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Theremins: World's First Electronic Music · Stuff You Should Know

0:01
Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you Should Know, a production of I
0:04
Speaker 1: Heart Radio. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark,
0:13
Speaker 1: and there's Charles w Chuck Bryant, and there's Jerry out there,
0:16
Speaker 1: and this is Stuff you should Know. That's pretty good
0:25
Speaker 1: Theraman impression, don't you think? Hey, not bad. I am
0:30
Speaker 1: a little bit proud of myself because the Theraman, it
0:33
Speaker 1: turns out it's very, very tough to play, and it's
0:35
Speaker 1: even tougher to imitate. So that was something of an
0:40
Speaker 1: accomplishment for me. Have you ever tried to play one? No,
0:44
Speaker 1: I haven't. I have not know. It's weird that you
0:48
Speaker 1: had to think about that. Well. I mean I was
0:52
Speaker 1: just trying to think, like, I think there's one in
0:54
Speaker 1: the house, Stuff works office somewhere though, Stuff Podcast Office.
0:58
Speaker 1: I want to say that they're is. Well, I'm there, man,
1:02
Speaker 1: let's go get it, Okay, So look around, we'll wait,
1:04
Speaker 1: we'll wait. We won't edit out you going and wandering
1:07
Speaker 1: around and looking for I'll just talk to the people
1:09
Speaker 1: to keep them busy. Uh, that's weird. I mean, I'm
1:11
Speaker 1: obviously not gonna go look for it, but I had
1:13
Speaker 1: no idea that was one here. I think so I
1:16
Speaker 1: could be making that up. It doesn't seem like the
1:18
Speaker 1: kind of thing that would be there. So for those
1:21
Speaker 1: of you who don't know what we're talking about, we're
1:23
Speaker 1: talking about theramans. And if you still don't know what
1:25
Speaker 1: we're talking about, let us describe this. We'll be able
1:28
Speaker 1: to do that, right, Oh yeah, sure, sure, um, well,
1:31
Speaker 1: here you go. We'll play a clip of something that
1:33
Speaker 1: we'll figure out what it is later. Ready, So there's
1:44
Speaker 1: whatever we selected post production to put into to demonstrate theremans.
1:49
Speaker 1: But that that eerie, high pitched kind of whaling sound,
1:52
Speaker 1: that's a theremin. And the theraman was the world's first
1:56
Speaker 1: electronic musical instrument and it was created by accident, as
2:00
Speaker 1: we'll see. But um, it uses electromagnetism, actually electromagnetic interference
2:08
Speaker 1: to produce a changing pitched sound, changing and pitch and
2:13
Speaker 1: changing in volume. And you can create this, this sound,
2:17
Speaker 1: this music, I guess you would call it without any
2:19
Speaker 1: kind of mechanical energy whatsoever. You're just moving your your
2:25
Speaker 1: body or your hands in and out of the electromagnetic
2:28
Speaker 1: field around the theramin and that's what produces the sound.
2:31
Speaker 1: It's pretty cool. Yeah, And as we will also see
2:34
Speaker 1: it's Uh, it's key that you use a hand because
2:37
Speaker 1: your body it has to be something that conducts electricity.
2:40
Speaker 1: Like you could technically could use metal or something like that,
2:44
Speaker 1: but you wouldn't have the nuance that you're able to
2:47
Speaker 1: achieve by you know, very sort of micro movements in
2:51
Speaker 1: your hand and your fingers. Uh. And when you're playing it,
2:54
Speaker 1: it sort of looks like almost like you're conducting an orchestra.
2:57
Speaker 1: The way you hold your hand, it's very evocative of conducting.
3:01
Speaker 1: I think. Yeah, And it's funny you say that because,
3:03
Speaker 1: um thereman who's actually named Terman um he he said
3:09
Speaker 1: that it was like creating music out of thin air,
3:12
Speaker 1: just like a conductor does. So that was very astutive you, Charles,
3:16
Speaker 1: thank you. So yeah, you mentioned Urman. This guy his
3:21
Speaker 1: his Russian name, I guess was Lev Sergey Yavic Terman
3:27
Speaker 1: t E R M E N. I guess leon Thareman
3:32
Speaker 1: sounds a little more western. Did change it? I I
3:36
Speaker 1: don't know it. You know, here in America we just
3:39
Speaker 1: change it for you. You know, you come through Ellis Island,
3:42
Speaker 1: you get it basically a whole new name that Americans
3:44
Speaker 1: can pronounce more easily. I'm pretty sure, that's what happened.
3:47
Speaker 1: That's a good point. So when Lev was in his
3:49
Speaker 1: early twenties, in the sort of early nineteen hundreds and
3:53
Speaker 1: nineteen nineteen ish, he um was working at the Physical
3:57
Speaker 1: Technical Institute in St. Petersburg, Russia, and he was working
4:02
Speaker 1: and as you'll see, he did he you know, for
4:04
Speaker 1: the majority of his career worked for the Russian State.
4:07
Speaker 1: But he was working on an invention that was supposed
4:10
Speaker 1: to measure the density of gas and a chamber, and
4:13
Speaker 1: essentially he was trying to develop like a land based
4:16
Speaker 1: sonar device that used electromagnetism to detect objects that came
4:22
Speaker 1: within a certain area. And he was like, hey, I'm
4:26
Speaker 1: a pretty young, hip creative guy. I wonder if I
4:28
Speaker 1: add sound to this thing, uh, and not intending to
4:32
Speaker 1: create anything musical, but just let me add sound to
4:34
Speaker 1: it to indicate that this thing is even on. And
4:38
Speaker 1: he did it and bought a being bada boom bon job.
4:41
Speaker 1: He was like, that sounds pretty cool, yeah, because I
4:44
Speaker 1: mean like it it would make sense that you want
4:46
Speaker 1: to add sound to because if you're detecting something coming
4:49
Speaker 1: within proximity, it's kind of like a metal detector. As
4:51
Speaker 1: you get closer and closer to the metal. That sound
4:54
Speaker 1: that it makes um increases. It's basically the exact same thing,
4:58
Speaker 1: except you're not detecting metal. You're to acting electro magnetic
5:01
Speaker 1: interference basically with the theremin. But because he was a young,
5:06
Speaker 1: hip guy like you said, and also a classically trained cellist, um,
5:10
Speaker 1: he said, I think that I could turn this into
5:13
Speaker 1: a musical instrument, and he did pretty quickly. He um
5:17
Speaker 1: fiddled with it a little bit, maybe uh did a
5:19
Speaker 1: little put another do Hicky or two on there, and
5:22
Speaker 1: all of a sudden he had, like I said at
5:24
Speaker 1: the beginning, the world's first electronic musical instrument. Like, if
5:29
Speaker 1: you're into dance music or electronica or anything like that,
5:34
Speaker 1: you owe a great debt of gratitude to to love Terman.
5:37
Speaker 1: Sure should we use some of these things that you found,
5:41
Speaker 1: some of these descriptors. Yeah, so this this initially had
5:45
Speaker 1: like two or three, and I just started adding to
5:47
Speaker 1: One of my favorite things to do is to go
5:48
Speaker 1: around collecting people's hapless descriptions of of what a thereman
5:53
Speaker 1: sounds like, because nobody nails it, but all all of
5:56
Speaker 1: them come close, and their hilarious in their attempts. Yeah,
5:59
Speaker 1: so here's one across between a violin and a soprano voice.
6:04
Speaker 1: That's that's not bad. I think that was the original one. Yeah,
6:08
Speaker 1: I mean you can get I mean, especially when you
6:09
Speaker 1: get some vibrato going, you can see how one might
6:12
Speaker 1: liken it to a voice. Oh yeah, it doesn't sound
6:15
Speaker 1: like a voice to me, but I get the I
6:17
Speaker 1: get the comp um. Okay, how about this one, a
6:20
Speaker 1: purified and magnified saxophone. I think if there was ever
6:25
Speaker 1: a complete failure in describing a Theramin sound, it's that one. Yeah.
