Therimins?

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They look so STIMMY!! ! Anybody ever play one?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=glmuuU7sN8Y

I have a friend who made one when he was really bored. Never actually seen it in action though.

I know they were used a lot in B-Movies, but also for stuff, I believe like the Keff McCulloch arrangement of the Doctor Who theme.

A fascinating instrument.

No 1950's Si-Fi B movie would be complete without one.

I did google quite a set of circuit diagrams, perhaps one day I might build one

Theremin page
I think the valve (vacuum tube) circuits are best

Last edited by iceb on 14 Feb 2008, 1:39 am, edited 2 times in total.

That's what I'm thinking about doing. My husband and son are electronics geeks. It's all older electronics technology. We could do this. I saw a movie called Therimin. All about the history. That song that the Beach Boys did - Good Vibrations, I never relalized that they had used a therimin. It made the song sound trippy and, kind of, dfeamy.

They showed a lot of scenes from old movies, like from The Day The Earth Stood Still and how they used therimins. I think I love that instrument. I wonder if I could learn different hand flapping styles while making music.

I built a theremin in high school. It's not quite as "stimmy" as it looks, but it really is quite fun. There is a synthetic music museum near where I live, and they have a rather remarkable theremin collection. They even let us play on them

The science of it is also really interesting, as is the history of the inventor. Once, I hung a metal weight on a pendulum in the field. I would advise anyone with a theremin to play with metal objects around it, especially magnetically-conductive ones. It sounds amazing. Actually, if playing with physics and sounds is a stim, then I guess it could be considered one.

OregonBecky: Hand-flapping would probably be a really effective way of playing the theremin, now that I think about it. If you watch Clara Rockmore (one of the best theremin players ever), she wavers, or oscillates her hands a lot. I'm not sure if those are the correct words, but it's a bit like what a violin/viola/cello/bass player does with their left hand.
edit: Now I remember why. There are specific locations in the field for specific frequencies, and these vary slightly among performers. She just performed more artfully than most

Yes, Clara was definitely featured at a number of points in the film and was interviewed a lot, as well. Definitely far and away the best expert we saw in the movie called "Theremin." I liked watching her work and enjoyed what she was able to produce. It made me wonder, while watching, just how picky she must have become about the precise characteristics of the Theremins she played, though. There is so much to get just right, I think, in dealing with near-field and I can imagine engineers good at electronics but not versed well on a musician's idea of what makes for a playable instrument getting a lot of things very wrong. The movie also talked about some of Theremin's (I think he was involved) attempts to get dancers in whole-body attempts to create music mingled with dance, with no useful results to the efforts. Which only goes to some of the difficulties involved in getting things right.

Jon

Do you have any good references on the science and design methods to look up?

Thanks,
Jon

The electronics really aren't that complicated; it's just that the learning curve is a bit steep. I found that yes, there is a HUGE difference between theremins, mostly based upon construction materials. I can definitely understand why Clara was so picky about her instrument. As for the dancing: yeah, I remember reading about that and thinking about how fantastic it would be if anyone could make it work. My friend and I actually tried by putting magnets on marionettes, but it never quite worked.



I'm afraid I don't have anything offhand; I'll have to get back to you. I built my theremin over five years ago, and I've lost a lot of the resources since then.

I've never played one. I want one.
(I want every instrument... )

Theremins!

http://www.soundslikeburns.com/

http://thereminkits.com/?us&gclid=CKfJk ... iAodBRM1yw

Just for the pictures:

http://www.thereminworld.com/news.asp?s=171

http://www.137.com/gallery/

http://www.radiolaguy.com/ThereminRight.htm

I had figured there was something of a "beat" (difference) function operating. Metal detectors use something like that in their "balanced coil" designs. In reading a little, I am finding out some of the reasoning about Theremins.

• the loop antenna used for volume control is designed as a loop to allow less hand motion to create a faster change in volume, as in playing music shifts from low to high volume are often rapid.
• the monopole antenna allows a more gradual chance in frequency
• I know from the basics of how all animals must respond to external light and sound stimuli, that the responses are more logarithmic than linear -- doubling the apparent brightness of something involves much more than just doubling the intensity -- and that can easily be accomodated in transistor designs as the diode junction is an exponential relationship between current and voltage
• audible signals are generated as a beat frequency that results from two radio frequencies that respond to the human presence (charge storage/capacitive, probably, my guess)

Anyway, seems interesting.

There is this older page on the subject, too:

http://theremin.ca/plans/therplns.html

And this project:

http://online.physics.uiuc.edu/courses/ ... eremin.pdf

Also, this is a video-camera based Theremin:

http://www.dcs.shef.ac.uk/intranet/teac ... f/u1sk.pdf

A bit excessive, but interesting, and it includes a lot of extra information about early Theremins, etc.

Jon

This is my favourite song played with one. Its a good example of what they can do.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mW0B1sipLBI&feature=related[/youtube]

and the original song..

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bd2B6SjMh_w&feature=related[/youtube]

Thanks, Fuzzy. That just makes us more interested in getting one of those things in house. In fact, a Theremin club would be really fun.

Jon

Don't find it interesting.

I'm not into playing them, in case that is what you are thinking. I enjoy the piano a lot and that is my instrument for playing music. I'm into technology and electronics and physics and it is attractive from that perspective -- complexity out of simplicity (beat frequencies.)

Jon