I see the New York Times has taken notice of the theremin, the precursor to the synthesizer, the MIDI, and a host of other electronic musical instruments.
The other main “spiritual” ancestor of synthesized or computerized music, the accordion, was, in the first days after its invention, roundly reviled as a mechanical monstrosity. Now, despite a bunch of accordion jokes, it has become a true folk instrument. Cultures from Argentina to Norway to Indonesia have their own indigenous forms of the instrument.
Not so the theremin, whose glissando sound is too ethereal to easily lend itself to dance music, and which cannot (to my knowledge) play more than a single note at a time. The theremin player’s movements are constrained by the machine: move a hand slightly wrong, and the audience will hear the result. The technical limitations Lev Theremin built into his invention pretty much confines the instrument to contempative music in which the audience is spectator raather than boisterous participant. Think of it this way: The theremin is Apollonian, the accordion Dionysan.
Except, of course, that the theremin has been typecast due to its slightly spooky, at-one-point futuristic sound, and is now mainly thought of as accompaniment to badly executed horror movies.
That’s a shame, really, because in the right hands — or from the right hands — the theremin is capable of surprising beauty. (The scary movie association may cause giggles at first. It did for me. But just keep listening.)
Posted by: Chris Clarke
Categories:
Music
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