6:30
Speaker 1: It sounds like a saxophone, like a cheap keyboard. The
6:34
Speaker 1: saxophone button on a cheap keyboard sounds like a saxop. Yeah. Yeah,
6:38
Speaker 1: maybe that's what they totally missing their point. Uh. Let
6:42
Speaker 1: me see the howling of a haunted wind. That's pretty good.
6:45
Speaker 1: I love that one. This one I think comes from
6:48
Speaker 1: Therman himself. A cello lost in a dense fog and
6:51
Speaker 1: crying because it does not know how to get home.
6:54
Speaker 1: For cello just walking around in the dark by himself,
7:00
Speaker 1: how do I get home? Let me see here across
7:04
Speaker 1: between an amplified child slide whistle, so it doesn't say
7:09
Speaker 1: and what that was a that was a mistake. I
7:12
Speaker 1: put or inky okay, slide and a human voice and
7:18
Speaker 1: the squawks that emanated from early radio speakers. That was
7:22
Speaker 1: pretty That was pretty good because it's uh. The the
7:25
Speaker 1: one of the key components of a theoreman is that
7:28
Speaker 1: slide because it is um. As you will see, and
7:31
Speaker 1: if you listen to theorem in music, it's all about
7:34
Speaker 1: that slide. It's not they're not punctuated with staccato notes. No.
7:39
Speaker 1: And as a matter of fact, I was watching um
7:41
Speaker 1: tutorial by currently the world's foremost theoremnist. I believe her
7:47
Speaker 1: name is Carolina Eck e y c K. She's German um,
7:52
Speaker 1: so however, you pronounced that into German um. And she
7:56
Speaker 1: makes finger motions to cut off the last more ship
8:00
Speaker 1: to to create a space in between notes, separate notes
8:04
Speaker 1: rather than she uses the technical um jargon for what
8:08
Speaker 1: she's talking about. I'm not quite familiar with it. But
8:11
Speaker 1: another way to put it is she's cutting spaces into
8:13
Speaker 1: the notes, so she's not sliding it around like a trumbone. No,
8:18
Speaker 1: or slide whistle that's lost in the dark. You do
8:21
Speaker 1: a pretty good slide whistle to your slide whistle beer.
8:25
Speaker 1: I had one of those when I was a kid.
8:26
Speaker 1: That was the best thing ever I never even did.
8:29
Speaker 1: I'm self taught. Oh boy, I know what you're getting
8:32
Speaker 1: for Christmas? Oh nice? Remember that time you got me
8:35
Speaker 1: an empty can of billy beer? Oh yeah, that's right
8:40
Speaker 1: years ago. Oh no, it wasn't billy beer. I'm sorry,
8:42
Speaker 1: it was just plain generic beer. My can was just
8:45
Speaker 1: the black like helvetica font that just says beer. Yeah,
8:48
Speaker 1: my friend Eddie's favorite beer of all time. Has he
8:51
Speaker 1: actually drank it? Yeah? When we went to uh there
8:54
Speaker 1: was like four of us that went to l A
8:55
Speaker 1: for spring break in college and stayed with my brother
8:58
Speaker 1: and we went to the store and they had the
9:01
Speaker 1: generic beer and Petty is a beer guy, and he
9:03
Speaker 1: just flipped. He bought like three cases of it. Wow
9:06
Speaker 1: for fifty cents. Yeah exactly. Yeah. So, um thereman has
9:12
Speaker 1: got this instrument going. He's pretty proud of it. Word
9:15
Speaker 1: gets around Mother Russia, and word gets to Lenin, who
9:19
Speaker 1: at the time was chairman of Russia's uh sort of
9:23
Speaker 1: newly In I guess installed as one word for it
9:27
Speaker 1: the Bolshevik government, and he flipped over it. Lennon was
9:31
Speaker 1: a theoreman nut and he was like, you know what,
9:33
Speaker 1: I'm gonna send you on tour, comrade, And uh, this
9:37
Speaker 1: thing is gonna want people to champion electricity as a
9:40
Speaker 1: whole just by these demonstrations, right, just so that they
9:44
Speaker 1: can possibly get a theorem in themselves. They're going to
9:47
Speaker 1: install electricity in their house. That's my plan. Forget reading
9:51
Speaker 1: lights or warmth, right, it's the theoreman that they'll want.
9:56
Speaker 1: So he tours Russia for a while basically promoting you know, electricity,
10:01
Speaker 1: electronic music, Soviet know how, that kind of stuff, and um,
10:05
Speaker 1: his tour is so successful that they send him on
10:07
Speaker 1: to Western Europe. And he toured Western Europe with what
10:11
Speaker 1: we're known as his um ether concerts. Ether wave concerts,
10:16
Speaker 1: not ether concerts. Those are totally different. Um. And the
10:20
Speaker 1: one of the less known things about Left Harman is
10:25
Speaker 1: that while he was touring Europe just wowing crowds, he
10:28
Speaker 1: was also spying for the Soviet state, which he did
10:31
Speaker 1: for a while. Actually, yeah, I know this, I say
10:34
Speaker 1: this a lot, but this this has got the makings
10:37
Speaker 1: of a pretty good movie too, don't you think sure? Yeah?
10:41
Speaker 1: I think so. I mean I'm not quite sure. You'd
10:44
Speaker 1: have to really be a master to to to pull
10:48
Speaker 1: out the um, the humanity and the compassion and the
10:51
Speaker 1: viewer for this guy, because he's morally ambiguous in a
10:56
Speaker 1: lot of places, I think. But in the end, you know,
10:58
Speaker 1: just the kind of treatment he got, I think kind
11:01
Speaker 1: of makes him a sad sack case that he'll do
11:04
Speaker 1: lock treatment feel bad for. Yeah, all right, well we'll
11:07
Speaker 1: get to that. But so he's touring around he, like
11:10
Speaker 1: you said, as a spy for the Soviet regime. And
11:14
Speaker 1: because of this tour, he's being allowed he's getting all
11:18
Speaker 1: this access two places where he can be a pretty
11:21
Speaker 1: good spy actually on pattent offenses and um like industrial
11:27
Speaker 1: complexes and stuff like that. So he's getting access and
11:31
Speaker 1: doing a pretty good job spying for for the Soviet regime.
11:35
Speaker 1: And he ended up taking up residents in the United States.
11:38
Speaker 1: I didn't see whether that was a part of the
11:41
Speaker 1: Soviet plan or his own plan. I'm not sure, but
11:44
Speaker 1: he found himself quite at home and in New York
11:47
Speaker 1: when he he showed up in the US and started
11:49
Speaker 1: becoming kind of the toast of the town. Um. I've
11:54
Speaker 1: read that Albert Einstein kept a lab at Um Terman
12:00
Speaker 1: apartment in New York on fifty four Street. When he
12:03
Speaker 1: visited him, he would just do some work while he
12:05
Speaker 1: was there. Um. He became pretty well known, especially among
12:09
Speaker 1: like avant garde musicians and composers. Um. He was just
12:13
Speaker 1: kind of a known as like a cool guy. Um.
12:16
Speaker 1: He had a very scandalous marriage in that he married
12:18
Speaker 1: an African American prima ballerina whose name is Lavinia Williams Um.
