How does a Theremin Work?

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Part of the video series: How to Play the Theremin

Basics of Playing the Theremin

Guitar Effects Pedals with the T...

How to Find Notes on the Theremi...

How to Operate Theremin Controls

Imagining Songs for the Theremin

Memorizing Notes for the Theremi...

Summary: A theremin creates sound by broadcasting a signal to itself when a player's hand interrupts the magnetic field between its antennae. Learn more about how a theremin works in this free music lesson video from a professional avant garde musician.

Views: 1,745 | Tags: theremin, musical-instruments, composer, oscillators, musiclessons, controlsleo, avante-gard, musical instruments

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About the Expert

Barry Schwam Barry Schwam has been a professional musician for more than thirty years and continues to perform in Southern California, where he now lives. read more

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Video Transcript

How does a Theremin Work?

Now this theremin is very much like the very original theremin invented by Léon Theremin in the 1920s and it has 2 antenna I believe you say it. So the antennas now the way the theremin works is there is a magnetic field that is produce on each antenna and your hand actually interrupts that field and causes a single or a sound wave to go into a little component in the theremin which is amplified. This is basically how a theremin works it actually broadcast a signal to itself. This vertical antenna would control the pitch of the theremin and this loop horizontal antenna would control the volume. Now the reason the loop antenna is angled because back in the 20s when the theremin first came out vacuum tubes and lots of components that where not in solid state and the 2 isolators the ones that controls the pitch and the one that controls the volume would interfere with each other so Mr. Theremin figure out by putting this antenna at a loop that would prevent that. However with today's electronics this is not necessary but the manufactures of the theremin kept the looped antenna at this angle for esthetic's a playing purposes but it is not necessary in the the electronic world that we know of today.