AE FOND KISS by Robert Burns

Published on Jan 5, 2013 copperleaves·57 videos

"I have known this song for many years, but I had always heard it sung by classically trained sopranos and tenors, so I never dared to sing it. A couple of weeks ago, I heard a rendition of it performed here on YT by Scottish popular singer Eddi Reader, and I loved it! So I decided to take a crack at it myself.

Robert Burns is Scotland's poet/ambassador to the world, and this song (only one of many that he wrote) is for me one of the most poignant songs of unrequited love that has ever been written. I'm not going to bore everyone with the history of this song. If you are curious about it, here is the Wikipedia entry that will tell you the whole story.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ae_Fond_Kiss

The instrument I am playing in this video I call the "tibicen" (this is the Latin word for "piper"). I devised this instrument myself because I love to sing with the pipes but it is impossible to play them and sing at the same time. The tibicen is entirely electronic and consists of two parts (only one of which can be seen in this video). There is a keyboard "chanter" which sits on the knees of the performer and can play in any key over a range of many octaves. The other part is a pedal board similar to an organ (which is not visible in the video) which plays the drones, and can change keys and harmonies very much like the Irish uilleann pipes.

Part of the problem with pipes (and with the hurdy gurdy which I also play) is that they are extremely loud and their volume cannot be controlled by the player so they tend to drown out a singer. With the tibicen, every aspect of the sound, volume, slides, range, etc., can be controlled, and it is ideal for an electronic musician like myself."

Schubert SERENADE For Theremin & Continuum

YouTube Uploaded by copperleaves on Jul 9, 2011

"Some of my online theremin friends didn't want me to record this theremin transcription of Franz Schubert's SERENADE. They said it was too schlocky and romantic and that I shouldn't waste my time on it! Nevertheless, it remains one of the most popular and recognizable melodies from one of my favorite composers. This arrangement is for theremin and Haken continuum (accompanied by the Korg TRITON EXTREME). The continuum is playing the delicate recorder/flageolet sound that follows the theremin. Although I think my brain could have played all three instruments at once, I just don't have enough arms and hands, so I prepared the track and played the theremin live.

In the summertime, I often use my barn for music. The barn was built in the 1860's during the American civil war and no nails were used in its construction. It is made entirely of hardwoods and held together with expertly fitted joints and wooden spikes. When you play music in it, the whole building vibrates like the soundbox of a giant bass or cello. Unfortunately it isn't very well insulated and it isn't heated so it is useless for music in the winter. But it's great in the summer!

According to music historians the Austrian composer Franz Schubert (1797 - 1828) wrote this composition in the summer of 1826 in a beer hall, jotting the notes down on the back of a menu. He had apparently stopped in to the place to have a couple of pints and cool off.

The theremin in the video is a Moog Ethervox. The Haken continuum is a continuous controller which, unlike the theremin, does not have a sound of its own. It can sound like just about anything you want and, like the theremin, can elegantly slide from one end of its range to the other in a seamless "gliss". It is also polyphonic and has 16 voices (the theremin is monophonic with only one voice).

I was going to call this piece, "Schubert & the theremin & the continuum go to Bollywood" because I am used to wearing Indian clothes when the weather is particularly hot (as it was today when I recorded this). Natural air conditioning!"

SPARTACUS - Sura's Theme - Theremin/Chelys

Published on Mar 14, 2013 copperleaves·58 videos

"This music is "Sura's Theme" from the television series, SPARTACUS. I am playing it on a Moog Etherwave Pro theremin, and a replica of an ancient Greek lyre known as the "chelys". According to Greek legend, this instrument was invented by the god Hermes, who took the shell of a tortoise and the horns of an antelope, stretched a skin over the shell then added some strings. He later gave the instrument to Orpheus.

The chelys in this video has 12 strings and is tuned to a diatonic scale."

Further Adventures With The Continuum

YouTube Uploaded by copperleaves on Apr 6, 2011

"A description and demonstration of the built-in sound, "Clinical Oscillator 2" on the Haken continuum fingerboard - Concerto in D Major for baroque trumpet, continuo and strings by Georg Philip Telemann."