12:24
Speaker 1: And I think he lived in the United States for
12:28
Speaker 1: a good decade. He showed up in and he lived
12:30
Speaker 1: there until eight I believe, and along the way because
12:34
Speaker 1: he became such a toast of the town. And his
12:37
Speaker 1: his theorem in um, which had been known for a
12:39
Speaker 1: while as his theorem in vox, which is theoreman's voice,
12:43
Speaker 1: finally got shortened to Theraman and R. C said, you
12:46
Speaker 1: know what, I think these things are going to be
12:48
Speaker 1: a hit. We're going to We're going to buy the
12:51
Speaker 1: rights from you, or at least, um least the rights
12:53
Speaker 1: from you and start producing our own. Yeah. Because he
12:56
Speaker 1: obviously was wise enough to get a patent in the
12:58
Speaker 1: US in um. That was his second wife. By the way,
13:03
Speaker 1: I didn't I couldn't get a whole lot about his
13:05
Speaker 1: first wife other than it was clearly in Russia because
13:09
Speaker 1: her name was a Katerina Pavlovna. Okay, that's a pretty
13:14
Speaker 1: Russian name. And he was married three times. He had
13:16
Speaker 1: a couple of daughters, I think with his third wife,
13:19
Speaker 1: and um, I'll talk a little bit more about his
13:21
Speaker 1: kids later. But he, uh, he gets his patent. R
13:24
Speaker 1: C a like he said, jumps on board the Theoreman
13:28
Speaker 1: bandwagon and manufactures a a version of the theorem, like
13:33
Speaker 1: an at home Theoreman for a d seventy five bucks,
13:36
Speaker 1: which is a really expensive musical instrument that's bucks today,
13:42
Speaker 1: especially during the depression. Yeah, I mean, I don't know
13:46
Speaker 1: who they thought they were going to sell him to everybody. Yeah,
13:50
Speaker 1: r C made it sound like they were onto something really,
13:53
Speaker 1: really big, but it was such an expensive price point.
13:57
Speaker 1: It was such a niche product. Um I think. I
14:00
Speaker 1: mean they sold the first run that they built, but
14:04
Speaker 1: only to like rich people who wanted to like throw
14:07
Speaker 1: parties in wow people with their theorem. And basically I
14:11
Speaker 1: guess one of the other big problems with it is
14:13
Speaker 1: that they marketed it like there's no strings, there's no frets,
14:17
Speaker 1: there's no you know, there's nothing, it's just like strings. Yeah, basically, Um,
14:23
Speaker 1: they said that anybody can learn to play this, make
14:25
Speaker 1: music with the wave of a hand. Um. And the
14:28
Speaker 1: problem is the theremin is really really hard to learn
14:32
Speaker 1: because it doesn't have things like frets or strings or
14:36
Speaker 1: um chord progressions or anything like that. Um. And there's
14:39
Speaker 1: no other instrument like it on the planet. So um,
14:43
Speaker 1: it's very difficult to learn. And I think our c
14:45
Speaker 1: A made a first production run of like four hundred
14:48
Speaker 1: units and they managed to sell three and eighty of them,
14:51
Speaker 1: some of which are still in existence today, and I
14:53
Speaker 1: was looking them up. Apparently, Um, if you can find
14:56
Speaker 1: one that's just in terrible shape, you could still proba
15:00
Speaker 1: probably get thirty bucks for it, and one that's in
15:03
Speaker 1: really good condition mint condition would be about thirteen grand
15:07
Speaker 1: because there's such collectors items. But also because of the
15:10
Speaker 1: original um them electronics inside of the circuitry. Yeah that
15:16
Speaker 1: that it makes a sound that's really difficult to replicate
15:19
Speaker 1: because we have such an embarrassment of riches with advancement
15:21
Speaker 1: in in electronics today that it's hard to make something
15:25
Speaker 1: sound old timey and original, you know what I mean?
15:28
Speaker 1: Everything sounds so rich and in advanced UM. So I
15:31
Speaker 1: think that's one of the reasons why people will pay
15:33
Speaker 1: thirteen grand for an original R C A theorem, and
15:37
Speaker 1: that Jack White has one. Yeah, I'll bet he does too. So. Um.
15:43
Speaker 1: When he was in the United States, living there, doing
15:47
Speaker 1: some spying and doing some theorem and playing like he
15:50
Speaker 1: would put on big, big concerts, he put on a
15:53
Speaker 1: full theorem and orchestra, which is to say, I think
15:55
Speaker 1: they were like six of them, um at Carnegie Hall.
15:59
Speaker 1: So like these were big, big, big events. Um. And
16:02
Speaker 1: like you said, he got married to a second wife
16:04
Speaker 1: there and was leading this double life really like no
16:07
Speaker 1: one knew what was going on obviously as a spy,
16:10
Speaker 1: and he got a little more and more nervous his
16:12
Speaker 1: World War two approaches that he might get ratted out.
16:15
Speaker 1: He's he's really enjoying this life in America, and he's like,
16:19
Speaker 1: I don't want to I don't want to do this. Uh,
16:21
Speaker 1: the FBI has got a file on me. He didn't
16:23
Speaker 1: say that because he didn't know that, but the ghost
16:26
Speaker 1: of Leon Thereman said that later on, right. And he
16:30
Speaker 1: was getting pretty deep into debt, and so in nineteen
16:34
Speaker 1: thirty eight he left the US after ten years there
16:37
Speaker 1: didn't even tell his wife he was leaving his second
16:39
Speaker 1: wife and stayed gone until the early nineties. Yeah. Part
16:44
Speaker 1: of that was not by his own decision, like he
16:46
Speaker 1: stayed gone in part because as Stalin came into power,
16:51
Speaker 1: he was not very he didn't fancy the old regime,
16:54
Speaker 1: and Thereman was definitely associated with that old regime. He
16:57
Speaker 1: was a favorite of Lenin's um, So he was throwing
17:00
Speaker 1: and into the goolog as the the USSR really started
17:03
Speaker 1: to gain strength and power um and apparently as World
17:07
Speaker 1: War Two started to approach, the Soviets realized that they'd
17:10
Speaker 1: actually thrown a lot of valuable scientists in their minds
17:14
Speaker 1: into goolog So they went and got them out, including
17:17
Speaker 1: leve Terman, and put them in a different kind of
17:21
Speaker 1: goolog called the Sharashka. Yeah, I got it. Sharashka, which
17:27
Speaker 1: is basically like a prison for scientists, like science camp
17:31
Speaker 1: that you can't leave exactly, and you can't see your
17:34
Speaker 1: family or friends are connected with the outside, but you
17:36
Speaker 1: can't spend all of your time thinking about ways to
17:39
Speaker 1: come up with new devices that the Soviet state can use.
17:43
Speaker 1: And that is actually where leve Terman Thereman came up.
17:47
Speaker 1: With his other great invention that he's known for, which
17:49
Speaker 1: is called the Thing or the Great Seal Bug. Yeah,
17:53
Speaker 1: I think, uh, that's a pretty good time to take
17:55
Speaker 1: a break, Okay, and we'll come back right after this, Okay, Chuck.
18:21
Speaker 1: So frankly, you really left everybody hanging with that last thing.
18:25
Speaker 1: So let's talk about the Thing or the Great Seal Bug. Okay.
18:29
Speaker 1: Uh yeah, boy, all these years in I gotta teach
18:31
Speaker 1: you about the cliffhanger. Yeah, I like to. I like
18:35
Speaker 1: to plod along at the most boring pace and stop
18:38
Speaker 1: at the most boring, predictable time. So before the Thing,
18:41
Speaker 1: he invented something called a baron b U R A N.
18:44
Speaker 1: And that was a list another listening device, um that
18:46
Speaker 1: sort of functioned as a laser microphone that you would
18:49
Speaker 1: use today where you would point it at a at
18:53
Speaker 1: a piece of glass like someone's you know, behind that
18:55
Speaker 1: glass talking and it would sense the vibrations in the glass.
18:59
Speaker 1: That's wow. He invented that. Yeah, he invented the barn
19:03
Speaker 1: I've heard about that thing, but that was um nothing
19:07
Speaker 1: sort of as far as impact goes compared to the
19:09
Speaker 1: Great Seal Bug or the Thing like you mentioned. And
19:13
Speaker 1: this was really pretty extraordinary that this actually worked. Um,
19:17
Speaker 1: not that his invention worked, but that the scam worked. UM.
