I bought a Theremin
*cue alien noises*
I am about to get so annoying to all of you. I bought a Theremin… AAAAHHHH!! For those of you who don’t know what that is, it’s the first electronic music instrument ever invented (all the way back in the 1920s!) and it is crazy cool. This instrument uses frequencies to create sound, without plucking any strings or even touching the instrument itself. Using two antennas on the X and Y axis, players control the pitch and volume as they move their hands in the air. It is so so cool, I am really excited to start learning this instrument. Because of its more eccentric nature, there’s no real way to practice outside of using the instrument itself. And my company graciously gave those of us with outstanding attendance a $300 gift card for anything we’d like. So I got a giftcard to Sweetwater, an online music supply store. Sweetwater is great, they have a wide variety of equipment and their sales reps really know their stuff. And they always send little packs of candy with every order you get. It’s cute.
So I ended up buying a Theremini from Moog, which is a digital version of the Theremin with pitch control and other features that allow me to connect with my DAW and use midi controls. The analog version of the Theremin is much larger, so this smaller compact instrument is a fun option for music producers and weird instrument fans alike. It still has all the features of the original Theremin, but I can directly connect with Ableton and change the timbre of the instrument and make really cool sounds with it. The original timbre of the Theremin is very iconic, it sounds like what you’d think aliens sound like. Because of this, it’s often used in music scores for sci-fi shows and movies. Think Mars Attacks, stuff like that. But this digital Moog version can change the sound itself, so I can connect my synth packs and other midi instruments while playing live. I also bought an introductory book on how to play it, so I will be studying that and learning the original techniques. Be prepared to hear some really weird, really cool sounds coming soon! This also presents a fun live performance element, because I’ll just be waving my hands in the air on top of this instrument LOL!
I’ll take some time to practice and maybe by next week I can share a fun video of me playing it with you all. I am really pumped! Okay, thanks for stopping by – TTYL :)
