| My Love Affair With the
Theremin by Alice Catherine Teeple (written for a 2002 Electronic Music INART class.) |
I remember it clearly, the first time I heard it. That ethereal “whoooo-whooooooo”….the most frightening and lovely noise I’d ever heard in a sound effect. It would take me years to learn the name of it.
It would take me years to discover….
The THEREMIN.
I don’t know who first told me what it was called. It might have been my father; he’s usually pretty knowledgeable about that kind of trivia. I remember the delight I felt when I realised that the weird noise at the end of the Beach Boys’ “Good Vibrations” was the same weird noise in The Day the Earth Stood Still. “Cool!” I thought.
Time passed. I went to art school. I got into photography. I got into painting. I got into short filmmaking….and then I discovered that I could be an animator if I wanted; it wasn’t that bloody hard. That revelation brought about a daily thought process of interesting sound effects. What could I use in my work? That’s a neat sound, I like that. What pictures would work well with that?
I was discussing the theremin with my friend Sean, also an animator (and the guy who taught me how to play accordion), one night. He had taken a class at his school that touched upon the history of the theremin and its creator, the mighty Leon. “That guy was whacked out,” Sean said. “He was really weird. A little creepy, too. You should check out more about him sometime.”
Sean is good for putting bugs in my ear. So is my friend Jeremy, who is a multimedia specialist in Michigan. Jeremy dabbles in songwriting and performance (mostly Neil Diamond covers) and he has a penchant for strange instruments. He has a Moog synthesiser, an electrified accordion, and a theremin.
“Those things are weird to play,” Jeremy said. “I like how it sounds though. It sounds pretty funky with Brother Love’s Travelling Salvation Show. Just a thought…”
Righty-o. I had to try a theremin for myself. I had no idea HOW to even obtain one. And building one? Completely out of the question. I’m an idiot when it comes to tinkering with electronics. I flunked physics and got a C in shop class. I learnt a little more about Leon Theremin in this class and different ways the theremin was used in film and popular culture. Hurrah! Knowing a little more was half the battle.
I discovered an online version of the theremin on the BBC webpage.
As I was dabbling in music myself (mostly mixing samples of dialogue with
techno samples) I thought adding a theremin might make things interesting.
I recorded the online theremin as I played it and thought hey, this is pretty
nifty!I discussed my foray into music-writing with Bernard Kelly, a physics grad student.
“One of the people in my department built a theremin from some 1950s magazine,” he said. “Great fun to play with at parties..”
I asked Bernard if he might ask his colleague to let me play it sometime. Bernard looked at me suspiciously and said he’d see, he wasn’t sure.
Several days later I received an e-mail from Bernard introducing me to his colleague, Issac, the man who built the theremin. “Now you must promise me one thing, Miss Teeple,” said Bernard, “No cameras or recording devices, lest poor Issac end up in one of your warped Teeple productions. Those are my stipulations, not Issac’s.”
I got in contact with Issac myself. A pleasant chappie, who was more than happy to show off his theremin. We arranged a meeting at his flat. I didn’t have to re-check his directions to his flat once I reached his building: I simply followed the creepy noises dancing through the air like audial phantoms. I knocked on the door.
“Issac, I presume?”
There it was on the coffee-table…a lit-up box with coils and light-up things and a giant brass antenna-ish thing. It was…the theremin of my dreams.
I asked Issac how he had gotten into making this, and he said his hobby was refurbishing old mechanical things. He’d redone a 1935 telephone. Hurrah, what fun! He’d used Robert Moog’s design from the 1950s, but decided that he liked the light-up tubes because they looked like something out of a monster movie. He demonstrated how the theremin worked.
“PRRRRROOOP!” it roared, as he flitted his fingers close to the antenna with a giant grin on his face. “PRRRRROOOOP! PRRRRROOOOP!”.
“Whoa!!! Can I try it?” I asked.
“Sure! Be my guest!”
I had never in my life encountered such a bizarre instrument. And this is coming from an accordion player. Issac’s theremin was really neat. It rather reminded me of a harmonica, because it was easy to play (or at least make an interesting noise), but it was definitely difficult to control. Having tried it myself, I can appreciate the brilliance of Clara Rockmore playing Bach on that thing.
I decided that my future did not lie in playing anything at all on the theremin besides using it for sound effects and as background music for my own music, but I am certainly indebted to Issac and to the physics department for allowing me to see for myself how a theremin works. It truly is a unique, fun experience.