19:21
Speaker 1: So what he did was he put a passive bug
19:24
Speaker 1: inside a wood carving of the Seal, the Great Seal
19:27
Speaker 1: of the United States. They presented it to Avril har Harriman,
19:32
Speaker 1: who was the American ambassador to Moscow, and he hung
19:36
Speaker 1: it on his wall and it allowed himself to get
19:39
Speaker 1: spied on for years. So so in Harriman's defense, um,
19:45
Speaker 1: he was, like you said, It was like you said,
19:48
Speaker 1: he was a very trusting sort, which made him a
19:50
Speaker 1: terrible choice for the ambassador, American ambassador to Moscow. But
19:54
Speaker 1: it was a passive bug. It didn't use electricity, so
19:57
Speaker 1: there was no possible way for anybody to sweep for it.
20:00
Speaker 1: So I'm sure they swept this Great Seal, you know,
20:02
Speaker 1: eight ways from Sunday and turn nothing up and they're like,
20:04
Speaker 1: all right, put it up, um. And the reason it
20:08
Speaker 1: was passive is because it didn't use electricity, and it
20:10
Speaker 1: was activated by microwaves. The microwaves would turn an antenna on, UM,
20:16
Speaker 1: and you could be a few doors down and just
20:18
Speaker 1: beam like a microwave beam towards this thing, and it
20:21
Speaker 1: would activate the antenna and then the place that it
20:24
Speaker 1: was put in, the eagle's beak created kind of like
20:27
Speaker 1: an ear, a wooden ear that amplified the sound in
20:31
Speaker 1: the room, and the antenna would pick it up and
20:32
Speaker 1: transmit it automatically. Seven years they were able to spy
20:37
Speaker 1: on these conversations, and it was It could have gone
20:40
Speaker 1: on forever, but it was. It was discovered by accident.
20:44
Speaker 1: There was a British radio operator who picked up the signal.
20:47
Speaker 1: It's like, hey, something's going on here. And I guess
20:51
Speaker 1: they eventually, you know, probably just tore that room inside
20:54
Speaker 1: out until they found it. Would be my guess, right
20:57
Speaker 1: that radio operas like is that is that Avril Harriman talking?
21:02
Speaker 1: I know that voice and the great The best part
21:05
Speaker 1: of that story is that they got the Soviet equivalent
21:08
Speaker 1: of the Boy Scouts, the Young Pioneers, to present the plaque.
21:12
Speaker 1: And I was raised as a child the Cold War,
21:14
Speaker 1: so I strongly suspect the Young Pioneers were in on it.
21:17
Speaker 1: They knew full well what they were doing. Of course, yeah,
21:20
Speaker 1: they were in on it. It was a young Vladimir
21:23
Speaker 1: Putin probably probably chuck, you never know, Uh so thereman
21:31
Speaker 1: was um he kind of disappeared from public view because
21:35
Speaker 1: of the gulag experience and being in science prison camp
21:41
Speaker 1: uh and then Uh. Nineteen sixty seven, a New York
21:43
Speaker 1: Times critic named Harold schoenberg Um found him quite by
21:48
Speaker 1: accident at the Moscow Conservatory where he was working at
21:52
Speaker 1: the time. He was writing a story a road, a
21:54
Speaker 1: story that basically kind of out of him, and said, hey,
21:57
Speaker 1: here's Leon Thireman. He's right here in the Soviet Union. Yeah,
22:01
Speaker 1: and he was probably like, finally, I've been waiting for
22:04
Speaker 1: you guys to dig me up. But the Soviet state said,
22:07
Speaker 1: you know what, this is not a good thing. We
22:08
Speaker 1: can't have this guy talking to the press and becoming
22:10
Speaker 1: a cause ce lab again. He's just done too much dirt.
22:14
Speaker 1: He's been in a goolag before. He bugged the ambassador
22:18
Speaker 1: like this. He just knows too much. We don't want
22:20
Speaker 1: him people paying attention to him. So they ruined him.
22:23
Speaker 1: They ruined his career, They had him fired from the conservatory,
22:27
Speaker 1: They trashed all of the inventions he was working on,
22:30
Speaker 1: and he ended up spending the next couple of decades
22:32
Speaker 1: living um in poverty in a in a group home,
22:35
Speaker 1: in a room in a group home. Um, basically because
22:39
Speaker 1: of that New York Times critic finding him and writing
22:41
Speaker 1: that article again, which is sad on the one hand,
22:44
Speaker 1: but at the other hand, on the other hand, it
22:47
Speaker 1: um brought him back from any sort of obscurity he
22:50
Speaker 1: kind of been pounded into. Yeah, so this last until
22:53
Speaker 1: about the eighties, when the Soviet Union opens up just
22:57
Speaker 1: a bit and he leaves and goes to Europe. He
23:00
Speaker 1: is to the US, like we said at the beginning
23:01
Speaker 1: in nine and uh then was able to sort of
23:05
Speaker 1: reap a little bit of his reward as uh as
23:08
Speaker 1: a you know, pioneer and electronic music or music period. Um.
23:13
Speaker 1: There's a documentary called Thereman Colon an Electronic Odyssey from
23:17
Speaker 1: the early nineties that is not great, but it does
23:22
Speaker 1: feature him in the end, which is which is pretty cool.
23:24
Speaker 1: Like the last third of it has actual interviews with
23:27
Speaker 1: Leon Thereman and him playing it and stuff like that. Sure,
23:30
Speaker 1: I mean, he must have known that he needed to
23:31
Speaker 1: show up his legacy while he could, because you know,
23:34
Speaker 1: he visited the US and he was dead two years
23:38
Speaker 1: later back in Russia, UM, and he was still working
23:42
Speaker 1: on stuff to to the end. He was working on
23:44
Speaker 1: a dance floor that was made up of his turpos stone,
23:48
Speaker 1: which was another invention of his, which was like a thereman,
23:51
Speaker 1: but rather than using your hands, he used your whole
23:53
Speaker 1: body and you danced. Well, he was making an entire
23:57
Speaker 1: dance floor out of these. You could have a bunch
23:59
Speaker 1: of people dancing making the worst possible sounds you can imagine,
24:03
Speaker 1: all at the same time. And he was in his nineties. Yeah,
24:06
Speaker 1: he was like nine seven when he died, so yeah,
24:09
Speaker 1: he was working on this in his nineties. So he
24:11
Speaker 1: was a hip cat until the end. So while he
24:15
Speaker 1: was gone, something happened in the US in the nineteen
24:18
Speaker 1: forties and fifties. Um, the Thereman kind of blew up
24:23
Speaker 1: and blew up. As far as the Thereman goes. It
24:25
Speaker 1: wasn't like it became a staple in in music or
24:29
Speaker 1: a staple in pop music, but it was used largely
24:32
Speaker 1: at first in movies science fiction, the Alfred Hitchcock Spellbound,
24:38
Speaker 1: most notably maybe um The Lost Weekend, And unless it
24:43
Speaker 1: was science fiction, it sort of came to be a
24:45
Speaker 1: signal for psychological distress, like if somebody was under the
24:51
Speaker 1: influence of drugs, or if that was somebody like locked
24:55
Speaker 1: away in a in a what they would have called
24:57
Speaker 1: an insane asylum back then. You might hear a Airman
25:00
Speaker 1: kind of say, by the way, this character is off
25:03
Speaker 1: their rocker. You're right if you if your drug trip
25:07
Speaker 1: sound feels to you like a Theoreman sounds, you're on
25:09
Speaker 1: a bad trip, buddy, you think, sure, alright, but you
25:14
Speaker 1: can you could trace the kind of the breakout popularity,
25:17
Speaker 1: at least the introduction to the general public of the
25:19
Speaker 1: Theoreman to basically two people back in the forties and fifties.
25:24
Speaker 1: Um miklosh Roscha who was the guy who scored The
25:28
Speaker 1: Last Weekend and spell Bound, and Samuel Hoffman, who was
25:32
Speaker 1: a theoreminist and composer who worked with some other kind
25:35
Speaker 1: of more popular composers Less Baxter and Harry Revel to
25:38
Speaker 1: make some really great music. Um in a couple of
25:42
Speaker 1: new new types of music, lounge and exotica. UM. I
25:48
Speaker 1: listened to music out of the Moon today, like eight times.
