How to Play the Theremin

How to Play the Theremin
On behalf of ExpertVillage.com my name is Mark. We’re going to talk about how do you play a Theremin? This isn’t functional Theremin; I’m going to call it our stunt Theremin for tonight. If I was playing it, you might be disappointed. I can build Theremins however playing them is a little harder, I’ll leave that to the experts, but I’ll discuss what it takes to play the Theremin. Having your hand go near or away from the pitch rod brings your sound up or down. The volume loop is the left hand control, although there are left handed Theremins where they reverse the two and lifting your hand away from the loop rings, your volume. Something I see quite often when people have never played a Theremin come up to it is they think that going up and down along the rod will change the pitch, it does but very marginally. It’s generally the closer proximity and the body mass is what effects it. A guy with a great big hand like me gets a lot more change then some with a real tiny hand. I had loaned one of these to a party a few years ago and when I went to pick it up they had taped a ruler along side so that people could play it and they put how many inches to put your hand for different notes, but then different people would hit different notes and they were just really confused by it. The Theremin is not for everyone. It makes some really cool sounds and if you practice you can actually play a discernable melody. I thought I was to the point where I could play a melody and I was playing it and they decided to sing along but they were singing a different song then I thought I was playing.