Interesting Instruments Bingo - We have a winner!!

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Re: Interesting Instruments Bingo - Second numbers up 1st Ma

Post by rcperryls »

:dance: :dance: Both today so no tantrums. 2/10 on the second day so nothing to complain about. Love the info and the sound. Shirley rarely pays attention to sounds on the computer, but did turn around when I played the Didgeridoo. I think she must have thought the computer was going to explode or something. :lol:

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Re: Interesting Instruments Bingo - Second numbers up 1st Ma

Post by Lizzieh »

Well I'm certainlly not having beginners luck. 0/10
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Re: Interesting Instruments Bingo - Second numbers up 1st Ma

Post by Squirrel »

Finally on the board with 1/10.

Carole, I can well understand Shirley's reaction to the Didgery Doo - they are weird sounding instruements. I heard one recently when I was in the city - an Aboriginal guy was playing in the pedestrian mall when DD and I were walking through. :D
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Re: Interesting Instruments Bingo - Second numbers up 1st Ma

Post by Fizzbw »

None for me either!!!

Once I was playing a tape (a long once ago!!) of INXS and one song made my horse neigh, every time that it was played! He wasn't upset or disturbed, just something in the music made him call!!!

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Re: Interesting Instruments Bingo - Second numbers up 1st Ma

Post by jocellogirl »

Sorry for not posting numbers yesterday, I was at work all day then straight to a concert at Symphony Hall as soon as I got home. Anyway, here are today's numbers.

10. Glass Harp

A glass harp (also called musical glasses, singing glasses, angelic organ, verrilion or ghost fiddle) is a musical instrument made of upright wine glasses.
It is played by running moistened or chalked fingers around the rim of the glasses. Each glass is tuned to a different pitch, either by grinding each goblet to the specified pitch, in which case the tuning is permanent, or by filling the glass with water until the desired pitch is achieved.
The glass harp was created in 1741 by Irishman Richard Pockrich, who is known as the first virtuoso of the musical glasses.
The composer Christoph Willibald Gluck played the musical glasses. He performed in London and Copenhagen and his instrument consisted of 26 goblets. The instrument was popular in the 18th century. Pockrich's contemporary, Ford, published Instructions for the Playing of the Musical Glasses while Bartl published a German version.
On February 18, 1979, Gloria Parker performed as a musical glasses soloist with the Hartford Symphony Orchestra at the Jai Alai Fronton in Hartford, Connecticut, USA. Richard Hayman, noted for his arrangements for Boston Pops conductor Arthur Fiedler, was the guest conductor for the 90-piece orchestra that accompanied the musical glasses which included songs such as Lara's Theme from the movie Dr. Zhivago, Lover and Amor.
There are several current musicians who professionally play the glass harp. Among them are the Glass Duo from Poland, Clemens Hofinger in Germany, France's Jean Chatillion and Thomas Bloch, Brien Engel, and Dennis James in the United States and Canada's Real Berthiaume. Glasses have been also used by famous rock band Pink Floyd during the recording of "Shine On You Crazy Diamond" on their Wish You Were Here album, recorded and released in 1975. Igor Sklyarov played the glass harp on the same song during two 2006 concerts recorded in Venice, Italy by former guitarist David Gilmour. Gilmour also used the effect during his August 26, 2006 concert in Gdańsk, Poland, with the help of Guy Pratt, Phil Manzanera and Dick Parry. Both recordings are available on Gilmour's Live in Gdańsk CD, although the Venice recording is only available on the 5-disc version of the album or as an internet download with the 3- and 4-disc versions.
A Toast To Christmas with the Singing Glasses is an album recorded and released in 1980, composed and performed by Gloria Parker. Fourteen well-known carols are performed with the glass harp producing flute-like sounds on crystal glasses, marking the first commercial album to use glasses as a musical instrument.
Image
Hear and see the glass harp being played.