25:51
Speaker 1: I listened to Perfume set to music how is It?
25:55
Speaker 1: It's okay? Not as much therapy Thereman as h I wanted.
25:59
Speaker 1: I wanted more Airman. Well, a little Thereman goes a
26:02
Speaker 1: long way, for sure, But there were parts of music
26:05
Speaker 1: out of the moon where you have to like really
26:07
Speaker 1: listen because it just it um merges so well, harmonizes
26:11
Speaker 1: so well with the other stuff like maybe vocalists harmonizing
26:14
Speaker 1: the theremin WI harmonize with it, which is now that
26:17
Speaker 1: I know about Thereman's that is incredibly masterful to be
26:22
Speaker 1: able to harmonize with a human voice using a theoremin.
26:26
Speaker 1: But those two guys definitely kind of introduced that to
26:29
Speaker 1: the to the public. And one member of the public
26:33
Speaker 1: that got introduced to the theremin who was really responsible
26:36
Speaker 1: for breaking it out was a guy named Robert Moog
26:39
Speaker 1: might recognize whatever you might recognize from his um synthesizer
26:45
Speaker 1: that he was the guy who invented the synthesizer. Well,
26:47
Speaker 1: apparently Robert Mog his first and last love I saw
26:51
Speaker 1: someone say was the theoreman. Yeah, he got together with
26:55
Speaker 1: his dad and he built theremin kits to sell to people.
26:58
Speaker 1: Um it's kind of one of the cool thing about thereman.
27:01
Speaker 1: You can buy one ready to go, but all along
27:04
Speaker 1: since the beginning and up to this very day, you
27:07
Speaker 1: can buy a kid to kind of build it yourself.
27:09
Speaker 1: Because they're very uh, they're very much cater to circuitry
27:13
Speaker 1: and electronic walks who love to get in there with
27:16
Speaker 1: her soldering iron and mess around. So kids were very
27:19
Speaker 1: popular from the beginning. And that's kind of how Moe
27:22
Speaker 1: got it start as a company, Yeah, by selling these
27:25
Speaker 1: theorem and kits um and I think it was uh
27:29
Speaker 1: n when he started selling them. And by the sixties
27:33
Speaker 1: they were like really ready to be used. They were
27:36
Speaker 1: you know, there's a lot of there's a lot of
27:38
Speaker 1: room and psychedelic music for the Thereman. Um. And so
27:42
Speaker 1: it pops up on some Rolling Stones albums apparently, um
27:46
Speaker 1: uh Brian Jones, right, Yeah, Brian Jones played the Thereman
27:50
Speaker 1: for a couple of albums. Um, it's on a whole
27:53
Speaker 1: Lot of Love where Robert Plant has his climax. Um.
27:58
Speaker 1: And then don't tell me that's meant to represent anything
28:01
Speaker 1: else but that everybody knows that. Could you imagine It's
28:05
Speaker 1: like if you were, you know, having sex with Robert
28:09
Speaker 1: Plant in the nineteen seventies and and that's literally what
28:12
Speaker 1: he started doing. Jimmy Page just comes out of the
28:14
Speaker 1: closet playing the Thereman along the company. My lord. Um,
28:19
Speaker 1: there's a couple of places where you think it pops up,
28:22
Speaker 1: but you would be wrong, Chuck, Yeah, I mean it's
28:25
Speaker 1: it's uh, well, it's not controversial. The Beach Boys song
28:29
Speaker 1: Good Vibrations is probably the most popular song ever too
28:35
Speaker 1: really heavily feature very distinctly what you think is a theoreman. Um,
28:40
Speaker 1: it's actually something called an electro theoreman. Brian Wilson calls
28:44
Speaker 1: it a thereman. Everyone sort of calls it a thereman,
28:46
Speaker 1: but it's a trump bonus named Paul Tanner invented it.
28:49
Speaker 1: Um basically a very simplified thereman that you could play
28:52
Speaker 1: with knobs, uh, to make it easier to hit the
28:56
Speaker 1: right tones. That that to me makes it not not
28:59
Speaker 1: a theorem. And yeah, it's an electro theremin. So um,
29:02
Speaker 1: there's not a theoreman on Good Vibrations, as a lot
29:05
Speaker 1: of people think. It's also not a theoreman you're hearing
29:07
Speaker 1: in the Star Trek theme. A lot of people apparently
29:10
Speaker 1: think that it shows up in that Trek theme and
29:13
Speaker 1: that it turns out is soprano lulli Gene Norman hitting
29:17
Speaker 1: all those incredible notes. I don't even I don't think
29:20
Speaker 1: i've ever heard that theme. WHOA Okay, that was Beaker.
29:28
Speaker 1: Apparently we just made a cameo in that in that version. Yep. Um,
29:34
Speaker 1: so those are two places the theremin doesn't show up.
29:37
Speaker 1: It does show up elsewhere in movies like Edwood and
29:40
Speaker 1: Mars Attacks both I think Tim Burton movies. Right, yeah,
29:43
Speaker 1: he's all over the thereman. Hell boy. Um. It was
29:46
Speaker 1: also in First Man, which I have still not seen,
29:49
Speaker 1: but I guess it's a scene where Neil Armstrong throws
29:52
Speaker 1: his um his young dead daughter's bracelet into a crater
29:57
Speaker 1: in the moon and they use theoreman, which it seems
30:00
Speaker 1: like a very bold choice for a recent movie to make.
30:03
Speaker 1: I'm surprised you haven't seen that. I'm a little surprised too.
30:09
Speaker 1: I'm surprised I haven't seen it because I have a
30:12
Speaker 1: crush on Gosling, who doesn't. No Man, Lars and the
30:16
Speaker 1: Real Girl is just one of the best movies ever made. Yeah,
30:19
Speaker 1: also starring a a friend of us stuff you should know,
30:21
Speaker 1: Paul Schneider. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, that's great. So a
30:30
Speaker 1: bunch of you know, pop music really latched onto it.
30:33
Speaker 1: And UH and the nineties and two thousand's group called
30:36
Speaker 1: the Silver Apples use one. Uh. One of my favorite
30:40
Speaker 1: records from the nineties is a band called Mercury Rev
30:43
Speaker 1: and their album Deserter Songs heavily features the Theoreman and
30:47
Speaker 1: a couple of their songs, there's a Sepulcher, a song
30:50
Speaker 1: that has a theoremin and it's played by um Jason
30:53
Speaker 1: now Stead, who is the basis of Metallic at the time.
30:56
Speaker 1: There's a trivia answer for you. Seriously, he's like, standing back,
31:01
Speaker 1: you can't crowd the Theoreman. It changes the pitch. It's
31:04
Speaker 1: also that was your Jason Newstead impression. Sure, I guess
31:08
Speaker 1: he just looks angry, didn't he. That's Hetfield you're thinking of.
31:12
Speaker 1: Oh Newstead always had that frown. Oh really, well, all
31:15
Speaker 1: of them literally they were metal, don't you know. Um.
31:19
Speaker 1: And then there was a band called Lothar and the
31:21
Speaker 1: hand People, And Lothar was the name of the Theoreman,
31:25
Speaker 1: who the band considered the lead singer in the hand
31:28
Speaker 1: People were the people playing Lothar the Theoreman. Yeah, that
31:32
Speaker 1: annoyed me so much. I didn't even look it up
31:34
Speaker 1: to listen. Oh really, I think it's awesome. Man, that's
31:36
Speaker 1: just so sixties to me. I love it. I think
31:39
Speaker 1: it's two thousands trying to be sixties. No, but they're
31:43
Speaker 1: from the sixties, so they are Yeah, yeah, yeah, they're legit.
