Fairamon....has anyone played in a band with one

Wayne Franco · From: silverdale, WA. USA

I am not sure of the spelling, could be Pheramon (just kidding). It was that instrument that was used in scary movies that made an errie sound. In all my years around music I have never seen one in a band. Would that be great...a steel and Fairamon duet! I am editing this to read THEREMIN. I tried looking it up in the dictionary before I posted but couldn't find it, and certainly didn't know how to spell it. Thanks to the forum and all its wisdom!

[This message was edited by W Franco on 04 November 2004 at 06:42 AM.]

Ray Minich · From: Bradford, Pa. Frozen Tundra

Whadda bouta Theremin? (Do a web search on Theremin, it was used in the Beach Boys "Good Vibrations")

[This message was edited by Ray Minich on 04 November 2004 at 06:32 AM.]

Greg Simmons · From: where the buffalo (used to) roam AND the Mojave

Oh, you mean a theremin?

and, speaking of it, here's a gal with some chops!

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Greg Simmons
Former custodian of the Unofficial Sho~Bud Pedal Steel Guitar Website

Wayne Franco · From: silverdale, WA. USA

Thanks for the correct spelling. I couldn't find it in the dictionary before posting. Wow...people know what it is. This should be fun. Geez thats right. I did hear that on the beach boys song.Greg,that is a great picture. I don't believe I've ever seen one before. Too bad there isn't at Theremin forum.

[This message was edited by W Franco on 04 November 2004 at 06:46 AM.]

[This message was edited by W Franco on 04 November 2004 at 06:48 AM.]

Dave Van Allen · From: Souderton, PA , US , Earth

Chris Forbes · From: Beltsville, MD, USA

Just my opinion, but I feel it's one of the world's most annoying istruments, ever.

Jason Odd · From: Stawell, Victoria, Australia

Saw one with a rock band called the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion a few years back, Spencer likes to treat it like a guitar and in true crazy-Azz rock style actually grabbed the thing making the wildest sounds.

I also saw a prog-grind metal act use is as well, the guy alternated between bass and a small theremin unit.

Actually, now I think about it I saw an even smaller one being used by Allison Goldfrapp the singer from dance-excotica-torch song act Goldfrapp. At one point she was fursiously switching between the mini-theremin and two microphones, one of which was running through some sort of phase/flange unit.
Amazing voice, at one point I could hear her pitch perfect wails carrying across the room while her distorted vocals were coming through the sound system.
The crowd actually clapped when she finished various vocal parts from the group's albums with no discrnable loss of pitch, if anything she was better.

Okay, now I'm wandering off-topic.

Howard Tate · From: Leesville, Louisiana, USA, R.I.P.

I seem to remember one on a Ronnie Milsap song, Can't remember what it was. I may be wrong, I often am.

Marc Friedland · From: Fort Collins, CO

A good friend of mine, Gary Hoffman, who is also a good drummer, owned "The Theremin." His dad was Dr. Hoffman who was the one who actually played all the parts on the early sci-fi movies that the theremin was popular for. There was an extremely talented lady who was so talented on it, you'd have to hear it to believe it. She was able to play it in the symphony! But she didn't think the instrument was made to do commercial projects with. I believe her name was Clara Rockmore. So Dr. Hoffman who was quite good at it, if you didn't compare him to the N.Y. master, got all the calls to create the unusal eerie sounds with it at the Hollywood studios. So the bottom line is, I played the actual theremin that was used to record all of these famous parts. I must admit though, I only played it for a total of about a half an hour, and never got even close to good at it. We had talked about playing a duet with Gary on the theremin and me on psg, but unfortunateley that never happened before he ended up selling it for a good chunk of cash, that he needed. -- Marc

Bill Hatcher · From: Atlanta Ga. USA

I was at an estate sale and the people running the sale told me that somewhere in all the junk there was a theremin. I thought it would be cool so a buddy and my self found it and found the rest of the parts in another area of the house. We had a $100 between us and bought it. It turned out to be a Moog Theremin from about 1960. I was not aware that Robert Moog began his career making these and since has started again. Anyway there is a very good market for vintage units, especially the RCA models from Leon Theremins' time. These sell for $10,000 and more. We sold ours to a left coast collector for $2000. Not a bad return on $50 each. Very interesting instrument. If you have ever heard a recording of Clara Rockmore then you know what this instrument is capable of. Very different from the sound effect stuff it has been relegated to.

