AETHERPHON, global theremin family

Hello everyone,

Thank you, David, for initiating this.

My name is dorit chrylser, I was born in graz, austria and have been living in
nyc for the last 15 years, there I came across a theremin in 1998. As a child,
I received classical voice training, sang at the opera and later studied
musicology. When I first came to ny I played in a rock band called
"halcion".Over the last few years I've incorporated the theremin into my
compositions and I have been making a living as an active thereminist for the
last few years, playing 13 countries this year alone. Last year I founded the
New York Theremin Society and now I am wondering, why it did not happen
earlier, for it has proven to be such a wonderful experience for all of us
Theremin players and enthusiasts to gather and exchange, play & discuss. As
most of you know, a documentary film about the new york theremin society is
currently in the works, but more importantly, people are drawn and inspired.

To me it is important to not only rip the instrument out of obscurity and give
it its well deserved status amongst other well established classical
instruments, to further explore its sonic and dynamic possibilities, but to
also incorporate it in contemporary electronic pop music. Much to my surprise,
I was invited to play at the roskilde festival this year, it is europe's
biggest
festival with bob Dylan being the headliner, and I think it is incredible that a
theremin as a main instrument will be preside on a stage on a saturday evening.
Having said that, as a player I certainly still have a long way to go, but the
growing process has been worth all the effort.

When finding a quiet moment, I plan to also found the European Theremin Verein,
so there can be yet another Theremin Platform on this side of the atlantic.

If I remain more of a silent participant of this group, it is because email is
not always within my reach.

yours truly,
dorit

www.doritchrysler.com/ThereminSociety.html/

Well, I guess i'm the "technical guy".  An ee by trade, I play an etherwave well enough not to alarm the cat much.

My interest is technical, working on understanding the interactions between the pitch "antenna" and the rest of the circuit.  I'm finding it rather like a Tesla coil, in that there's a lot more to understand than you'd think.

 A somewhat delayed project of mine, is to plot pitch/distance curves for various tuning settings and antenna circuit values, looking for that "sweet spot" where the pitch curve flattens out and makes play much easier.  I've hit this a couple of times in experimenting, but don't have the relationships worked out to fully understand it yet.

On Mon, 15 May 2006 doritch@... wrote:

>...
> I was invited to play at the roskilde festival this year, it is europe's 
> biggest festival with bob Dylan being the headliner, and I think it is 
> incredible that a theremin as a main instrument will be preside on a 
> stage on a saturday evening.

Congratulations!  That sounds exciting.  I see from the site, 
http://www.roskilde-festival.dk/index.php?code=1 (that's the English 
version) that it is June 29th to July 2nd.  I'll be watching at 
thereminworld and around for news.  May all go well!

I haven't seen the Theremin Society in action, but I very much like 
knowing it exists.  :)  Best wishes for European Theremin Verein.

Ann

Hi everyone,

I introduced myself earlier by saying why I was glad for the new list, but
said nothing about me. Since we're introducing, here goes...

As a composer involved in traditional music as well as the old avant-garde
and electronic forms, I've been writing for theremin-like and other
electronic sounds since 1969. My own theremin is an Etherwave kit with no
modifications, and last fall my European tour of pieces for extended voice,
percussion and electronics also included the theremin.

So my reason for being here is to meet other composers and exchange ideas
for new ways of using the theremin outside its use as a traditional melody
instrument.

I'm 57, live in Vermont, and have several projects going.

Here's my homepage...
  http://maltedmedia.com/bathory/
...my completely nightmarish project for 2007...
  http://maltedmedia.com/waam/
...my vampire opera-in-progress...
  http://bathory.org/
...and my former K&D show that Ann Cantelow mentioned...
  http://kalvos.org/

Glad to see many familiar 'faces' here!

Dennis











-- 

Please participate in my latest project:
http://maltedmedia.com/waam/

doritch@... wrote:

 > To me it is important to not only rip
 > the instrument out of obscurity and give
 > it its well deserved status amongst other
 > well established classical
 > instruments, to further explore its sonic
 > and dynamic possibilities, but to
 > also incorporate it in contemporary electronic pop music.

Watch this space for further developments. ;-)

In the mean time, I can point you at a couple of electronic groups I 
have encountered that use theremin prominently.  There is Seksu Roba, 
whose leader Sukho (Kevin) Lee used to be the thereminist for the LA 
surf punk band The MiGs, now does very electronic, somewhat funky 
synthpop.  Their album "Pleasure Vibrations" is recommended.

