Remember what it felt like when you first tried playing a theremin? Adopting a new mindset in this instance requires challenging even your most basic ability to play. Can you take control in the face of new, and sometimes unusual playing parameters? Good luck; and get ready to remove your shoes.
We begin this tutorial with a hilariously lame demo. That’s the point! This is an extremely effective aid to adopting a new pitch and articulation mindset: push yourself so far beyond what you are capable of that it releases you from a result-oriented attitude and encourages more long-term exploration that you’d never otherwise try.
The imperfection inherent in hunting around for the correct pitches, particularly while you’re playing a piece of music, can be very challenging. The key is patience and the ability to develop an extremely delicate and soft “touch” when moving from one pitch to another, doing it so softly that it is inaudible to anyone but [...]
We’ll continue to exploit the “slide,” then combine it with the previous chapters’ vibrato techniques. It’s all for the purpose of bringing added depth to your practice while transforming the theremin’s “imperfections” into playing versatility.
Since its early days, the theremin has been criticized for its constant portamento, the sliding from one note to another. Even today, sliding tends to be looked at somewhat negatively. By adopting a different mindset and rethinking “the slide,” we can use it to greater advantage for both intonation and for sheer sonic effect. This [...]
Continuing with working toward a new mindset regarding vibrato, let’s look at intentionally making it deviate from the root pitch and begin to think of it in terms of pulses, both rhythmic and melodic.
We’re going to deal with what many consider to be weaknesses of the theremin and then turn them to your advantage as a player. In Chapter 1, we take an honest look at vibrato, work with a new mindset, and rethink its purpose and uses.
To put this and the next four tutorials in to the proper context, be sure you’ve seen the introduction to this new series. In this lesson, we start by working with a very basic but effective way for coming face to face with inhibitions – we all experience varying degrees of tension and anxiety associated [...]
This intro is essential to the five tutorials that follow; it will help you gauge whether you’re at the optimum point for incorporating a new set of approaches to your playing. To move past and work beyond your current level of ability, it helps to shake things up, challenge your comfort level and create more [...]
Parts 1 through 4 have equipped you with everything you need for endless variations on attacks, sustains, and decays when you’re practicing songs you want to play. This is a demo that should help crystallize the approach you can take. Work with them often; experiment and move from the mechanical reproduction of the principles and [...]