Wayne Franco · From: silverdale, WA. USA

I didn't have any idea there was this much information about an instrument I didn't even know how to spell. I honestly don't think I have thought of one in over a decade. When I was about 8 or 9 years old my aunt owned a antique store out in the Newhall/Saugest area of S. Cal.. I remember a thing that looked like a tin can in her shop. You could plug it in and the closer your hand got to it the more and different pitch sound it would make. Just like the scarie movies. I assum that may have been a home made theremin. It's as close as I've ever gotten to one. I'm gonna go check out "Theremin World". Hope they'll let me back out.

[This message was edited by W Franco on 04 November 2004 at 10:39 AM.]

[This message was edited by W Franco on 04 November 2004 at 10:40 AM.]

Mark van Allen · From: Watkinsville, Ga. USA

When Blueground Undergrass had our big Halloween concert blowout a couple of years back, the guitarist bought a Theremin to use for the big entrance to our second set. he had practiced for weeks and really got good at it- he was running it through his tiny Zoom portable effects unit, and when the time came to crank it up at the concert, he couldn't see well enough through his elaborate alien mask to hit the right buttons on the effects unit and all that came out was a little "blat". I just about fell off my stool... I ended up copying the sounds he'd been making on the steel, well to some degree. The theremin is certainly a cool creative tool, and steel's about as close as anything else can get. (The picture on my website home page is from that gig, with me in my little purple cowboy hat and spiders on my Dual Pro). Gotta love Halloween...

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Stop by the Steel Store at: www.markvanallen.com

Lawrence Lupkin · From: Brooklyn, New York, USA

Do you think there is a Robert Randolph of Theramin?

Ray Minich · From: Bradford, Pa. Frozen Tundra

If you can catch Brian Wilson's "Smile" concert one one of the premium channels (can't remember now which one) you'll see a Theremin being played on "Good Vibrations".
The musician is playing it with what looks like a puck.
I first learned of this rather odd piece of equipment in an issue of Radio Electronics from 15-20 years ago (issue is still buried in my attic too, much to the chagrin of my wife).

[This message was edited by Ray Minich on 04 November 2004 at 01:16 PM.]

Wayne Franco · From: silverdale, WA. USA

Maybe a Lydia Kavina, R.R. concert. Together again for the first time. Actually this is digressing here, sorry. Semi seriously though it is fun to read so many replys about an instrument that is hardly ever mentioned anywhere. Very Cool!. I didn't know you couldn't play the thing in the dark.

BTW...Is Theremin both singular and plural. "One Theremin, many Theremin"

[This message was edited by W Franco on 04 November 2004 at 01:20 PM.]

Michael Johnstone · From: Sylmar,Ca. USA

There is a video of Clara Rockmore giving a recital in he Manhattan apartment probably from the mid 70s. She is accompanied by her sister on piano and she plays so beautifully you can't believe it. You can get the video from Bob Moog. Read about her here:
http://www.thereminvox.com/story/519

Tim Whitlock · From: Colorado, USA

There was a fascinating documentary made about 5 or 6 years ago called Theremin: An Electronic Odyssey. The instrument is named after its inventor. It was one of, if not the first, electronic instruments, made all the more intriguing by the fact that you don't touch it at all when you play it. I got a chance to play a 1930's RCA Theremin, which I found at an interactive science museum in San Francisco. Wonderful instrument full of vacuum tubes and oscilators.

The documentary tells the story of the amazing Leon Theremin, who imigrates from Russia and joins up with the avant gard in New York in the 20's and 30's. He was an electronics genius, on the order of Tesla. His remarkable invention gains him fame, but then he vanishes. No one knew what became of him, but speculation was that the KGB got him. Then the film takes an unbelievable twist as the filmaker discovers that Theremin is alive and living in Russia in the 1990's. He finds him and brings him to New York to reunite him with his student, and implied lover, Clara Rockmore, the vituoso of the Theremin. Turns out the KGB did abduct him and took him back to the USSR where he was forced to work on electronic devices for use in espionage. The reunion is sad, there are some fascinating interviews and overall it is a one-of-a-kind film, which I found highly entertaining and informative. Look for it at your local library.

Archie Nicol R.I.P. · From: Ayrshire, Scotland

Osmonds'`Crazy Horses.` anyone?
An E-bow could give an approximation on slow songs.

