Originally published at: This web-based Theremin is incredibly fun to play with | Boing Boing
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Fun!
Also free…
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Perhaps because the theremin was used in several science fiction films.
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Thanks! My cat hates it!
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Grégoire Blanc is a French musician who makes beautifully haunting music with theremins.
Mozart’s Lacrimosa:
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No theremin was used in The Forbidden Planet’s soundtrack by Louis and Bebe Barron, but that soundtrack was apparently the first entirely electronic soundtrack and sounds incredibly thereminish in places, and as it was a widely heard sci-fi soundtrack it probably also has a lot to do with why theremins always sound “aliens and outer space” sci-fi-ish,
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The synthesizer being a much more modern instrument.
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Robert Moog began his journey into developing his synths (not the first synths) by constructing kit versions of the Teramin as a kid - go STEM!
Some consider the 1st synthesizer to be the pipe organ where you can change the timbre of the note by pulling out stops and adding upper harmonics to the fundamental. Additive synthesis.I gather this is where the expression “puling out all the stops” came from to mean going full tilt! Perhaps not in the era of church organs but more likely with your hammonds etc. that use the same technique.
It’s worthwhile checking out the movie Theremin: An Electronic Odyssey as it talks of Leon Therimin’s remarkable life as an electronics genius who was kidnapped by the KGB and forced to produce surveillance technology. Also there are some trippy ramblings by Brian Wilson on the use of the tech with The Beach Boys!
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If I still worked in an office I would have so much fun irritating my co-workers with this. One place I worked had phones that let you speak to somebody directly through the intercom without them answering or picking up the handset. When we got an early text-to-speech app (might have been Excel) we loved sending people machine-language messages like “THIS IS THE UNIX SERVER SPEAKING. DO NOT GO TO THE BATHROOM. FOUR HOURS MANDATORY OVERTIME FRIDAY EVENING…” etc.
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It wasn’t used in Star Trek: TOS either. Hard to believe but that’s how insturments evolve.
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This is what I’d sound like:
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Been messing with the therein app. My daughter thought the tones sounded like effects from an '80’s animated show.
So now we’re binge-watching Ulysses 31.
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