Vulcan Harp & Theremin - #2

YouTube via copperleaves | January 30, 2011 |

"This composition is called THE FIRE PLAINS and it is the second in a series of 12 studies for the Vulcan harp and theremin. The Vulcan harp was introduced by artist and visionary Wah Ming Chang more than 40 years ago for a STAR TREK episode. Over the years it has evolved considerably, along with the technology involved with its manufacture. It is acoustic, electroacoustic and electronic (it is the electronic component that permits such things as the playing of complex harmonies, glide pitch shifts, arpeggiation, etc.).

This piece is a study for the use of the gated arpeggiator. Before starting to play, I tapped two bars on the "tapper control" in the tempo I wanted the arpeggiator to engage in the second half of the composition (two bars instructs the instrument to play sixteenth notes - one bar would have told it to play eighth notes). Once the pattern is entered, all the harpist has to do is touch the tapper to engage it and apply it to the chords that are struck. From that point on, it is activated or deactivated alternately by touch until it is cancelled.

This instrument is a prototype. It is entirely self-contained and it is not MIDI capable. It has 15 banks of its own sounds, and each bank has 10 programs. The instrument is also provided with its own effects, timbre controls, etc. It is not mechanically activated like a keyboard. It triggers its sounds by means of the frequencies that the strings are tuned to, so it must be very accurately tuned prior to playing. It transmits directly to its amplifier by means of an antenna integrated into the pin column (the extended curved vertical arm that holds the tuning pins) so there are no cables.

This performance was recorded in a single take because it was too tricky to try and piece it together with only one video camera. Once the track was complete, I overdubbed the theremin part using the Samuel Hoffman 1929 RCA theremin. I didn't bother to show myself playing the theremin because there are already quite a few videos here on YT of me playing theremins of different sorts. The Vulcan harp, on the other hand, is rare. There are only two instruments in the world like the one you see in this video."

LONDONDERRY AIR / Ethervox Theremin

YouTube via copperleaves | December 07, 2010 | 0 likes, 0 dislikes

"The great Irish singer Harry P. Greene (born in Dublin in 1865) said of this traditional Irish melody, "It is a perfect example of pure phrasing far beyond the powers of that most limited instrument, the human voice. Only the violin can begin to do it justice and rise to its wonderful climax with every note serenely true. None of the great singers have tried to sing it; they know better!"

Since it was first introduced in the mid 19th century, this melody has remained one of the most recognizable and loved throughout the world. There have been several sets of lyrics written to be sung to this tune (the most popular is "Danny Boy") but the melody stands beautifully on its own."

Hoffman RCA Theremin / BERCEUSE

YouTube Uploaded by copperleaves on Aug 26, 2011

"This is the "Berceuse" from JOCELYN, an opera written by French composer Benjamin Godard (1849 - 1895). I transcribed it for harp (Venus "Aquilan" concert harp) and theremin and played it on the 1929 RCA theremin that once belonged to the late Samuel Hoffman."

Ben / Michael Jackson / Theremin

YouTube via copperleaves
"Here is a theremin rendition of one one of the late, great Michael Jackson's early hits, BEN (1972), played on the Moog Etherwave Pro theremin. The volume configuration of my E'Pro has been recently improved by the addition of a module designed by French electronics wizard Thierry Frenkel and I am really pleased with the results. This song seemed like a good way to show off Thierry's modification and, at the same time, celebrate Michael's amazing but very troubled life."

MOONLIGHT by Olga Theremin

YouTube Uploaded by copperleaves on Aug 17, 2011

"This composition was written by Olga Theremin, the granddaughter of the inventor of the musical instrument known as the "theremin". Olga wrote this originally as a song based on a poem by the 19th century Russian poet Athanasius Fet. For me, Olga's music had a wonderful romantic Russian feel to it so I decided to transcribe it (*with permission*) for the theremin. In this video you see only my pitch hand and the pitch antenna of the Moog Ethervox theremin.

Here is Olga's original version of the piece on which my arrangement is based. The child in the photo is Olga with her grandfather, Leon Theremin. I'd like to thank the Theremin family for their cooperation."

"Moonlight ..."( 1996) poetry by Athanasius Fet , music by Olga Theremin

Uploaded by Lirego on Aug 14, 2011

"Лунный свет..."(1996)

стихи Афанасия Фета, музыка Ольги Термен

Исполняет Ольга Термен.

Запись сделана на магнитофонную пленку.
Москва,1996.

Household recording Olga Theremin.

"Moonlight ..."( 1996)

poetry by Athanasius Fet , music by Olga Theremin

Singing and piano - Olga Theremin.