Boo Bernstein · From: Los Angeles, CA

Tim -- I was just going to write about the history of Dr. Theremin -- I was aware of the story but have not yet seen the documentary. For those of us who remember the 60s, there was a band called Lothar and the Hand People, which was an early psychodelic/electronic band, whose albums are now collectors items. (Lothar was actually the name they had given to their Theremin.) I was on vacation one summer at the Jersey shore and Lothar et al were playing there. Being a young musician, I was very excited about seeing them. It turns out the heavy humidity of the NJ beach had dealt a death blow to Lothar, who was not working that evening. Very disappointing. Boo

Jay Fagerlie · From: Lotus, California, USA

I built my theramin from a kit about two years ago. After hooking it in to a pre/power amp and firing it up I learned a very important fact: You will not get any "musical" sounds out of it for a long time. It's pretty easy to get the sci-fi stuff, no talent is needed, just a body part to move by the antenna.
Not being one to give up easily, I pulled out my trusty TU-12 and started to find some notes. The tuner helped, but boy is it touchy. On this theramin, the distance you move to go 3 octaves is about 14 inches, depending on the surroundings. Lots of metal slightly diminishes the working field. Jumping from one note to another takes lots of practice...I've had to resort to resting my elbow on the unit's cabinet and using it as a pivot to be able to achive more accuracy. I don't use the amplitude sensor much, as a matter of fact, this unit has a jack for a footswitch to mute it and I made a tiny lever switch on a cable that I plug into it so I can have an actual attack on the notes, instead of each note running into the next one. I control the switch with my right hand and wave at the thing with my left.
The coolest thing I've done with it is use it as a gestural controller for midi controlled devices. I tap the output and run it into an IVL Pitchrider and take the midi stream coming out of it and run to a couple of synths, and also to effects processors. This is when things get real fun....my favorite is the midi notes mapped to the gain, depth control on the reverb, and an eq channel that adds just a little around 1200hz at the higher notes.
This it what it does: As the note goes higher in pitch, the gain increases just enough to 'round' the signal a little bit, the slight eq boost makes it stand out a little more and the reverb control mixes the signal closer to the front (less room sound) but as the pitch goes down, the opposite happens and the notes dramatically move backwards in space. It really is cool.
I've used it a few times out and the response is always pretty good.
This post reminds me that I haven't touched it in 3 or 4 months....I need to get back at it.....
There are cheap ones on eBay, if you ever had the urge to play with one, I highly recommend it. Working the theramin does have an impact on your ear....it has helped me without a doubt. (But don't flame me the first time you connect your tuner to it and try to grab a note)

Jay
(I think this is the longest post I've ever written....or should I say authored?)

Donny Hinson · From: Glen Burnie, Md. U.S.A.

Ah yes, the Theremin! Big hit in the old Michael Rennie movie "The Day The Earth Stood Still", and a lot of other sci-fi movies. Basically, it's nothing but a sine-wave audio oscillator which uses the stray capacitance of your body, and you control the volume with one hand, and the frequency with the other hand. I built 2 models as a kid. One worked with the body-capacitance mode of control, and one worked by light control. That one used solar cells, and you covered them with your hands to to shield them from ambient light. The resultant voltage from the solar cells regulated the volume and frequency. (I believe both were old Popular Electronics projects.) Fun, but they got old real fast. They only had one voice, and they're rather limited (or should I say technically difficult) for speedy passages, but vibrato and tremolo sure weren't any problem! Just wiggle your hands.

I think I gave gave them away...I may have donated one to my old school, along with a Van DeGraff Generator, an Electrophorous, a small Tesla Coil, and a Whimhurst static machine. All products of an electrical-experimenter childhood full of curoisity and the desire to build things.

Ray Minich · From: Bradford, Pa. Frozen Tundra

Donny, I'm glad you weren't into thermonuclear hobbies...

Wayne Franco · From: silverdale, WA. USA

I have been looking at the Theremin world web site. Very interesting. Looks like it is certinly alive and well. My uncle is 94. I bet he know about the instrument. He use to build his own amplifiers and ham radios. Maybe he could help me build one. Wouldn't that be cool to go to a jam session with.

Bobby Lee · From: Cloverdale, California, USA

You can pretty much nail the theramin effect on steel with an EBow.

Jason Odd · From: Stawell, Victoria, Australia

I too have seen Theremin: An Electronic Odyssey, it's fantastic doco and covers some amazing stuff.

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