21. Serpent

The serpent is the bass wind instrument, descended from the cornett, and a distant ancestor of the tuba, with a mouthpiece like a brass instrument but side holes like a woodwind. It is usually a long cone bent into a snake-like shape, hence the name. The serpent is closely related to the cornett, although it is not part of the cornett family, due to the absence of a thumb hole. It is generally made out of wood, with walnut being a particularly popular choice. The outside is covered with dark brown or black leather. Despite wooden construction and the fact that it has fingerholes rather than valves, it is usually classed as a brass, with the Hornbostel-Sachs scheme of musical instrument classification placing it alongside trumpets.
The serpent's range varies according to the instrument and the player, but typically covers one from two octaves below middle C to at least half an octave above middle C.
The serpent usually has six holes, which are ordered in two groups of three. On early models, the fingerholes were keyless, like those of a recorder. However, later models added keys as on a clarinet, although they were for additional holes (out of reach of the fingers), while the original holes remained unkeyed, and are covered or uncovered directly by the player's fingers.
While it does not have a rigidly defined fingering system such as other wind instruments employ, the serpent requires an extraordinary amount of effort from the player, who must select the desired pitch with the lips in falset, usually overriding the tone the instrument prefers to sound with any particular fingering. The serpent player also has a unique right-hand finger position, in that the index finger may be further down the tube towards the bell than the other fingers of that hand. In this respect the fingering of the right hand is reversed to that found in all other keyed wind instruments, where the keys and holes controlled by the index fingers are further up towards the mouthpiece than the other fingers. This is because the serpent was originally held vertically, with both of the player's hands oriented palm-down; in this position the right hand fingerings are not reversed in the manner described above. Later, players began to hold the instrument horizontally, requiring a reversal of the right hand to palm-up, with the fingerings changing accordingly and left.
The instrument is claimed to have been invented by Canon Edmé Guillaume in 1590 in Auxerre, France, and was first used to strengthen the sound of choirs in plainchant. This date for the invention of the serpent did not appear until 1743, in Jean LebÅ“uf's "Mémoires Concernant l’Histoire Ecclésiastique et Civile d’Auxerre." Herbert Heyde asserts the serpent evolved from a type of bass cornetto and was invented in Italy in the 16th century. Around the middle of the 18th century, it began to appear in military bands and orchestras. Richard Wagner used the serpent in place of the double bassoon in his opera Rienzi. The instrument also appears in operatic scores by Spontini and Bellini, but it was replaced in the 19th century by a fully keyed brass instrument, the ophicleide, and later on by valved bass brass instruments such as the euphonium and tuba. After that the serpent dropped off in popularity for a period of time.
Bernard Herrmann used a serpent in the scores of White Witch Doctor and Journey to the Center of the Earth (1959).
In the 1970s, instrument-maker Christopher Monk began playing, and later making Serpents, and in 1976 he founded the London Serpent Trio. Since then, the instrument has undergone a revival of sorts. In 1987, Simon Proctor wrote the first concerto for the instrument. The Serpent Concerto was first performed on October 21, 1989 at the First International Serpent Festival (celebrating the 399th anniversary of the serpent) with serpent soloist Alan Lumsden. Since then, the Serpent Concerto has been performed in public on many occasions, most notably by Douglas Yeo of the Boston Symphony Orchestra and Boston Pops Orchestra, who played the solo part with the Boston Pops under the direction of John Williams. The concerto appears on a commercial CD recording, Le Monde du Serpent (The World of the Serpent), on the Berlioz Historic Brass label, BHB 101, with the Berlioz Historical Brass, Gloria Dei Cantores choir, members of the Boston Symphony Orchestra et al. In 2008, Douglas Yeo premiered another serpent concerto, "Old Dances in New Shoes" by Washington D.C.-based composer Gordon Bowie, with the Boston Classical Orchestra, conducted by Steven Lipsitt.
In July 14, 2012 in Monopoli Conservatory of Music (Italy) world premiere of the Serpent Concerto of the title "Diversita' : NO LIMIT" by Italian composer Luigi Morleo.
There are two main types of serpent: curved (serpentine, or double-S, shaped) and straight/upright (the tube is mostly straight, but is folded back on itself in the middle, much like a bassoon). Within the curved style, there are two variations; Church (also called French) and Military (also called English). The Church serpent is the original type, popularized in France, and is distinguished by gentle, sweeping curves and little (if any) metal reinforcements. The Military serpent was primarily made in England, and its characteristics include having tighter bends and a slightly more compact overall size as a result, with lots of metal bands and stays between the tubing. Furthermore, there are several different sizes besides the common "church" Serpent, including Contrabass ("anaconda"), Tenor ("serpent") and Soprano ("worm"). Only the original bass size, and possibly the tenor, were made during the serpent's heyday. The soprano is a fanciful modern variant, and the contrabass is based on a single known original made after the serpent was already fading in popularity.
From its beginning as an instrument held vertically between one's knees with both palms facing down, Hermenge (in his serpent method - Paris, 1817) suggested a horizontal playing position that rested in the right hand palm faced upward. This position was adopted by English military serpents and the instrument was made of a more robust construction (owing to marching or riding on horseback) with thicker walls of the wood and metal stays between the "S" bends of the serpent. The "English bass horn" was a variant form of upright serpent of metal consisting of a tube folded back on itself (rather like the modern bassoon). Mendelssohn scored for the English bass horn in the first edition of his "Midsummer Night's Dream" although the ophicleide was substituted with his consent after the English bass horn fell rapidly from favor. The Italian form of upright serpent, or corno di basso, came to be abbreviated as "gimbasso" or "cimbasso" or other variants, which even today leads to great confusion with a modern "cimbasso," a contrabass valve trombone.