Recorded on tape.
Moscow, 1996."

WIDMUNG / Theremin

YouTube Uploaded by copperleaves on Jul 22, 2011

"This composition, WIDMUNG ("dedication") was written by the German composer Robert Schumann in 1840. It was part of a song cycle called MYRTHEN, and the text was taken from a poem by Friedrich Ruckert. It is one of the most popular of all of Schumann's compositions, and was transcribed for keyboard by the great Hungarian piano virtuoso, Franz Liszt."

Theremin And Electric Kantele

YouTube via copperleaves

"I call this composition LEMMENKAINEN'S DREAM. Lemmenkainen was one of the heroes in the Finnish national epic known as the KALEVALA. The writer of The Lord Of The Rings, J. R. R. Tolkien, based much of his vision of Middle Earth on ideas and images from the Kalevala which he had read as a teenager. He liked it so much he actually learned Finnish in order to read the book in its native language, and later went on to invent a language entirely of his own (the language of the Elves called "Quenya") which was based on Finnish.

The kantele (pronounced "kan - teh - leh") is the national instrument of Finland and belongs to the family of instruments known as "psalteries". The one you see in this video is a 38 string, steel strung, electric kantele. It's magnetic pickups (which are eight inches long) were custom made by Jason Lollar for Bart Hopkin of Experimental Musical Instruments. If you are curious about them, visit Bart's website, windworld.com.

The kantele is an extremely resonant instrument and larger "concert" models are provided with a damper consisting of a thick felt strip similar to what you might find on a piano, in order to mute the strings. I left the damper box open in the middle part of this video so you could see what it looks like. These electroacoustic kanteles bear little resemblance to the traditional 5 and 10 string folk instruments but they open up all sorts of doors for modern musicians. The high tension and steel strings on the instrument in this video allow me, if I wish, to play the kantele with a bar which I hold in my left hand. Players of steel guitars and of certain traditional instruments of India also play in this way. The effect of it is a very pure and strangely lonely "northern" sound which I found appropriate for the piece.

The theremin I used is a Moog Etherwave Pro."

ELECTRONDE (Theremin) of Martin Taubman

YouTube via copperleaves — April 16, 2010 — "This is an archival news film from 1938, showing Martin Taubman and his "Electronde". If you look carefully, you can catch an occasional glimpse of the audio cutoff cable that runs from Taubman's left hand (which he keeps at his side) to the Electronde cabinet. The volume for this device is controlled by a pedal placed under Taubman's right foot. The pad under his left foot is there only for balance so that one leg is not higher than the other.

According to the 1939 CYCLOPEDIA OF MUSIC AND MUSICIANS (which was edited by, among others, Nicolas Slonimsky, a personal friend of Lev Termen, the inventor of the theremin), the absence of "attack" on the "space control" instruments was considered a serious limitation by many musicians of the 1930's. While a fast "dipping" motion of the volume hand of a thereminist can create the impression of attack, it is not instantaneous and cannot produce the true staccato of Taubman's ELECTRONDE.

You will notice that Taubman has placed his Electronde on top of his speaker, and turned the speaker so that it points to Taubman's right. This way, when he plays, his audience sees him only in profile and his left hand (which controls his audio cutoff switch) is hidden on the upstage side."

Rachmaninoff: Theremin "How Fair This Spot"

YouTube via copperleaves
"This is a transcription for theremin of Russian composer Sergei Rachmaninoff's beautiful song, Opus 21 #7, "Zdes Xorosho" (How Fair This Spot).

According to the New York Times, Rachmaninoff attended a demonstration of the theremin in 1930, given by its inventor, Leon Theremin (a fellow Russian), at the Plaza Hotel in New York City. Apparently there was a woman in the audience who leapt to her feet after the first number applauding and shouting "Bravo! Bravo!" Rachmaninoff who, according to the article, was sitting behind her, loudly exclaimed, "Sit down Madame! You Exaggerate!"

At the time, the instrument was unknown and there were no musicians, other than its inventor, who were competent to play it.

