EMUSIC-L Digest Volume 27, Number 4 This issue's topics: Theremin (8 messages) Your EMUSIC-D moderator is Joe McMahon. Please send articles to emusic-L@auvm.american.edu (or EMUSIC-L@AUVM.BITNET). Administrative mail should be directed to xrjdm@scfvm.nasa.gov. Digests will be distributed semi-monthly to monthly. For faster response to questions, subscribe to EMUSIC-L@AUVM.BITNET (or emusic-l@auvm.american.edu). The EMUSIC-L discussion group can alo be accessed via bit.listserv.emusic-l on Usenet. Subscribers to this list may send articles to EMUSIC-D@AUVM.BITNET (or emusic-d@auvm.american.edu); they will be reviewed and forwarded to EMUSIC-L. Back issues are available from xrjdm@scfvm.gsfc.nasa.gov. This is a manual operation, so requests for things like "all back issues" will take a long time. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 6 Mar 91 22:55:00 EDT From: S108352@GBURG.BITNET Subject: Re: Tape project & Theremin Inquiry RAYBRO: FASCINATING. I'VE HEARD OF THIS, IN FACT I'VE BEEN READING UP ON HOW TO TO EXACTLY WHAT YOU HAVE JUST DESCRIBED. HAVE YOU MADE ONE? DO THEY WORK WELL? IM WONDERING ABOUT THE PERFORMANCE QUALITY OF THIS TOY, AND ACTUALLY WHETHER IT IS A TOY OR NOT. I THINK I SAW THE SPECS ON IT IN A BOOK ABOUT ELECTRONIC ARTS, ALTHOUGH IM STILL SEARCHING FOR SOME KIND OF SUGGESTED SCHEMATIC. -JAY SMOOF ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 8 Mar 91 10:29:29 GMT From: Nick Rothwell Subject: Re: Theremin >For an in-print example of Theremin music, there is a CD on the Delos >label (probably filed under Classical Music in your local chain store) >by Clara Rockmore entitled "The Art of the Theremin". Well, maybe my memory deceives me, but I'm pretty sure that the Theremin was a major instrument for the GHOSTBUSTERS soundtrack (are we talking commercial or what?). Used quite well, I thought. Or was it an Ondes Martinot? Nick. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 8 Mar 91 07:55:00 EST From: MCINTYRE@MSUPA.BITNET Subject: Theremin >From: Jonathan >Hey, man, this is the 90's, and only greybeards understand analog anymore Well, when I looked in the mirror this morning, I did qualify on that count... >(much's the pity.) Amen to that... > How about this: Polaroid or somebody sells little >experiment kits containing the sonar gadgets they use to determine distance >so as to focus the camera automatically. How about using two of those >and a microcontroller to make a MIDI theremin? It would be difficult to get >the pitch to swoop smoothly over several octaves, as in the real thing, but >even semitone pitch quantization might not be a bad thing for oafs like me >with less-than-perfect hand-ear coordination. (I understand the original >Theremin is exceedingly difficult to play: it has no "frets" or pitch/distance >calibration.) As long as we're using a microcontroller, why not add a display screen to tell you what pitch you're playing? There was an sf story (title forgotten, but I think it was by J.G. Ballard in which the music of the future was ultrasonic and instruments included an oscilloscope screen so the musician could see what it was playing. John McIntyre Physics - Astronomy Dept Michigan State University ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 8 Mar 91 12:49:00 EDT From: "William R(ay) Brohinsky" Subject: Re: Tape project & Theremin Inquiry Jay, I can't say I've ever made one (on purpose---there have been a few digital circuits that have changed their frequency if you pass your hand over them, but none of them did it from any intention on my part :-) Some sources for do-it-yourself circuit inspirations would be Forrest Mims' series of engineers' notebooks from Radio Shack, or the National Semiconductor databooks for linear devices. Also, NS has a some neat handbooks---you should be able to find a local rep in the yellow phone listings at the back of any copy of Electronics Engineering Times (EET). The original Theremin was tube-based, because that was all that was available. Modern electronics should enable you to make something better. However, there are some bugaboos that you always need to watch out for: pitch is non-linear. If 8" of motion will get you an octave, 4" of motion will get the next octave. This can be offset by using a non-linear oscillator, but these have problems in that the temperature coefficient is in the exponant of the transfer function---temperature stable exponential oscillators cost. Some of these problems have been dealt with in IC's, but IC's tend to have limits that discrete parts don't. Even still, finding a current-controllable amp (like the CA3080 from RCA) that has a noise level below 40dB is hard. Making a lo-noise amp controllable without introducing noise is also not easy. The usual circuits use something like a FET: the drain-source voltage is modified, and thus the output voltage (caused by the gate voltage) varies. This can be done quite linearly, but the FET brings noise margin difficulties with it. There are some articles in Popular Electronics, going back 20 years or more, that might be helpful. Usually, Mims and Don Lancaster (from the days before he decided to get rich selling how-to-get-rich to the rest of us) are the most informative. Radio-Electronics seemed to limit it's music-awareness to hi-power transistorized instrument amps. If you want to try the theremin idea out cheaply, make a simple oscillator from a CMOS inverter: string a resistor from the output to the input, and run a cap from the input to ground, and it should oscillate. If you use a variable poteniometer as the resistor, you can control the pitch. Then, run the output through a pot (output into the top of the pot's resistor, bottom of the resistor to ground, and take the wiper as overall output) and run the wiper into a stereo. This should run for quite a while off a 9-volt battery. Now comes the fun part: make sure that the pots are securely mounted, and put knobs on them. Now, try finding pitches with the feedback pot, and then letting them out with the volume pot. It is not easy! This is what someone on the net meant when they remarked that playing a theremin was a chore! A good shortcut to learning would be to make a paper/cardboard label for the pitch knob, marking where various pitches should be. Then, you can at least be in the ball park before turning up the volume... The `art' here comes