31:48
Speaker 1: I'll look into it. Then. Have you seen what what
31:52
Speaker 1: was the name of that band that um they just
31:55
Speaker 1: beat up like appliances. I think they're Swedish and they
31:59
Speaker 1: made the Hounds. They were like kind of viral, like
32:01
Speaker 1: several years back. They did like a total eclipse of
32:04
Speaker 1: the heart cover but beating up an oven in a dishwasher,
32:08
Speaker 1: Oh my god, you'd actually like him pretty great. And
32:11
Speaker 1: one guy, he's like so scrawny that he can't keep
32:14
Speaker 1: his pants up, so his pants keep falling down every
32:17
Speaker 1: time he hits the stove with the sledgehammer. It's like,
32:21
Speaker 1: I mean it's a stove with his belt. Yeah, basically
32:24
Speaker 1: put the belt on. That guy needs a belt more
32:28
Speaker 1: than he I don't even think a belt could service
32:30
Speaker 1: him any longer. I think he needs like an extension
32:32
Speaker 1: cord length. He's got a tie it as tight as
32:35
Speaker 1: he possibly can. He's thin. And you just unknowingly made
32:38
Speaker 1: another music reference. What the great great band Silver Juice
32:44
Speaker 1: from the late great Dave Burman. He has a line
32:46
Speaker 1: and one of their great songs, uh, holding up your
32:50
Speaker 1: trousers with extension cords? Well, that's funny. I wonder if
32:54
Speaker 1: he's when are they from the nineties, uh, two thousand's
32:58
Speaker 1: and also featuring friend of the show Amnistanovic. Yeah, no,
33:01
Speaker 1: I knew that. It's basically Pavement, isn't it. No, it
33:05
Speaker 1: was Dave Burman, But Malcolmus is on the one Great Great.
33:08
Speaker 1: I mean, they're all good albums, but Great American Water
33:11
Speaker 1: is one of the best albums of that decade. I
33:13
Speaker 1: wonder if he was making a syphasis reference, because that's
33:16
Speaker 1: what I was making reference to this. I think Nelson
33:18
Speaker 1: Muntz has a he uses an extension cord for a belt. Yeah,
33:24
Speaker 1: he's neglected. I knew this is gonna take us down
33:26
Speaker 1: some musical side roads. Sure, And I knew you were
33:29
Speaker 1: going to mention Robert Plant climaxing because you say that
33:33
Speaker 1: like every other week. I can't. I can't stop talking
33:36
Speaker 1: about it. Should we take another break? I think so,
33:39
Speaker 1: and then we're gonna come back and explain how theremin
33:41
Speaker 1: works and then how to play it. How's that for
33:45
Speaker 1: a cliffhanger? I'm hanging okay, Chuck, so a Theraman works
34:12
Speaker 1: through um electronic magic. Basically, I think we should just
34:16
Speaker 1: leave it at that. Now we can't. I really went
34:20
Speaker 1: to a lot of trouble to try to figure out
34:22
Speaker 1: how these things worked in the most simplistic terms possible.
34:27
Speaker 1: And that's really saying something because the people who write
34:30
Speaker 1: about how Thereman's work are the people who build thermans,
34:33
Speaker 1: which means that the people who understand things like amplitude
34:37
Speaker 1: and currents and electro magnetic interference and all that stuff. Basically,
34:42
Speaker 1: you've got two different um circuits. You've got a pitch
34:46
Speaker 1: circuit and a volume circuit. And if you've ever seen
34:48
Speaker 1: a theorem in it's basically like a box and on.
34:52
Speaker 1: If you're standing at the box getting ready to play it,
34:55
Speaker 1: on your right, the player's right is it a single
34:58
Speaker 1: antenna going up vert clee that looks like one of
35:02
Speaker 1: a pair of rabbit ears that you would use on
35:04
Speaker 1: an old timey tv UH antenna. Look it up, kids.
35:08
Speaker 1: And then on the other side the left there's like
35:11
Speaker 1: a round metal, horizontally oriented antenna that comes out the
35:16
Speaker 1: other side of the box. The one on the left,
35:18
Speaker 1: the round one that's for adjusting volume. The one on
35:21
Speaker 1: the right, the vertical rod, is for um adjusting the pitch. Yeah,
35:28
Speaker 1: it's it's sort of volume slash attack and an attack
35:32
Speaker 1: is one of those words that unless you're sort of
35:35
Speaker 1: into playing music, you don't know what it means, but
35:37
Speaker 1: you'll see it pop up on various instruments labeled attack,
35:40
Speaker 1: and that's they're sort of It's called the musical envelope,
35:43
Speaker 1: the four stages of sound. Uh, and it starts with attack.
35:47
Speaker 1: That's the sort of the beginning of the sound, like
35:50
Speaker 1: right when you strike a piano key or right when
35:52
Speaker 1: you plug a guitar string. Uh. And then it goes
35:55
Speaker 1: from attack to decay to sustain to release and the
35:59
Speaker 1: volume and its heck, it's not quite the same thing.
36:02
Speaker 1: But uh, as far as what we need to know
36:05
Speaker 1: about the theremin that right, I'm sorry, the horizontal and
36:09
Speaker 1: controls volume and attack, okay. And then the one on
36:12
Speaker 1: the right, the upright one, it controls pitch and the
36:15
Speaker 1: way that it produces pitches. It's got two different oscillators
36:18
Speaker 1: in there, and an oscillator is just something that produces
36:21
Speaker 1: alternating current electricity in wave form. Right, it produces waves,
36:26
Speaker 1: and one of those oscillators produces one at a static frequency.
36:29
Speaker 1: It's always the same frequency no matter what the other
36:32
Speaker 1: one adjusts. And so when you get your hand. Oh
36:36
Speaker 1: we left out a really important thing. The the way
36:39
Speaker 1: this whole thing works is because you live human person
36:43
Speaker 1: are holding an electric charge right now and so oh
36:47
Speaker 1: we did. Okay. So that's called your capetence, and when
36:50
Speaker 1: your captence, your electric charge, whatever that may be, and
36:54
Speaker 1: it's going to be different for each person. So I
36:55
Speaker 1: think kind of the implication, Chuck, is that every different
36:59
Speaker 1: person new walks up to a particular thereman is going
37:03
Speaker 1: to produce a different sound. Doesn't that seem right? Oh?
37:07
Speaker 1: I don't know. I never really thought about that. I
37:08
Speaker 1: would think so, because I wouldn't think we're all walking
37:10
Speaker 1: around with the same capetents. Although I could be wrong,
37:12
Speaker 1: but regardless, just if that's wrong, totally disregard what I
37:16
Speaker 1: just said. The point is is that UM, when you're
37:20
Speaker 1: your electrical charge presented in the form of your hand,
37:24
Speaker 1: interferes with the um, the oscillating current that's being created
37:29
Speaker 1: and generated and run through this antenna. UM. It changes
37:32
Speaker 1: that oscillating frequency, and so these two things subtract or
37:37
Speaker 1: add together their frequencies to produce this sound that raises
37:42
Speaker 1: their lowers and pitch depending on how close you are.
37:44
Speaker 1: The closer you get the higher the pitch, the further away, um,
37:47
Speaker 1: the lower the pitch. Uh. And that's basically how it works,
37:51
Speaker 1: the same thing basically with your with your left hand
37:53
Speaker 1: with the volume attack. That's it. You're just basically interfering
37:58
Speaker 1: with the electric electric magnetic fields produced and carried through
38:02
Speaker 1: these antenna's using your own electrical charge. That's how they work. Yeah,
38:07
Speaker 1: and it's um. If you watch the documentary, there's one
38:10
Speaker 1: UM scientists that attaches it to a wave form visualizer
38:17
Speaker 1: sort of explain it a little better and he um,
38:19
Speaker 1: not better than we did, but just more in more
38:21
Speaker 1: detail and no, no, no uh and he uh he
38:25
Speaker 1: was just said, it's it's remarkable that that Leon Thereman
38:30
Speaker 1: or Terman invented this thing without the use of one
38:32
Speaker 1: of those Like he was going completely by ear. And
38:35
Speaker 1: I think if had it not been for his training
38:38
Speaker 1: as a cellist, uh, it may not have ever even
38:42
Speaker 1: been anything. Because you have to have a really in
38:45
Speaker 1: this sort of segues into actually playing the thing, you
38:48
Speaker 1: have to have a really really good ear for pitch
38:51
Speaker 1: to play a Thereman because like you said earlier, there
38:54
Speaker 1: are no markers like frets to look at to know
38:57
Speaker 1: where to go to hit a g it's got a yeah,
39:00
Speaker 1: four and a half. I saw four and a half
39:01
Speaker 1: octave range and also saw five and a half. But
39:04
Speaker 1: you gotta know in the the air surrounding you in
39:07
Speaker 1: space where exactly to put your hand to get the
39:11
Speaker 1: tone that you want, and if it's off a little bit,
39:14
Speaker 1: it's not gonna sound right. So the learning curve is long.