Although Rachmaninoff never wrote anything for the theremin, one of his compositions, VOCALISE, has become one of the standard transcription compositions for the instrument. In regard to this song, HOW FAIR THIS SPOT, written for piano and voice in 1901, I found the following information on the internet:

'Rachmaninoff and his wife were on their honeymoon when he composed the work, which, not surprisingly, he also dedicated to her. Moreover, he had recently recovered from a depression caused by the disastrous 1897 premiere of his Symphony No. 1, which undermined his confidence and ability to compose until the appearance in 1901 of his ever-popular Piano Concerto No. 2. This was obviously a blissful time in his life, then, true to his nature, Rachmaninoff was moved to write music here about romance and passion, leaving out the sunshine and merriment he must also have felt. The song features one of the composer's most soaring, beautiful vocal melodies that would not have been out of place in a slow movement of one of his concertos or symphonies. The accompaniment is appropriately subdued and just as romantic as the vocal line. The text, by G. Galina, describes a pastoral scene where young lovers have come to be alone with nature and themselves. This lovely song typically has a duration of just over two minutes.'"

4 THEREMIN COMPARISON

Published on Aug 11, 2013 copperleaves·60 videos

"This is an original composition I wrote to demonstrate and compare the sound of four different theremins.

The first one I play is the Moog Ethervox. Many people believe this is the finest and most versatile theremin ever made. It was designed and manufactured in the late 1990's and is fully MIDI capable (although I am playing it here strictly in the traditional way).

The second instrument is the 1929 RCA theremin that once belonged to the late Hollywood thereminist, Dr. Samuel Hoffman. This instrument can be heard on the soundtracks of over forty major motion picture soundtracks of the 1940's and 50's.

The third theremin is the last theremin designed and made by the late, wonderful, Robert Moog. It is called the Etherwave Pro. This instrument is in a burled maple cabinet I made for it myself, and is the only one of the four instruments in this video that I play while seated.

The last theremin, the one with the Art Deco lightning bolt antennas, belonged to Leon Theremin's business partner and personal assistant, Julius Goldberg. This is the only one of the four theremins that I am using an effect with. The sound you hear is the voice of the theremin going through an Electro-Harmonix TALKING MACHINE which gives it the haunting sound of a human baritone. I thought this might be an interesting contrast with the other three instruments.

All four of these theremins are amplified identically, and their sound is coming through the "Claratone" speaker you see behind me. This speaker was specially designed by Reid Welch for use with the theremin, and was named after the great 20th century thereminist, Clara Rockmore.

I would love to have played these instruments by walking from one to the other in a single shot but that is not possible. First of all, theremins are notorious for causing all sorts of interference problems with one another when there are several of them in close proximity and all of them are turned on. So for each of the theremins I play in this video, the other three had to be turned off.

The other big problem is that the spacing of the notes within the electromagnetic field is radically different for each of these four instruments, so it takes a few minutes to adapt your technique to the configuration of the theremin you're playing. All theremins are not the same. Most traditional instruments have a standard design and spacing - the standard piano keyboard is the same everywhere - but theremins are highly individual and each one is different."

The Haken Continuum

YouTube Uploaded by copperleaves on Mar 8, 2011

"This is what I call a "SHOW & TELL" video. It's the kind of video people make when they get a new musical instrument they haven't the slightest idea how to play and they're dying to show it off to the world even though it's only been out of the box for five minutes!

This instrument is called the HAKEN CONTINUUM FINGERBOARD and it's wonderful. In this video I am playing only one sound (a very "breathy" timbre that is somewhere between a clarinet and a Persian flute), and I am using only one voice (although it is a polyphonic instrument).

What distinguishes this instrument from other interfaces is that it is played in three dimensions: from left to right, forward & backward, and up & down. The hand of the player slides and dances on a smooth neoprene cushion constantly changing and "sculpting" the sound as it goes. Parameters can be altered to suit the musician, but in this video pitch is controlled by moving to the left and to the right like a standard keyboard, volume is controlled by pressure up and down on the neoprene surface, and timbre is controlled by movement of the hand forward and backward. A single hand can perform any or all of these movements at any given moment. This frees the other hand to play another keyboard (which is what I do in this video), or control some other device.

The continuum is limited only by your own musical imagination. What you see me do in this video is just one sound and one voice. It is infinitely more versatile than anything that could be shown in just a couple of minutes. Although the continuum is essentially a MIDI/CV controller interface, it has a large menu of its own sounds built into it. These sounds were prototyped by continuum virtuoso Edmund Eagan in Kyma, Symbolic Sound and the prototypes were then hand coded by Lippold Haken (the inventor of the instrument) for the fingerboard's digital signal processor.

