And This Is My Beloved
Peter Pringle
My fellow Levritos,
2016 is upon us!
Wishing the very best year ever for all of you thereministi. We had a green Christmas in my neck o’ the woods, but Mother Nature decided to make up for that by dumping quite a bit of snow on us for the New Year. Since I was stuck inside most of the day, I made a theremin video. Hope you enjoy it….
David Curtis
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Peter Pringle
About the money notes:
Luciano Pavarotti once said in an interview that even when a note is not difficult for a singer to reach, it is important to give the impression that a great deal of effort must be made to produce it. This will ensure a strong and positive audience reaction.
With the theremin, those “money notes” (aka “high notes”) are no more difficult to hit than any other note. Because singers push harder for high notes, and because those notes are usually emotionally more “fevered” and musically dramatic than lower notes, they are usually ‘forte’, and the vibrato on them is usually slightly faster than it is in a more relaxed mode.
To add theremin dynamics to those notes, it’s a good idea to play them with a faster vibrato. The ability to control the rate and depth of vibrato will depend on the technique the player is using to produce it. Wrist flapping and finger wiggling methods do not provide enough control, and those who use a fast “flutter” vibrato are already vibrating at the max and have nowhere to go.
As a footnote, Clara Rockmore played exquisite high pianissimos using a relatively slow vibrato…..shades of Montserrat C…..speaking of whom, I see she has been convicted of income tax evasion and must repay 250,000 euros to the Spanish government.
That should speed up her vibrato!! 😝
Uncle Howie
It has been far too long for us to wait for a new first class video from Peter, but the wait has been well worth it.
Listening to this stunning "interpretation" (Peter, you know what I am referring to) of a Borodin melody, trans mutated into the Broadway smash hit Kismet, I am reminded of having seen this musical back in 1953 in New York City.
Alfred Drake and Doretta Morrow starred in this new play and were, to put it lightly, spectacular.
Doretta Morrow had a voice that literally lit up the theatrical acoustics such that the whole auditorium sang back with her in a truly supernatural way.
I have never heard this strange phenomenon before or since.
Sadly, Miss Morrow died of cancer at the age of thirty.
Thank you Peter for the video.....and I love your Arabian Night costume for the occasion.
Happy New Year to you, and all (If you would have it so....{Japanese codicil}
Uncle Howie
P.S. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hbCEs5sg7kQ
Peter Pringle
Unk wrote: “Doretta Morrow had a voice that literally lit up the theatrical acoustics…..”
Indeed she did!
Doretta Morrow sang with the kind of all-out, over-the-top passion and fire that is essential for both romantic opera and musicals (such as KISMET) written to be sung by classically trained voices. As an aside, I would like to add that certain types of Rock music, regardless of how you may feel about the genre, demand the same sort of “in yer face” strong emotion as opera (and opera goers share the same sort of commitment to their music as Heavy Metal fans do to theirs).
This sort of feeling is difficult to capture for thereminists because we are so preoccupied with hitting the correct notes that we can’t really let go and let ‘er rip! This is why, IMNSHO, most theremin performances come off as rather tepid, “laid back”, and “cautious”. We definitely hear passion in Clara Rockmore’s 1945 performance of the Fuleihan CONCERTO FOR THEREMIN & ORCH, but her later recordings (made in the 1970’s by Robert Moog), as exquisite as they are, do not have the kind of exuberance and sheer “chutzpah” that we heard thirty years earlier.
Part of the problem for modern thereminists is that their instruments are not cooperating with them. I find that most theremins these days, no matter how skillfully they are played, sound lifeless and cold compared to vintage instruments. This is particularly true in the higher registers. Instead of becoming richer and more powerful, the sound just becomes louder and thinner.
Another thing that I believe holds many thereminists back and prevents them from being able to express what they may (or may not) have in their musical imaginations, are the largely self-taught, default techniques they use to play their instruments. By “default techniques” I mean methods of playing that have been arrived at by a personal process of the elimination of approaches to the instrument that have not come easily, and have not offered instant gratification.
How often have I heard people say, “I’m just going to watch what everybody does, and go with whatever works for me.” That’s fine if you just want to have a bit of fun, but if you’re serious about playing the theremin it is unlikely that philosophy is going to get you where you want to go.
Can you imagine anyone saying such a thing about the violin or the piano?