39:19
Speaker 1: It's a tough instrument to to really get good at.
39:22
Speaker 1: Extremely so yeah, because I mean, if you if you
39:24
Speaker 1: know how to play a guitar, you can walk up
39:26
Speaker 1: to a guitar and be like, oh, here's the frets
39:28
Speaker 1: or whatever. I can put my fingers here here and
39:30
Speaker 1: I'm going to make this sound. With the theramin, it's
39:32
Speaker 1: it's literally different places in the air. Um. And so yeah,
39:37
Speaker 1: you do have to have a good year. One of
39:39
Speaker 1: the other things you have to have. It's essential to
39:41
Speaker 1: playing the theremin is um a steady hand, yeah, or
39:46
Speaker 1: I guess not necessarily, but it definitely helps. Because, um,
39:50
Speaker 1: if you see somebody kind of moving around like they're
39:52
Speaker 1: just totally whacked out or whatever, playing a theramin with
39:55
Speaker 1: the sounds they're making is not what it's supposed to
39:58
Speaker 1: sound like. A theramin is aid very delicately. There's a
40:02
Speaker 1: very famous um there menace named Clara Rockmore who said,
40:05
Speaker 1: you play with you play a theramin with butterfly wings.
40:09
Speaker 1: And she was basically saying, like, your fingers are supposed
40:11
Speaker 1: to be delicate and controlled like a butterfly wings. And
40:15
Speaker 1: so if you watch people playing theramin, they're they're just
40:19
Speaker 1: like they're standing totally straight and still. It's just their
40:23
Speaker 1: hands and their wrists basically that are moving and making
40:25
Speaker 1: these really delicate motions through the air that is producing
40:29
Speaker 1: all of these different sounds. Yeah, and the reason you
40:32
Speaker 1: have to stand still, obviously, is because any movement of
40:35
Speaker 1: your body is going to affect the sound. That's why
40:38
Speaker 1: I made the Jason Newstead joke in that documentary. There's
40:40
Speaker 1: an old I don't know who she was. It might
40:44
Speaker 1: have been Clara Rockmore maybe, probably was Clara rock or
40:47
Speaker 1: Lucy Bigelo Rosen maybe, but she was like back off
40:51
Speaker 1: in her accent, and she was like, I'm not you know,
40:53
Speaker 1: I'm trying to be nice about it, but you can't
40:55
Speaker 1: you you can't come any closer. And I tell the
40:57
Speaker 1: first violinison an orchestra the same thing, like you have
41:00
Speaker 1: to have space around the instrument itself or else is
41:03
Speaker 1: going to affect the sound? You're right, hey, you know
41:06
Speaker 1: who else played the theremin? Who's a theremin master? M?
41:11
Speaker 1: My friend Toby really yes, so he is very cool.
41:17
Speaker 1: He was from Dallas and the Polyphon Experience from Dallas,
41:20
Speaker 1: and apparently like half of Dallas was members of the
41:23
Speaker 1: Polyphoning Spree except for poor Toby. And so he went
41:26
Speaker 1: to the dude from Tripping jay Z Days. I can't
41:29
Speaker 1: remember his name, but the leader of the Polyphoning Spreence said,
41:31
Speaker 1: you know, I want to join what what what? What
41:34
Speaker 1: instrument do you need? And the guy was like, I
41:36
Speaker 1: don't want you to go learn to play theraman and
41:38
Speaker 1: come back. And so Toby went and taught himself thereman
41:41
Speaker 1: and came back and joined the Polyphonic Spree. That's right.
41:44
Speaker 1: I think it's Tim something or other. Yeah. I was
41:46
Speaker 1: into them for those first two albums quite a bit.
41:48
Speaker 1: Oh man, they were so great what what great music?
41:51
Speaker 1: Because it was so earnest too, you know, like they
41:53
Speaker 1: weren't being ironic. It was this kid, a sharp guy,
41:58
Speaker 1: and that band of hippies who is he Edwards Sharp?
42:01
Speaker 1: And the Magnetic Zeros, you know it was the same
42:04
Speaker 1: kind of deal, like, hey, let's get forty people in
42:05
Speaker 1: a band and uh not have one bar soap between us. No,
42:10
Speaker 1: I never heard of you know that they had one
42:11
Speaker 1: big hit that you would know. Uh what what? Oh?
42:15
Speaker 1: That home? Won't you come home? Home is where I
42:20
Speaker 1: really want to be. I mean I wasn't into him
42:25
Speaker 1: and it was a huge, huge hit. So was that
42:27
Speaker 1: Judy Garland? Oh boy? So yeah, So Toby Toby was
42:37
Speaker 1: the greatest theremin player I've ever met. That's awesome. Uh So,
42:42
Speaker 1: you know, you play, like we said, with that um
42:45
Speaker 1: you know a lot of times, like I said, it
42:47
Speaker 1: looks like you're holding a little whatever you call it,
42:49
Speaker 1: the conductors. I'm want to do a show on conducting,
42:51
Speaker 1: by the way, just to learn what that thing is,
42:53
Speaker 1: the little stick, the stick, But it looks like you're
42:56
Speaker 1: sort of holding that because a lot of theremin players
42:58
Speaker 1: tend to touch their thumb and their four fingers together
43:01
Speaker 1: and you're, you know, you're sort of wiggling your fingers
43:03
Speaker 1: for vibrato and you can learn basic theorem and and
43:06
Speaker 1: make the sounds that sound good. And then there's like
43:10
Speaker 1: the next level theremin ng where you really get involved
43:14
Speaker 1: with your fingers and very subtle movements to create different sounds. Yeah.
43:19
Speaker 1: So it is like a really difficult thing to do
43:22
Speaker 1: and to learn to play, in no small part because
43:25
Speaker 1: there aren't frets or anything like that. Um, but also
43:28
Speaker 1: because of the the just precision movement of your fingers
43:32
Speaker 1: and in hands. Um. And you also can't really get
43:36
Speaker 1: into the music either. You have to stay still because
43:39
Speaker 1: if you sway or you know, swing your head left
43:42
Speaker 1: or right or anything like that, Um, you're going to
43:45
Speaker 1: mess with the that that part of your body is
43:47
Speaker 1: going to come into the electromagnetic field and you're going
43:51
Speaker 1: to mess up the sound of the music. That's right.
43:53
Speaker 1: And that's why hip hop concerts they say, throw your
43:57
Speaker 1: hands in the air and wave them like you just
43:58
Speaker 1: don't care. Except for that they aramanist right, throw your
44:03
Speaker 1: hands in the air and wave them like you just
44:06
Speaker 1: don't play there. And I think we should decided this
44:09
Speaker 1: part out very well made. I'll be very surprised if
44:12
Speaker 1: that ends up in the final cut. Chuck. One thing
44:15
Speaker 1: we didn't mention that seems obvious unless you know about
44:20
Speaker 1: musical instrument or might seem obvious. I don't know what
44:24
Speaker 1: I'm saying. It's obvious to me. But it's going through
44:26
Speaker 1: an amplifier, like if you're sitting at home, like, yeah,
44:29
Speaker 1: but how does the sound come out. It's an electronic instrument,
44:32
Speaker 1: so it's plugged into an amp. It is. And actually
44:35
Speaker 1: that volume circuit that you're interfering with, you're actually changing
44:39
Speaker 1: the voltage I believe of the amplifier. UM. That's how
44:43
Speaker 1: when you move your hand closer and further away, you're
44:46
Speaker 1: affecting the voltage that's that's released by that that UM
44:51
Speaker 1: whatever transformers is supplying the amplifier with the electricity. Yeah,
44:56
Speaker 1: Like you can get a thereman for not a lot
44:58
Speaker 1: of money, or a Theoreman kit, or I would say
45:02
Speaker 1: get a one of those new theorem any is that
45:04
Speaker 1: Moga is building because those are just super super cool
45:08
Speaker 1: and they sound amazing and they make it a little
45:10
Speaker 1: bit easier on you. Yeah, because they they they recognize chords. Right,
45:16
Speaker 1: So when you move your hand like through the air
45:18
Speaker 1: at a certain way, like it goes through the chromatic scales.
