![]() Since then, virtuosos like Lydia Kavina, Carolina Eyck, and Dorit Chrysler and left-field rockers like The Night Terrors and The Lothars have waved their arms around an army of Professor Theremin’s electronic offspring, coaxing from them the lyrical and the menacing, the elegant and the assaultive. In the ’90s, a new generation of mavericks cottoned onto the idea that the theremin was the original “alternative” musical choice. On the high-profile side, there was Paul Tanner playing on The Beach Boys’ “Good Vibrations,” and in the underground, Lothar & The Hand People became the first rock band to include a thereminist. When the bubbling countercultural cauldron of the ’60s began opening minds in a million different directions, it was inevitable that one of the 20th century’s most forward-looking instruments would be brought to the fore once more. “Because so few people could play it musically,” explains Martin, “it was often used as a sound effect like some creepy slide whistle.” But it was still mostly a glorified shock tactic. ![]() “The classical music world was astounded when Theremin went to Europe,” says Martin, “sent by Lenin himself to demonstrate Soviet technology.” In the ’20s and ’30s, the instrument enjoyed a brief moment of vogue during which respected composers crafted pieces for it in a classical context.īut by the ’40s, the theremin was largely forgotten, until film composers realized its potential as a cheap, simple way to forge a far-out vibe, exploiting its inherent eeriness on the soundtracks to thrillers like Alfred Hitchcock’s Spellbound or science fiction flicks like The Day the Earth Stood Still. Originally, the theremin was seen as a sort of space-age violin, far more difficult to master than old-school instruments due to the lack of a physical reference point. All synthesizers…were based on the same principle that Theremin pioneered.” That was the basis for all electronic music up until the digital era. Martin, director of Theremin: An Electronic Odyssey, the 1993 documentary that helped precipitate a renaissance for the enormously influential instrument. “It’s an extremely simple concept,” says Steven M. An electronic instrument that you play without touching would seem like the quintessential axe of the virtual era, but 2020 actually marks the theremin’s 100th birthday. This might sound like the plot of some sci-fi film noir, but it’s the real-life origin story of the device that bears Professor Léon Theremin’s name. At a government-run think tank in Petrograd, a brilliant young Soviet scientist harnesses the power of something called the “heterodyne beat frequency” to create a mysterious-looking, antennaed box that creates a high-pitched wail, which intensifies when his hands come closer to it.
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