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See and hear the serpent being played
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Re: Interesting Instruments Bingo - 3rd numbers up 3rd May

Post by rcperryls »

:( none today, but :D for the glass harp example. I love that one. The serpent was interesting, but playing music on the glasses always amazes me every time I have seen it. Can't imagine how hard that must be. It's kind of like having to build your piano every time you want to play it.

Still at 2/10

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Re: Interesting Instruments Bingo - 3rd numbers up 3rd May

Post by Squirrel »

:) none today but now I understand the "glass harp" is musical glasses - always fascinating to watch.

Thank you so much for all the interesting information. :D
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Re: Interesting Instruments Bingo - 3rd numbers up 3rd May

Post by geekishly »

Day three and I still have a big fat 0/10. :boohoo:
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Re: Interesting Instruments Bingo - 3rd numbers up 3rd May

Post by Ketta »

Up to 3/10..some really funky looking instruments so far (like...the serpant...weird!).
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Re: Interesting Instruments Bingo - 3rd numbers up 3rd May

Post by debupnorth »

Very interesting! :applesauce: Up to 3/10. :)
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Re: Interesting Instruments Bingo - 3rd numbers up 3rd May

Post by jocellogirl »

Today's numbers are

7. Dholak

The dholak is a South Asian two-headed hand-drum. It may have traditional cotton rope lacing, screw-turnbuckle tensioning or both combined: in the first case steel rings are used for tuning or pegs a twisted inside the laces. The dholak is mainly a folk instrument, lacking the exact tuning and playing techniques of the tabla or the pakhawaj. The drum is pitched, depending on size, with an interval of perhaps a perfect fourth or perfect fifth between the two heads. It is related to the larger Punjabi dhol and the smaller dholki.
It is widely used in qawwali, kirtan, Marathi(laavani) and bhangra. It was formerly used in classical dance. Indian children sing and dance to it during pre-wedding festivities. It is often used in Filmi Sangeet - Indian film music - in chutney music, baithak gana, tan singing and the local Indian music of Jamaica, Suriname, Guyana, Trinidad and Tobago, where it was brought by indentured immigrants. In the Fiji Islands the dholak is widely used for bhajan and kirtan. Also it is mostly used in India.
The dholak's higher-pitched head is a simple membrane while the bass head, played usually with the left hand, has a compound syahi to lower the pitch and enable the typical Dholak sliding sound ("giss" or "gissa"), often the caked residue of mustard oil pressing, to which some sand and oil or tar may be added. The Sri Lankan version uses a large fixed tabla-style syahi on the middle of bass skin.
The drum is either played on the player's lap or, while standing, slung from the shoulder or waist or pressed down with one knee while sitting on the floor. The shell is sometimes made from sheesham wood(Dalbergia sissoo) but cheaper dholaks may be made from any wood (mango).Sri Lankan dholaks and dholkis are made from hollowed coconut palm stems.
In some styles of playing (i.e. Punjab) an iron thumb ring is used to produced a distinctive "chak" rim sound. In other styles (e.g. Rajasthani), all fingers are generally used.
The dholki (Hindi/Urdu: pipe or tube) is often a bit narrower in diameter and uses tabla-style syahi masala on its treble skin. This instrument is also known as the naal Its treble skin is stitched onto an iron ring, similarly to East Asian Janggu or Shime-daiko drums, which tenses the head before it is fitted. The bass skin often has the same made up as in ordinary dholak (i.e. being fitted on to a bamboo ring, but sometimes they may have a kinar and pleated Gajra, as seen in tabla, to withstand the extra tension. Sri Lankan dholkis have high quality skins with syahi on both sides, producing a sound like a very high-pitched tabla and using a simplified tabla fingering. Steel tuning rings are not used - instead wooden pegs are twisted to create a very high tension. The heads are created with triple stitching to withstand tension. Similar dholkis are in use in Maharashtra and elsewhere. Heavy hardwood dholaks are said to produce better sound than those carved of cheap unseasoned sapwood.
Image
See and hear the dholak being played

