AETHERPHON, global theremin family

On 15 May 2006, at 01:51, David V wrote:

> For those of you interested in unusual treatments of the theremin,
[...]
> processed so that it sounds to me almost like a trumpet
[...]
> rock-solid drones without vibrato

I'm interested in unusual treatments and playing styles, and would  
love to hear about any and all offbeat ideas!


(The rest of this post is a summary of a few of my own ideas. If  
you're daft enough to have been following Gordon's Progress over on  
TW there's no need to read on...)

Seems to me the unique selling point of the theremin is that it  
glisses brilliantly, and the major disadvantage is that it is tricky  
to play precise notes. So I am trying to develop techniques that  
focus on it's strength - movement - rather than on position relative  
to the pitch antenna.

In short, a  form of precision playing that is the exact opposite of  
aerial fingering, which is a technique for playing precise notes and  
minimising glisses, and focusses solely on the distance of the pitch  
hand and fingers from the antenna.

My first thought was to use horizontal as well as vertical movements  
to precisely control the velocity and acceleration of pitch hand  
motion by the application of a little geometry.

Here is a very trivial example. The pitch of a police siren varies  
sinusoidally (at least UK sirens do.) By drawing a circle at a  
constant speed with the pitch hand the horizontal component varies in  
the same manner - sinusoidally, yielding a very passable imitation of  
a police siren.

My second thought was that I already do something that involves  
precise control of the moving hand, namely handwriting. So I  
experimented for a time with holding a pen whilst playing. This  
encourages a different style of playing.

One development from that was the idea of drawing not just circles,  
but the continued loops and swirls that children practise (or did  
when I was young) as a precursor to learning to write. This, coupled  
with controlling the volume in rhythm with the loops, can yield, for  
instance, an evenly spaced, ascending sequence of short, overlapping,  
descending glisses. Or a descending sequence of alternating short  
ascending and descending glisses. And so on.

The other development was from the idea of holding something whilst  
playing. My idea was to use a hand-held electrical device that could  
produce a vibrato faster than I could manage by hand. I tried various  
things (yes, including the device you just thought of) that produced  
at best a very slight fattening of the tone. Recently I found that a  
"coffee-frother" (picture here - http://fantes.com/images/ 
8120milk_frothers.jpg ) with a length of wire tangled into the whisk  
and sticking out like a propellor blade gives a very pleasing tremolo  
which does not alter the tone of the instrument at all, unlike my  
(admittedly limited) experiences with vibrato stomp boxes. The amount  
of tremolo can be varied by pushing it forwards and backwards in the  
field, so that either the propellor or the hand is closer to the  
pitch antenna. I am currently looking for a similar device with  
variable rotation speed.

(If you happen to have, or see, a cordless, penholder hobby drill  
with variable speed that includes 1000 rpm (estimated speed of the  
coffee-frother) please could you let me know the make and model.  
Thank you.)

I do not currently have any sound clips to illustrate these ideas,  
but am working (very slowly!) on a piece which will incorporate them.  
I'll let you know when it is finished.


Gordon