Virtual Jukebox

https://youtu.be/ghWdgcYIcSk

Today I have mostly been listening to Clara Rockmore.   <3

Is she playing a Theramin? To begin with I thought violin, then viola, but it's definitely something more ethereal! I have never even heard of a Theramin before but it sounds incredibly interesting: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theremin

Yes, it's a wonderful sound, isn't it?!

Dr. Robert "Bob" Moog, who did so much to bring synthesisers into music, started out building theremins, and in fact, was not a fan at all of giving synthesisers a traditional music keyboard, as he thought it would limit how they would be played too much - his engineers went over his head because they realised that the familiarity would sell more synths. Moog still sell theremins, though sadly, the price is a little rich for me, otherwise I'd love to have one.

Watching a good player can be absolutely spell-binding; here's the theremin's inventor playing one...

Yttrium said:

I think it's a theremin being played on Good Vibrations by the Beach Boys.

It's a related instrument that the inventor called the Electro-theremin. It uses a physical pitch control moved via, I kid you not, a piece of string! It was inspired by the slide of the trombone that the inventor played. In the early days of electronic music, there were many very bizarre instruments invented, many of them with unusual ways of controlling them intended to get musicians away from the idea of using discrete note pitches.

Yes, it's a wonderful sound, isn't it?!

Dr. Robert "Bob" Moog, who did so much to bring synthesisers into music, started out building theremins, and in fact, was not a fan at all of giving synthesisers a traditional music keyboard, as he thought it would limit how they would be played too much - his engineers went over his head because they realised that the familiarity would sell more synths. Moog still sell theremins, though sadly, the price is a little rich for me, otherwise I'd love to have one.

Watching a good player can be absolutely spell-binding; here's the theremin's inventor playing one...

Yttrium said:

I think it's a theremin being played on Good Vibrations by the Beach Boys.

It's a related instrument that the inventor called the Electro-theremin. It uses a physical pitch control moved via, I kid you not, a piece of string! It was inspired by the slide of the trombone that the inventor played. In the early days of electronic music, there were many very bizarre instruments invented, many of them with unusual ways of controlling them intended to get musicians away from the idea of using discrete note pitches.