Comprehensive Lessons and Concepts

Using a random sequence of notes, you’ll face more challenges on the way to refining both
sense of pitch and pitch locations in the theremin’s control space.

For the thereminist’s purposes, being in the center of a pitch means being at the correct
frequency, neither sharp nor flat. It means matching the desired pitch, particularly in the
context of a melody. To train the ear, it’s good to play “around” the frequency, allowing
yourself to experience and process all of the tonal variations, then finally settling at center.

As you get more comfortable with producing vibrato, use this short tutorial as a guideline to
help you to actively choose different rates from very wide to very narrow. This is the last step
before our first experiments with using vibrato as a true means of expression.

If it’s your goal to play melodic pieces on the theremin, the refinement of your sense of pitch
is an ongoing endeavor. We’ll go from basic to progressively more complex. Without having
“absolute” or “perfect pitch,” exercises like this help tune our ears.

This introduction to an approach for pitch fingering lays out the parameters for the tutorial.

Simple positions for the pitch hand and fingers derived from movements the hand makes
naturally and observing the results. These movements serve as a point of departure for
developing fingering that’s comfortable and repeatable, with predictable results.

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Push beyond your limits, develop more comfort and dexterity with producing sound on the
upstroke of your volume hand. This exercise provides a tactile reference to allow you to
progress while gauging your accuracy and skill.