time I showed the video of the elephant playing piano to a pro pianist who found it very sloppy, said it missed a lot of notes, was off beat in a bad way and the phrasing was a mess :-) 

(not true, I just made that up of course)

Visually impressing the crowd has always been a part of musical performance, and for some acts it's the sine qua non...so who knows, maybe one of these days we'll see an art rock band with an ersatz-bass theremin player. Real bassists will wince, some people will roll their eyes but they'll have fans that eat it up. If there's room in the market for a death metal band with a parrot as its lead "singer", why not?

bendra: I guess you've not heard something I do often now or we have different ideas of what theremin pizzicato play should sound like. Pizzicato on a violin, is different than on a double bass, trumpet, clarinet or tuba. On the theremin, there are no mechanical physical assists for that particular envelope - one has to do that all by bio-mechanics which have limitations.

These are my limitations starting around 50 seconds. the first melody is to annoy my trolls and provide contrast . . .[

Somewhere Over

and this kind of pizzicato is just another tool in my musical toolkit - casually and sparingly utilized. 

The National Electrophonic  XMAS Sessions are rife with them.

To be fully uploaded within a couple of days - youtube does't care much for high volume uploads.

Now if you want me to actually play notes like that out of the context of a musical piece, I could do that, after all, my music is rather difficult for most and triggering for some.

staccato - performed with each note sharply detached or separated from the others. Compare with legato

legato - in a smooth flowing manner, without breaks between notes. Compare with staccato

pizzicato - (often as a direction) plucking the strings of a violin or other stringed instrument with one's finger.

The theremin is a legato instrument, but one can play staccato and the best of us can emulate pizzicato, albeit sans strings, wires or metallophones and drums  (see, I know more than the dictionary does).

By strict definition you cannot play pizzicato on the theremin, but one can emulate it close enough for me. All should feel free to continue emulating violins and sopranos - I got no problem with that. As a matter of fact, I have some pedals you might want to become acquainted with. . .

These are my limitations starting around 50 seconds. the first melody is to annoy my trolls and provide contrast . . .[Somewhere Overand this kind of pizzicato is just another tool in my musical toolkit - casually and sparingly utilized.

That's a very nice sound, whatever you call it. I can see how the reverse mapped volume plate allows you to do this.

Now if you want me to actually play notes like that out of the context of a musical piece, I could do that, after all, my music is rather difficult for most and triggering for some.

I wasn't going to say anything about your music, given my own glass house how could I?

Pine Needles

More pizzicato emulation. The slower one plays the more detail can be added to the decay sustain slope, as in Pamelia's bass technique, but when you play fast, there is no time for the detail. As one plays faster, pitch accuracy suffers but being able to detect pitch inaccuracy for short duration note events also suffers, evening things out.

This works even better for bass runs. 

Nice demonstration and a good sound but I want a D-Lev comparison.

Christopher

Christopher - The circuitry is not the advantage. The plate antennas enable this kind of play and the artist is the most important part of the instrument.

You cannot do this with pole antennas and you cannot do this with people who are traditional and trained musicians.

Practice, Practice, Practice and Repeat, Repeat, Repeat are things not amenable to my techniques.

Penn and Teller had a bit about Practice and Work vs. BS and Magic.

I'm with Teller. Penn decided to be with him too.

Penn can tell how many cards are in a deck simply by weighing them in his hand . . . not unlike playing the Swan on a theremin.