When Portishead released their debut album Dummy in 1994, their melancholic style resonated with the mood of the time. The opening track, Mysterons , featured a distinctive, eerie sound. Some listeners may have noticed its similarity to one that appeared in popular sci-fi and pulp horror films of the 1940s-50s, in live performances of Led Zeppelin’s A Whole Lotta Love and No Quarter or on Aerosmith’s Cocked, Locked and Ready To Rock tour. I was immediately captivated by the quality of this sound, but didn’t yet know what created it.
Soon after listening to Mysterons , I chanced to attend a lecture-demonstration on the history of musical synthesisers. When I walked into the hall, a few minutes late, the first thing I heard was the same eerie sound as on Mysterons. The lecturer stood in front of a primitive-looking device that seemed to have been thrown together in someone’s garage from old car parts: a wooden box with clunky knobs from which protruded a metal loop and a metal rod that resembled an antenna. His empty hands were raised in front of the metal loop and rod, and he was moving his hands slowly through the air like an eccentric orchestra conductor whose musicians had long since abandoned the score. As he moved his hands, touching nothing, instead of a symphony, the ghost-like wail emerged, filling the air of the lecture hall as the audience listened, dumbstruck. This, was my introduction to the magical instrument known as the theremin.
Science behind the magic
The theremin — previously known by various names including the etherophone and Thereminophone — is one of the earliest electronic musical instruments in the world, and the only one known to be controlled without any physical contact between musician and instrument. It uses two radio frequency oscillators (two metal antennae); the musician’s hand and body act as the grounded plate to complete the circuit and generate an audio signal, which is then amplified via loudspeakers. The distance of the player’s hand from one antenna determines the frequency (pitch) of the note, and the distance from the other determines amplitude (volume). It is a very simply constructed instrument that is easy to learn but notoriously difficult to master.
Lacking keys, valves, frets or finger-board positions, the theremin offers a continuous pitch range much like a violin or trombone. Unlike a violin or trombone however, the theremin offers no physical feedback (other than sound) like string tension or air column resistance to help determine the correct pitch. The entire range of sound is controlled only by the player’s hand-position in mid-air — and even these positions cannot be memorised, because the tuning of the oscillator changes over time, resulting in a note’s hand-position varying continuously. Hence, it calls for precise control combined with a great sense of pitch.
The most commonly heard sound from the theremin is the glissando, a continuous gliding of pitch. Since this gliding may not always be desired in a piece of music, skilled performers have developed ways of producing
individual notes, and even staccato (hammered), tremolo (shaking) and vibrato (vibrating) effects.
From Russia With Love
Invented in 1920 by the remarkable Russian physicist Professor Léon Theremin, the theremin impressed Bolshevik leader Vladimir Lenin so much that he sent Professor Theremin around the world to demonstrate
Soviet technology’s invention of electronic music. In 1928, Theremin patented his invention in the United States, where it enjoyed a flurry of
interest before declining in popularity as newer, easier-to-play electronic
instruments developed. A niche market still remained, however, comprising mainly of electronics hobbyists (basic theremins can be made at home) and purists appreciating the instrument’s inherent free-form nature.
In the United States, Robert Moog was so taken by the theremin that he started building his own in the 1950s, going on to publish theremin articles and sell theremin kits. His experience with the theremin led directly to his groundbreaking invention, the immensely popular Moog synthesiser. The theremin itself has seen a resurgence of interest, thanks to the 1994 film Theremin: An Electronic Odyssey . Today, it is used in classical compositions, jazz improvisation, psychedelic, avant-garde and experimental music, film scores, even theatre productions, like the three-hour ballet production of The Little Mermaid, in which it is used as the mermaid’s voice.
Even as technology continues giving us more sophisticated toys, the theremin’s place in music is clear. Its simple beauty lies in its surrender of control to the player, and of making music literally out of thin air.
— Writer, photographer & creative director of digital agency Meetai, Rayna Jhaveri has travelled the world for her love of music.
rayna@meetai.com