45:23
Speaker 1: It's not it's not just random stuff. It actually kind
45:25
Speaker 1: of is like a UM very forgiving and corrective of
45:30
Speaker 1: what you're doing and figures out what you're trying to
45:31
Speaker 1: do and it makes it sound like it like you
45:33
Speaker 1: want it to. But the the most amazing thing is
45:37
Speaker 1: there's a dial where you can dial back that level
45:41
Speaker 1: of forgiveness as you get better and better at playing
45:44
Speaker 1: the theorem, and you can just make it so that
45:45
Speaker 1: it's not doing that for you at all and you
45:47
Speaker 1: have to do it yourself, which is pretty awesome. Yeah,
45:50
Speaker 1: and it also sounds synthy and cool. Yeah. I mean,
45:53
Speaker 1: I like the sound of a regular theremin, but that
45:55
Speaker 1: there are many. I had never heard of it until today,
45:58
Speaker 1: and I was like, I'm gonna have to get one
45:59
Speaker 1: of those at some point. All right, if you're like
46:02
Speaker 1: a maker kind of person and you like music there,
46:05
Speaker 1: you've probably already made theremans. But if not, check out
46:08
Speaker 1: a guy named Arthur Harrison's site thereman dot us. He
46:12
Speaker 1: sells kits and like has all sorts of articles and
46:15
Speaker 1: stuff like that. And then there's a guy named Ken
46:18
Speaker 1: Moore who hacked into like the Xbox Connect and the
46:23
Speaker 1: Nintendo we and figured out how to turn them into theramans.
46:27
Speaker 1: And there's one where he does like a you know,
46:30
Speaker 1: really admirable attempt at the Star Trek theme using his
46:33
Speaker 1: wee Theoreman. Just look up Ken Moore we Thereman star
46:37
Speaker 1: Trek theme and thank me later. It's it's a cool community.
46:40
Speaker 1: Like I love circuitry and electronic gadgetreat uh wanks, and
46:46
Speaker 1: those communities were of like the Hams, Like they just
46:49
Speaker 1: really get into their shutting the door to their little
46:52
Speaker 1: room and working on very small, very difficult to understand
46:57
Speaker 1: projects and hacking stuff and creating new things. It's just
47:01
Speaker 1: really really in the in the spirit of creation and invention,
47:05
Speaker 1: I think, in which it was always intended. Nice. Yeah,
47:09
Speaker 1: I mean the Theoreman is all that and then some chuck.
47:12
Speaker 1: It's a whole bag of chips. You got anything else? Yeah,
47:16
Speaker 1: I sort of promised earlier a little bit of talk
47:18
Speaker 1: about Thereman's legacy with his kids and grandkids. And he
47:23
Speaker 1: did have a daughter, he had a couple of daughters,
47:24
Speaker 1: but he had one named Natasha Thereman from his third wife,
47:28
Speaker 1: who was a Thereman master in Russia, and then nine
47:33
Speaker 1: she's seventy two now, and then twenty nine year old
47:34
Speaker 1: Peter Theoreman, his great grandson, is also a Russian composer
47:40
Speaker 1: and uh Theoreman master. Pretty cool, It's pretty cool. Yeah,
47:45
Speaker 1: that's neat also that they just adopted the Western Ice
47:48
Speaker 1: version of their grandfather's name too. I guess, yeah, absolutely. Uh,
47:53
Speaker 1: now you've got anything else? Nothing else? Well, before we go,
47:56
Speaker 1: Chuck um, because it's that time of year, uh, in
48:00
Speaker 1: this episode is going to come out around you his birthday.
48:03
Speaker 1: I want to take a second to say happy birthday
48:05
Speaker 1: to my dear sweet wife you. Happy birthday MS, thanks,
48:09
Speaker 1: Happy birthday you me. And since I said happy birthday
48:12
Speaker 1: you me and Chuck did two, that means it's time
48:14
Speaker 1: for listener mail. So this is a This is a
48:21
Speaker 1: listener mail from Richard Roberts, and this was just supremely heartwarming. Uh.
48:27
Speaker 1: Our book is out Stuff you Should Know colon an
48:30
Speaker 1: incomplete compendium of mostly interesting things. Huge, huge thanks to
48:34
Speaker 1: everyone who pre bought it or bought it after its
48:38
Speaker 1: release an audiobook or or hardcover form um. But the
48:43
Speaker 1: Stuff you Should Know Army page has just been lit
48:45
Speaker 1: up with people posting pictures of them with a book,
48:48
Speaker 1: of them reading it, of their kids reading it, of
48:50
Speaker 1: their dogs eating it. Already, that's happened. And this comes
48:55
Speaker 1: from Richard Roberts from the Stuff you Should Know Army. Hey, guys,
48:58
Speaker 1: thanks for doing what you do. Podcast is wonderful. I
49:01
Speaker 1: just want to email you'll let you know about a
49:02
Speaker 1: lovely gesture I just witnessed on the Stuff you Should
49:05
Speaker 1: Know Army Facebook page. One member posted to say they
49:08
Speaker 1: didn't buy the book due to their financial constraints at
49:11
Speaker 1: the time, but that they were so excited that it
49:13
Speaker 1: popped up in a search at their local library. Uh
49:16
Speaker 1: and before you know it in the comments, that was
49:18
Speaker 1: a fellow Uh many fellows Stuff you should know Army
49:20
Speaker 1: fans scrambling to buy a book for this complete stranger
49:24
Speaker 1: so that she could have her own copy. I think
49:26
Speaker 1: I took some screenshot or I took some screenshots which
49:29
Speaker 1: I attached. I know you don't always do shout outs,
49:31
Speaker 1: but the philanthropic book buyers and the original poster might
49:35
Speaker 1: get a kick out of it if you did. And
49:37
Speaker 1: it's a nice story that people might enjoy. And that
49:39
Speaker 1: is Richard Roberts from down Under. And uh, Jacko du
49:43
Speaker 1: Bois is who stepped up first and is buying this
49:47
Speaker 1: book for this person and sending a book to this person.
49:49
Speaker 1: So Jacko, send us an email and we'll send you
49:53
Speaker 1: something nice. I don't know what it is yet, but um,
49:56
Speaker 1: just send us an email Jacko, and we wanna pay
50:00
Speaker 1: it forward right back to you. That's a lovely idea, Chuck.
50:03
Speaker 1: Very nice and thanks Jacko, and thank you. That was
50:06
Speaker 1: Richard that wrote in. That was Richard. Thank you too, Richard. Uh.
50:10
Speaker 1: If you want to call out a very um nice
50:13
Speaker 1: example of paying it forward or a random act of
50:17
Speaker 1: kindness or anything like that, we love hearing about that stuff.
50:20
Speaker 1: You can send us an email to Stuff podcast at
50:23
Speaker 1: iHeart radio dot com. Stuff you Should Know is a
50:29
Speaker 1: production of iHeart Radio. For more podcasts for my heart Radio,
50:32
Speaker 1: visit the iHeart Radio app. Apple podcasts are wherever you
50:35
Speaker 1: listen to your favorite shows.