16. Marimba

The marimba is a musical instrument in the percussion family. It consists of a set of wooden bars with resonators. The bars are struck with mallets to produce musical tones. The bars are arranged as those of a piano, with the accidentals raised vertically and overlapping the natural bars (similar to a piano) to aid the performer both visually and physically. This instrument is a type of xylophone, but with broader and lower tonal range and resonators.
The chromatic marimba was developed in southern Mexico (state of Chiapas) from the diatonic marimba, an instrument whose ancestor was a type of balafon that African slaves built in Central America.
Modern uses of the marimba include solo performances, woodwind and brass ensembles, marimba concertos, jazz ensembles, marching band (front ensembles), drum and bugle corps, and orchestral compositions. Contemporary composers have utilized the unique sound of the marimba more and more in recent years.
Marimba bars are typically made of either wood or synthetic material, rosewood being the most desirable. Padouk is commonly used as a more affordable alternative. Bars made from synthetic materials generally fall short in sound quality in comparison to wooden bars, but are less expensive and yield added durability and weather resistance, making them suitable for outdoor use; marimbas with wooden bars are usually played inside because the bars are susceptible to pitch change due to weather. Mazhara and mahogany have also been cited as comparable to rosewood in quality for use as marimba bars. The specific rosewood used is universally from Honduras, Dalbergia stevensonii. This wood has a Janka rating of 2200, which is about three times harder than Silver Maple. The bars are wider and longer at the lowest pitched notes, and gradually get narrower and shorter as the notes get higher. During the tuning, wood is taken from the middle underside of the bar to lower the pitch. Because of this, the bars are also thinner in the lowest pitch register and thicker in the highest pitch register.
In Africa, most marimbas are made by local artisans from locally available materials.
Marimba bars produce their fullest sound when struck just off centre, while striking the bar in the centre produces a more articulate tone. On chromatic marimbas, the accidentals (black keys) can also be played on the space between the front edge of the bar and its node (the place where the string goes through the bar) if necessary. Playing on the node produces a sonically weak tone, and the technique is only used when the player or composer is looking for a muted sound from the instrument.
There is no standard range of the marimba, but the most common ranges are 4 octaves, 4.3 octaves and 5 octaves; 4.5, 4.6 and 5.5 octave sizes are also available.
The marimba is a non-transposing instrument with no octave displacement, unlike the xylophone which sounds one octave higher than written and the glockenspiel which sounds two octaves higher than written.
Part of the key to the marimba's rich sound is its resonators. These are tubes (usually aluminium) that hang below each bar. The length varies according to the frequency that the bar produces. Vibrations from the bars resonate as they pass through the tubes, which amplify the tone in a manner very similar to the way in which the body of a guitar or cello would. In instruments exceeding 4½ octaves, the length of tubing required for the bass notes exceeds the height of the instrument. Resonator tuning involves adjusting "stops" in the tubes themselves to compensate for temperature and humidity conditions in the room where the instrument is stored. On many marimbas, decorative resonators are added to fill the gaps in the accidental resonator bank. In addition to this, the resonator lengths are sometimes altered to form a decorative arch. This does not affect the resonant properties, because the end plugs in the resonators are still placed at their respective lengths.
The mallet shaft is commonly made of wood, usually birch, but may also be rattan or fiberglass. The most common diameter of the shaft is around 5/16". Shafts made of rattan have a certain elasticity to them, while birch has almost no give. Professionals use both depending on their preferences, whether they are playing with two mallets or more, and which grip they use if they are using a four-mallet grip.
Appropriate mallets for the instrument depend on the range. The material at the end of the shaft is almost always a type of rubber, usually wrapped with yarn. Softer mallets are used at the lowest notes, and harder mallets are used at the highest notes. Mallets that are too hard will damage the instrument, and mallets that might be appropriate for the upper range could damage the notes in the lower range (especially on a padouk or rosewood instrument). On the lower notes, the bars are larger, and require a heavier mallet to bring out a strong fundamental. Because of the need to use different hardnesses of mallets, some players, when playing with four or more mallets, might use graduated mallets to match the bars that they are playing (softer on the left, harder on the right).
Some mallets, called "two-toned" or "multi-tonal", have a hard core, loosely wrapped with yarn. These are designed to sound articulate when playing at a loud dynamic, and broader at the quieter dynamics.
Modern marimba music calls for simultaneous use of between two and four mallets (sometimes up to six or eight), granting the performer the ability to play chords or music with large interval skips more easily.
In the most traditional versions of marimbas, various sizes of natural gourds are attached below the keys to act as resonators; in more sophisticated versions carved wooden resonators are substituted, allowing for more precise tuning of pitch. In Central America and Mexico, a hole is often carved into the bottom of each resonator and then covered with a delicate membrane taken from the intestine of a pig to add a characteristic "buzzing" or "rattling" sound known as charleo. In more contemporary-style marimbas, wood is replaced by PVC tubing. The holes in the bottoms of the tubes are covered with a thin layer of paper to produce the buzzing noise.
Traditional marimba bands are especially popular in Guatemala where they are the national symbol of culture, but are also strongly established in the Mexican states of Chiapas, Tabasco and Oaxaca, Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua and Costa Rica, as well as among Afro-Ecuadorians and Afro-Colombians.
Image
See and hear the marimba being played.
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Re: Interesting Instruments Bingo - 4th numbers up 5th May