when you start to play with attack and decay times (how fast you turn the volume pot) and fiddle with the pitch knob to get effects like portamento and vibrato (which should ideally use both pitch and volume!) If you _like_ this kind of thing, then it's worth the trouble to try to make a real theremin and learn to play it! good luck! raybro ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 8 Mar 91 15:30:00 EDT From: "William R(ay) Brohinsky" Subject: Re: Theremin For those whose curiosity was peaked by Nick's ghostbusters posting: The ONDES MARTINOT was an instrument that used a resistive ribbon to choose the electronically produced pitch. The speaker, however, was mounted in an acoustically-shaped box with a set of 12 sympathetic strings stretched accross the speaker opening. The idea was that the sympathetic strings would respond to the pitches produced from the ribbon, giving a more `natural'(?) sound to the instrument [and perhaps keeping the player somewhere near the local pitch-in-use?]. There are a few classical works for the Ondes Martinot. I think Martinu wrote some, but that could be just because of the similarity between his name and the instrument's. Honneger could have been another---my memory seems to be more limited to hardware than composers from this period. The instrument got lots of use in more than one chapter of Moorcock's Cornelius Chronicles, but my favorite printed reference comes from the a cartoon that was made for the Hoffnung Festival: the Ondes Martinot is pictured with it's player turning a crank and feeding a cat into a hopper on the instrument... raybro ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 9 Mar 91 09:36:10 GMT From: "David P. Soniat (813) 974-3190" Subject: Re: Tape project & Theremin Inquiry In the active discussion which has been going on regarding the Theremin it was mentioned: >The original Theremin was tube-based, because that was all that was >available. Modern electronics should enable you to make something >better. However, there are some bugaboos that you always need to >watch out for: > >pitch is non-linear. If 8" of motion will get you an octave, 4" >of motion will get the next octave. Since when is "non-linear pitch" a problem? Only you keyboard guys enjoy the same "distance" for each octave. Strings, brass, winds, etc. all have "non-linear" pitch (even percussion - try tuning timpani sometime). Don't forget the "tone generators" for acoustic keyboards also are not linear (on a pipe organ I am restoring middle C Prinzipal pipe is 22in, one octave up it is 11in, next octave it is about 5 1/2 in, etc.). Also, (speaking as a string player) frets do not guarantee that one will play in tune. As a matter of fact, if one's instrument goes slightly out of tune while playing, they insure that it is difficult, if not impossible to make up for this and play in tune. .....David P. Soniat University of South Florida....... +-------------------------------------------------------+ BITnet - DBLABAD@CFRVM Internet - DBLABAD@CFRVM.CFR.USF.EDU +-------------------------------------------------------+ ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 9 Mar 91 16:08:47 +0100 From: Nicolas Verin Subject: Re: Theremin In article raybro writes : >The ONDES MARTINOT was an instrument that used a resistive ribbon to choose >the electronically produced pitch. The speaker, however, was mounted in >an acoustically-shaped box with a set of 12 sympathetic strings stretched >accross the speaker opening. The idea was that the sympathetic strings >would respond to the pitches produced from the ribbon, giving a more >`natural'(?) sound to the instrument [and perhaps keeping the player >somewhere near the local pitch-in-use?]. > >There are a few classical works for the Ondes Martinot. I think Martinu >wrote some, but that could be just because of the similarity between his >name and the instrument's. Honneger could have been another---my memory >seems to be more limited to hardware than composers from this period. > >The instrument got lots of use in more than one chapter of Moorcock's >Cornelius Chronicles, but my favorite printed reference comes from >the a cartoon that was made for the Hoffnung Festival: the Ondes >Martinot is pictured with it's player turning a crank and feeding a cat >into a hopper on the instrument... It is still in use, and as a matter of fact, there is still a class in the Paris Conservatory where they teach it. It can use any of three speakers ; in addition to the one you mention are a regular speaker, and one whose motor is mounted on a kind of cymbal, instead of the usual cardboard, again acting as a resonator, giving it a kind of natural reverb, colored by the spectrum of the "cymbal". There are many composers who wrote for the instrument, and the most famous is probably Olivier Messiaen, who used it in a score of works. Nicolas Verin. ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 9 Mar 91 13:45:00 EST From: MICHAET@CLEMSON.BITNET Subject: Re: Theremin On Sat, 9 Mar 91 16:08:47 +0100 Nicolas Verin said: > In article raybro writes : > >The ONDES MARTINOT was an instrument that used a resistive ribbon to choose > > It is still in use, and as a matter of fact, there is still a class in > the Paris Conservatory where they teach it. > There are many composers who wrote for the instrument, and the most famous > is probably Olivier Messiaen, who used it in a score of works. > Nicolas Verin. What about Maurice Jarre? Michael ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 10 Mar 91 13:23:00 CDT From: SRSKAL@MACALSTR.EDU Subject: Re: Tape project & Theremin Inquiry Raybro-- Yes, I am quite interested in getting a copy of this theremin recording that you mentioned. I have started to do more research into the history of electronic music, and I am also starting to develop ways of constructing my own instruments and sound-producing circuitsl. All of this should help broaden my knowledge and (hopefully) spark new and creative concepts in my own music (well, new to me at least). Who knows, maybe I'll even start reading something about music theory and tonality some day??? If you can send the tape, I would appreciate it, and if need be I could "pay you back" for it. Thanks... Roger Skulback 1600 Grand Ave St. Paul, MN 55105 ------------------------------ End of the EMUSIC-L Digest ******************************