Artists Who Use the Theremin

Part of the Video Series How to Build & Play a Theremin

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Learn who uses the theremin to create special sound effects in this free instructional video clip on electronic musical instruments.

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Artists Who Use the Theremin
On behalf of ExpertVillage.com my name is Mark. Theremins have enjoyed sort of a resurgence in popularity, there are various under ground bands that use them. Some of the more popular ones, I can mention the John Spencer Blues Explosion has one of mine. They are used quite a bit for special effects; you can get the same effects with computers generating various wave forms by using midi where you can bend frequencies and so forth, but there’s just something about playing a Theremin. Here in Portland we have a local band where a person plays or his idea of playing a Theremin is a little different than the traditionalist. I saw him perform once where he rolls around on the stage, he beats it, it’s kind of like the Who thing, but he doesn’t smash it at the end of his performance and it generates a lot of really cool sound effects. It gets run through reverbs, echoes and so forth, and many people have just never seen a Theremin. When I finish one before I ship it I’ll set it up on the sidewalk in front of my house which is along a very popular bicycle path and very quickly I have a large crowd of people. And what’s interesting is when you have a Theremin on a certain note ‘oooooo’ and a bicycle goes next to it, it goes ‘oooooo’. And people realize I did that and they stop and they come back ‘ooooooo’ and they want to play the Theremin. Well my neighbor brings over his pet chicken and he’ll hold some grain on the other side and we actually had the first documented case of a chicken playing the Theremin. It was ‘wooo– wooo-wooo-wooo-wooo’ pecking at the grain.

About the Expert

Expert: Mark Keppinger has worked with electronics for 15 plus years. He currently works at a science museum creating and maintaining the electronics in the museum exhibits - the perfect job. Read More