Post by Squirrel »

:applesauce: Hurray got another one giving me 2/10. You certainly have found a lot of interesting info about all these strange instruments Jo. :D
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Re: Interesting Instruments Bingo - 4th numbers up 5th May

Post by jocellogirl »

Today's numbers are

15 Mandocello

The mandocello is a plucked string instrument of the mandolin family. It has eight strings in four paired courses, tuned in 5ths like a mandolin, but is larger, and tuned CC-GG-dd-aa (low to high in pitch). It is to the mandolin what the cello is to the violin.
Mandocello construction is similar to the mandolin. As with the mandolin, the mandocello body may be constructed with a bowl-shaped back according to designs of the 18th-century Vinaccia school, or with a flat (arched) back according to the designs of Gibson Guitar Corporation popularized in the United States in the early 20th Century. The scale of the mandocello is longer than that of the mandolin. Gibson examples have a scale length of 24.75" (62.87 cm) but flat-back designs have appeared with both significantly shorter and longer scale lengths (27"/68.58 cm on some Vega mandocellos). These instruments may have approximately 23 frets, giving the 4-course mandocello a range from two octaves below middle C to the F an octave above middle C. Bowl-back instruments may have a shorter scale length, on the order of 22.5 inches, and concert bowl-back instruments may have more frets permitting virtuoso passage work in the upper register.
As is typical of the mandolin family, mandocellos can be found with either a single oval soundhole or a pair of "F" soundholes.
The internal bracing also bears some similarity to the mandolin. Gibson's mandocellos were typically constructed with a single transverse brace on the top just below the oval soundhole. Modern builders also use X-bracing.
The mandocello generally has four courses of strings, tuned CC-GG-dd-aa. Because of the heavy gauge of the lowest course, some folk mandocello players remove one of the C strings to prevent rattling while playing fortissimo. The 10-string mandocello, containing an additional course of E strings (CC-GG-dd-aa-e'e'), may be termed a liuto cantabile or liuto moderno, although these instruments remain technically mandocellos.
Like most other instruments in the mandolin family the mandocello originated in Europe. Later, around the turn of the 20th century, Gibson began building mandocellos in the style of their mandolins with arched tops and backs. Gibson is known to have produced at least four models of mandocello between 1905 and the 1920s: the K-1, K-2, K-4, and K-5. Other American instrument companies also produced mandocellos.
The bowl-back mandocello is chiefly used in mandolin orchestras and mandolin quartets, where it provides a melodic and bass role similar to the cello in a bowed string quartet. It is occasionally used as a solo instrument for the performance of classical music, such as concertos and unaccompanied repertoire originally composed for solo cello. However, some pieces specifically for liuto cantabile were composed by Raffaele Calace, who championed the instrument in the early 20th Century.
The mandocello also has a role in modern folk music, such as bluegrass or Celtic music. In this setting the flat-back mandocello is typically used. The mandocello's lower range does not produce the bright, projecting sound of the mandolin or mandola, and its use in this setting has been generally eclipsed by mandolin artists since Bill Monroe. The amplified instrument has infrequently been used in modern rock music groups. The bowl-back mandocello (mandoloncello) is traditionally used for Italian folk music.
The most historically significant mandocellist was Raffaele Calace, who wrote the first method book specifically for liuto cantabile, and is thought to have perfected the design of the instrument following its putative introduction by the Vinaccia family. Luigi Embergher also contributed significantly to advancements in the design of the instrument during the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Image
See and hear the mandocello being played