Yeah, I know, it all sounds terribly complicated, but it's not. The instrument is very "friendly", easy to understand and a lot of fun!

Stay tuned for "The Haken Continuum MIDI Fingerboard Meets the Moog MIDI Etherwave Theremin" - two of the most exotic and unusual electronic music interfaces ever conceived."

"AFRIQUE" For Gravikord & Theremin

YouTube via copperleaves | October 27, 2010
Theremin comes in at 2:24.
"The "gravikord" is an electroacoustic instrument that is the brainchild of inventor and musical instrument builder, Bob Grawi. It is based on the traditional west African double harp known as the "kora". This piece of music is a short improvisation designed to show some of the things that the gravikord can do (things that are not possible on the kora). I had to cut my head off when I filmed myself playing the gravikord because I was singing the part that I would eventually play on the Moog Ethervox theremin and it looked a bit silly!

For more about the gravikord (tuning, construction etc.) Wikipedia has a very interesting and informative article at the following URL:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravikord"

Hoffman Theremin - O MIO BABBINO CARO

YouTube via copperleaves — April 02, 2010 — "The videos I have posted to YouTube in the past that show me playing Samuel Hoffman's RCA theremin were made when YouTube quality was not as good as it is today. Here is a theremin transcription of O MIO BABBINO CARO from Giacomo Puccini's opera, GIANNI SCHICCHI. As you can see, I have taken the doors off the cabinet so I could zoom in on the old vacuum tubes that give the instrument its distinctive voice.

Doctor Hoffman used this theremin on the soundtracks of such classic films as THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL, SPELLBOUND, THE TEN COMMANDMENTS and many other suspense and SciFi movies of the late 1940's and 1950's. At that time, he modified the instrument for use in the recording studio by putting special audio output jacks on it so that external speakers could be plugged into the RCA theremin amplifier. For this recording, I used a CLARATONE speaker that was specially built by Florida vintage theremin expert Reid Welch (aka "Mr. Trubble").

This speaker was designed to emulate the sound of the Jensen speaker used by the late, great theremin virtuosa, Clara Rockmore. Because Reid had been a personal friend of Clara Rockmore, he had the opportunity to study her instrument and her speaker set up. His CLARATONE has a 10 inch cone and a particularly warm, sweet and definitely human voice. Unfortunately, Reid only made a limited number of these custom speakers and I was lucky to get the very last one (which I purchased in 1998).

The speaker that is built into the cabinet of this unique theremin was placed so that it was facing away from the thereminist and on the floor. This is the very worst possible place for a theremin speaker because when you play, your speaker is the only way you can hear what you are doing. For best results, your theremin speaker should be placed at head level, behind or beside you, pointing toward you, and no further away than about six feet.

A friend of mine who was well acquainted with vintage radio technology used to call vacuum tubes 'magical Inca fire bottles'."

SONG #2 FOR THEREMIN

Published on Aug 20, 2013 copperleaves·61 videos

"This is an original composition for theremin, piano and strings. I am playing it on the 1929 RCA theremin that was once the property of the late Hollywood thereminist, Dr. Samuel Hoffman."

THEREMIN: L'invitation au voyage

YouTube via copperleaves. Don't miss this performance as well. You can find more here.
"This is one of my favorite songs from the works of French composer Henri Duparc, originally written to a poem by Charles Baudelaire. I have taken certain liberties with the arrangement in order to make up for the absence of the words which are extraordinarily powerful.

Duparc lived an unhappy, tormented life and did not write many compositions. Along with composer Camille Saint-Saens, he founded the National Society Of Modern Music in his native France.

I should mention that I probably would not have been able to play this on my Moog Etherwave Pro theremin if it's volume circuit linearity had not been greatly improved by the addition of the EPVM1345, a tiny module invented by French engineer Thierry Frenkel."

Le Plat Pays / Brel / Theremin

YouTube via copperleaves
"This is Belgian singer/songwriter Jacques Brel's anthem about his country. He originally wrote the song in French but recorded it in both French and Dutch. Brel was one of the first popular singers to use the instrument known as the "ondes martenot" in his songs and it was an important part of the special feeling of this song. I do not play the ondes so I have used its sister instrument, the theremin, instead. I first heard this song in the summer of 1963 and fell in love with it. For me, Brel has been an inspiration ever since."