I would also recommend "SunQ" from IQU, which is less thorough-going 
dance music but still completely electronic and features Kento Oiwa on 
theremin.  Chris Accornero is a young man I have on my Spellbound show 
who does electronic music with theremin as well.


 > Much to my surprise, I was invited to play at
 > the roskilde festival this year, it is europe's
 > biggest festival with bob Dylan being the headliner,
 > and I think it is incredible that a
 > theremin as a main instrument will be preside on
 > a stage on a saturday evening.
 > Having said that, as a player I certainly still
 > have a long way to go, but the
 > growing process has been worth all the effort.

Too bad I'm on this side of the pond.  Bribe the soundboard guy for me 
and get a recording, eh? :-)


-----
DAVID VESEL -- synthetic music for humans
http://davidv.purplenote.com
porphyrous@...
-----
The Purple Note Radio Network:
Escape From Noise, vocal electronica, 10PM Sats http://efn.purplenote.com
Spellbound, music for theremin, 11PM Suns http://spellbound.purplenote.com
-----

> 
> When finding a quiet moment, I plan to also found the European Theremin Verein,
> so there can be yet another Theremin Platform on this side of the atlantic.
> 
> If I remain more of a silent participant of this group, it is because email is
> not always within my reach.
> 
> yours truly,
> dorit
> 
> www.doritchrysler.com/ThereminSociety.html/
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> SPELLBOUND-L, the glocal thereminist community
> 
> To contact the moderator, e-mail porphyrous@...
> 
> 
>  
> Yahoo! Groups Links
> 
> 
> 
>  
> 
> 
> 
>

David Vanhorn wrote:
 >
 >
 > Well, I guess i'm the "technical guy".  An ee by trade, I play an
 > etherwave well enough not to alarm the cat much.

That's fine.  I'm still in the "alarming cats" stage myself. :-)

 > My interest is technical, working on understanding the interactions
 > between the pitch "antenna" and the rest of the circuit.  I'm finding
 > it rather like a Tesla coil, in that there's a lot more to understand
 > than you'd think.
 >
 >  A somewhat delayed project of mine, is to plot pitch/distance curves
 > for various tuning settings and antenna circuit values, looking for
 > that "sweet spot" where the pitch curve flattens out and makes play
 > much easier.  I've hit this a couple of times in experimenting, but
 > don't have the relationships worked out to fully understand it yet.

I think it would be very interesting to see a 3D plot of the capacitance 
field of the theremin, with those tuning setting superimposed on it.  I 
envision the field to be like a big cylinder, but I would assume the 
field is rounded on both ends?  Or is fatter around?


-----
DAVID VESEL -- synthetic music for humans
http://davidv.purplenote.com
porphyrous@...
-----
The Purple Note Radio Network:
Escape From Noise, vocal electronica, 10PM Sats http://efn.purplenote.com
Spellbound, music for theremin, 11PM Suns http://spellbound.purplenote.com
-----

> 
> 
> 
> SPELLBOUND-L, the glocal thereminist community
> 
> To contact the moderator, e-mail porphyrous@...
> 
> 
>  
> Yahoo! Groups Links
> 
> 
> 
>  
> 
> 
> 
> 
>

I had a theremin about a year ago, and it was very frustrating.  I
have a good ear for pitch, and even after a month of trying to play a
theremin, I could not play anything very well.  I finally put an
electronic tuner on the instrument, and found that, even after hours
of warm up, it would drift maybe 3-4 half-steps during a 3-minute
song.  Fortunately, I was able to return it.  I'll probably try again
someday, so I keep subscribed to the various theremin forums.  


I'm not an ee like David, but I did manage to build lots of tube and
transistor radios and transmitters (most of them illegal) when I was a
kid on the farm, during the Johnson Administration, so I like the
combination of circuits and music, too.  



Jay

>I think it would be very interesting to see a 3D plot of the capacitance 
   >field of the theremin, with those tuning setting superimposed on it.

That would be a big project.  Lots of data points to collect, and rather difficult.

The first thing, is to discard the idea that the "antennas" are acting as antennas.  They are capacitor plates. At these low frequencies they aren't anywhere near long enough, and the fact that diameter is as important as length confirms this.  

  I 
   >envision the field to be like a big cylinder, but I would assume the 
   >field is rounded on both ends?  Or is fatter around?
   >

Take a sphere, and stretch it a bit, and that's roughly right.