27 Theremin
The theremin originally known as the ætherphone/etherphone, thereminophone or termenvox/thereminvox is an early electronic musical instrument controlled without discernible physical contact from the player.
It is named after the westernised name of it’s Russian inventor, Léon Theremin, who patented the device in 1928. The controlling section usually consists of two metal antennae which sense the position of the player's hands and control oscillators for frequency with one hand, and amplitude (volume) with the other, so it can be played without being touched. The electric signals from the theremin are amplified and sent to a loudspeaker.
The theremin was used in movie soundtracks such as Miklós Rózsa's for Spellbound and The Lost Weekend and Bernard Herrmann's for The Day the Earth Stood Still and as the theme tune for the ITV drama Midsomer Murders. This has led to its association with a very eerie sound. Theremins are also used in concert music (especially avant-garde and 20th- and 21st-century new music) and in popular music genres such as rock. Psychedelic rock bands in particular, such as Hawkwind, have often used the theremin in their work.
The theremin was originally the product of Russian government-sponsored research into proximity sensors. The instrument was invented by a young Russian physicist named Lev Sergeevich Termen (known in the West as Léon Theremin) in October 1920 after the outbreak of the Russian civil war. After a lengthy tour of Europe, during which time he demonstrated his invention to packed houses, Theremin found his way to the United States, where he patented his invention in 1928. Subsequently, Theremin granted commercial production rights to RCA.
Although the RCA Thereminvox (released immediately following the Stock Market Crash of 1929), was not a commercial success, it fascinated audiences in America and abroad. Clara Rockmore, a well-known thereminist, toured to wide acclaim, performing a classical repertoire in concert halls around the United States, often sharing the bill with Paul Robeson.
During the 1930s Lucie Bigelow Rosen was also taken with the theremin and together with her husband Walter Bigelow Rosen provided both financial and artistic support to the development and popularisation of the instrument.
In 1938, Theremin left the United States, though the circumstances related to his departure are in dispute. Many accounts claim he was taken from his New York City apartment by KGB agents, taken back to the Soviet Union and made to work in a sharashka laboratory prison camp at Magadan, Siberia. He reappeared 30 years later. In his 2000 biography of the inventor, Theremin: Ether Music and Espionage, Albert Glinsky suggested the Russian had fled to escape crushing personal debts, and was then caught up in Stalin's political purges. In any case, Theremin did not return to the United States until 1991.
After a flurry of interest in America following the end of the Second World War, the theremin soon fell into disuse with serious musicians, mainly because newer electronic instruments were introduced that were easier to play. However, a niche interest in the theremin persisted, mostly among electronics enthusiasts and kit-building hobbyists. One of these electronics enthusiasts, Robert Moog, began building theremins in the 1950s, while he was a high-school student. Moog subsequently published a number of articles about building theremins, and sold theremin kits which were intended to be assembled by the customer. Moog credited what he learned from the experience as leading directly to his groundbreaking synthesizer, the Moog.
Since the release of the film Theremin: An Electronic Odyssey in 1994, the instrument has enjoyed a resurgence in interest and has become more widely used by contemporary musicians. Even though many theremin sounds can be approximated on many modern synthesizers, some musicians continue to appreciate the expressiveness, novelty and uniqueness of using an actual theremin. The film itself has garnered excellent reviews.
The theremin is rare among musical instruments in that it is played without physical contact. The musician stands in front of the instrument and moves his or her hands in the proximity of two metal antennae. The distance from one antenna determines frequency (pitch), and the distance from the other controls amplitude (volume). Most frequently, the right hand controls the pitch and the left controls the volume, although some performers reverse this arrangement. Some low-cost theremins use a conventional, knob operated volume control and have only the pitch antenna. While commonly called antennae, they are not used for receiving or broadcasting radio frequency, but act as plates in a capacitor.
