The Theremin at 100

Image - ©Elsewhere

 

 

This year marks the one-hundredth birthday of the Theremin, that stalwart of 50's science fiction B-movie soundtracks with its ethereal keening usually prefacing some sort of jump-cut to the monster, alien or other such scary thing's entrance; they themselves were usually McCarthy-era cinematic ciphers for the Russians. Which, as it turns out, was sort of apposite to the story of the device's invention, in a roundabout way.

The Theremin is a musical instrument that requires no physical touch from the musician playing it, instead relying on gestures varying the relative proximity of the players' hands to two antennae on the device. The players' dominant hand controls pitch and the other volume or swell. It works in much the same way as a proximity detector does; sensors in use across industry to give feedback to control systems on production lines, for instance.

It was invented in Russia by Lev Sergeyevich Termen, known in the West as Leon Theremin; in 1920. He was a multi-disciplinary scientist, inventor and musician, working on proximity devices amongst many other things for the state. It was the underlying principle of the proximity device that led to the development of the Theremin itself.

Essentially comprising three radio frequency oscillators, two for the actual production of the instrument's sound and one for the control of its volume. As the oscillators operate at radio frequencies, they are inaudible, but are capable of being 'tuned' without touch by the proximity of an earthed body; in this case the musician playing the instrument, acting as one side of a component in the oscillator circuit; the varying distance and shape of the players hands from the antennae altering the value of that component and hence the oscillator's frequency. The Theremin produces its audible sound by mixing the output of this oscillator with a fixed, reference oscillator, tuned slightly away from the 'playing' one, which results in heterodyning, where two different frequencies combine to produce a third value: a 'beat' frequency if you like. In the case of the Theremin, the two radio signals combine to produce a much lower, audible signal, which can then be amplified.

Not long after he debuted the instrument, Theremin was requested to give Lenin a demonstration of the device. Suitably impressed, he told Theremin that the instrument should be demonstrated far and wide across Europe in promotion of the Russian electrification and modernisation plan. Touring Europe extensively and performing concerts to showcase his device, he eventually decamped to the U.S. in 1927, receiving a patent for the Theremin in 1928 and subsequently licensing the device to RCA. Theremin disappeared from the U.S. in 1938, at the time apparently mysteriously. It turned out probably to have been a mix of tax and financial problems as well as his anxiety about the impending war in Europe.

He had returned to Russia however, where he was imprisoned in a Siberian laboratory camp and set to work on various state research projects. He didn't reappear in the world until thirty years later and only moved back to the States in 1991, two years before his death aged ninety-seven. In the intervening years, he was engaged in espionage activities, at one point developing what came to be known as 'The Thing', an eavesdropping device that operated unnoticed in a wall plaque of the U.S. Great Seal that hung in the U.S. Ambassador's office in Moscow from 1945 till its accidental discovery seven years later. The plaque had been presented to the Ambassador as a goodwill gift by schoolchildren; Theremin worked for the KGB until 1966.

Today's versions of the instrument are highly sophisticated and capable of a rich, unique musicality in skilled hands. YouTube has loads of great performances; solo, ensemble and with orchestras and bands. You can build your own, from a simple novelty noisemaker to a fully fledged performance instrument. Robert Moog started out making Theremins in the fifties, going on to invent his eponymous synthesiser in the sixties. But to this day the company still has the Theremin on its product roster. The Theremin may not have been the very first electronic instrument invented, but it was the one that took electronic music to the world, not bad for a research by-product.