The theremin uses the heterodyne principle to generate an audio signal. The instrument's pitch circuitry includes two radio frequency oscillators. One oscillator operates at a fixed frequency. The frequency of the other oscillator is controlled by the performer's distance from the pitch control antenna. The performer's hand acts as the grounded plate (the performer's body being the connection to ground) of a variable capacitor in an L-C (inductance-capacitance) circuit, which is part of the oscillator and determines its frequency. (Although the capacitance between the performer and the instrument is on the order of picofarads or even hundreds of femtofarads, the circuit design gives a useful frequency shift.) The difference between the frequencies of the two oscillators at each moment allows the creation of a difference tone in the audio frequency range, resulting in audio signals that are amplified and sent to a loudspeaker.
To control volume, the performer's other hand acts as the grounded plate of another variable capacitor. In this case, the capacitor detunes another oscillator; that detuning is processed to change the attenuation in the amplifier circuit. The distance between the performer's hand and the volume control antenna determines the capacitance, which regulates the theremin's volume.
Modern circuit designs often simplify this circuit and avoid the complexity of two heterodyne oscillators by having a single pitch oscillator, akin to the original theremin's volume circuit. This approach is usually less stable and cannot generate the low frequencies that a heterodyne oscillator can. Better designs (e.g. Moog, Theremax) may use two pairs of heterodyne oscillators, for both pitch and volume.
Important in theremin articulation is the use of the volume control antenna. Unlike touched instruments, where simply halting play or damping a resonator silences the instrument, the thereminist must "play the rests, as well as the notes", as Clara Rockmore observed.
Concert composers who have written for theremin include Bohuslav Martinů, Percy Grainger, Christian Wolff, Joseph Schillinger, Moritz Eggert, Iraida Yusupova, Jorge Antunes, Vladimir Komarov, Anis Fuleihan, and Fazıl Say. The biggest theremin concerto is Kalevi Aho's Concerto for Theremin and Chamber Orchestra "Eight Seasons" (2011), written for Carolina Eyck.
Maverick composer Percy Grainger chose to use ensembles of four or six theremins (in preference to a string quartet) for his two earliest experimental Free Music compositions (1935–37) because of the instrument's complete 'gliding' freedom of pitch.
Musician Jean Michel Jarre used the instrument in his concerts Oxygen In Moscow and Space of Freedom in Gdańsk, providing also a short history of Léon Theremin's life.
The five-piece Spaghetti Western Orchestra use a Theremin as a replacement for Edda Dell'Orso's vocals in their interpretation of Ennio Morricone's "Once Upon a Time in the West".
Theremins and theremin-like sounds started to be incorporated into popular music from the end of the 1940s (with a series of Samuel Hoffman/Harry Revel collaborations) and this continued, with varying popularity, to the present.
Image
See and hear the theremin being played by the inventor of the instrument, Leon Theremin.
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geekishly
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Re: Interesting Instruments Bingo - 5th numbers up 7th May

Post by geekishly »

I'm still at 1/10. Hope the others are having better luck than I am!
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Re: Interesting Instruments Bingo - 5th numbers up 7th May

Post by Squirrel »

None again today. Interesting though. I wonder if we all have the same numbers :D
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tiffstitch
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Re: Interesting Instruments Bingo - 5th numbers up 7th May

Post by tiffstitch »

Finally caught up and I'm at 5/10!
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debupnorth
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Re: Interesting Instruments Bingo - 5th numbers up 7th May

Post by debupnorth »

Up to 4/10! :lol:
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Re: Interesting Instruments Bingo - 5th numbers up 7th May

Post by rcperryls »

:D love that mandacello. 3/10 now. The Theremin is really strange. Love being able to hear these instruments.

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Re: Interesting Instruments Bingo - 5th numbers up 7th May

Post by Lizzieh »

I'm at 3/10 as well
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Re: Interesting Instruments Bingo - 5th numbers up 7th May

Post by Fizzbw »

I only have 1 as well!!!

Hummm, ill blame my mum, she chose the numbers....

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