Thoughts on composing for theremin

[kkissinger]

Hello to all!

Well, I have slowed down on my postings here not in small part due to my struggles with the theremin.

The theremin presents numerous challenges all of which involve intonation.

The theremin is great for longly-held (slow) pitches because it gives the performer time to "fade" into the pitch and make corrections. The shorter the notes' durations, the less time there is to make quick pitch adjustments.

Since I do live-looped music, this situation is distressing because if I hit an off-key note, the listeners are then subjected to it as long as the loop plays! As a performer, the pressure is pretty intense, I must admit.

And then, there is the issue of precision -- there are some notes that I really want to "hit" -- that is, I don't want to "fade in" to them, I want them to play on a precise beat. My solution has been to use an audio pitch-preview. Even with the pitch-preview, one doesn't always "nail" the needed pitch.

One obvious solution is simply to pitch-correct the instrument -- however a pitch-corrected theremin no longer sounds like a theremin!

I discovered that my equipment allow me to selectively pitch-correct notes in real time. This means that for certain pitches (mainly short staccato notes) I can correct them but then immediately play subsequent notes "uncorrected".

For example, I composed a rather lengthy live-looped composition a few years ago and I have never been happy with my performance of it. And indeed, out of the hundreds of notes that comprise the work, all it takes is a few out-of-tune ones to kill the music's effect.

So, for a number of months, I have asked myself if I even want to bother with the theremin!

Anyway, I have been experimenting with the notion of some individual pitch-corrected notes -- not enough that the theremin loses its identity but enough to reduce my stress level! I am very excited at the result and truly look forward to this year's performances.

I am planning to play the Rotations_II work (my most recent live-looping composition) with improvements and I am working on a brand-new work for 2017 that will exploit all the compositional/technological ideas that I've been developing over the years.

Thanks for reading. Look forward to seeing friends at the 2017 electro-music festivals!

For an example of my approach to live-looping with theremin, you can view me playing "Rotations" on YouTube (this recorded without any pitch-correction):

https://youtu.be/VareBYVQms0

[Acoustic Interloper]

I feel your pain, Kevin. I do a lot of high speed banjo finger picking into delay paths, and those sour notes sure do stick around a long time. It's problematic for the banjo because in its natural habitat, it has very fast attack & decay, and a lot of banjo instrumentals in bluegrass and jazz make good use of out-of-scale passing notes as sonic spice, which works as spice because it decays rapidly. When it doesn't decay rapidly due to using delay fx, it's like dumping a large amount of pepper into the meal. I am sure it's even worse for an instrument like theremin with microtones. I never got any good at playing the fiddle because I was always fishing around the pitch.

My solution for the banjo has been, not only to clean up slop in my playing, but also to curtail the practice of using out-of-key passing tones, and also out-of-rhythm-pattern time variations, when playing into a delay line. Much harder on theremin, I am sure.

[mosc]

Every instrument is good at some things, and poor at others. Why not use the Theremin for what it's good at and use something else for what it's not?


I have a Clavia G2 patch that does pitch quantizing. I still miss notes, even when I force it to play only the notes in key.


Kevin, how to you like the pitch quantization on the Moog Theremini? It has pitch correction built in.

[kkissinger]

I am looking forward to performing in Asheville this coming Friday. On one of the works, I had really reached a point of frustration and then discovered that with a different approach to phrasing and dynamics I could make the music come alive.

One of the issues with the theremin is the sustained nature of the tone. Too much of it in a looped texture leads to a muddy texture -- kind of like when watercolor paints run together and result in a cloudy, greyish mass.

I have no problem to augment my theremin with other equipment but the center of what I do depends on the responsiveness (zero latency) and expressiveness of a traditional theremin.

[Acoustic Interloper]

[mosc]

Kevin's performance at Asheville was splendid. I could hear the difference from previous performances.

I watched closely and didn't see any switches or foot pedals that he touched while playing. He explained afterward that changes to pitch corrector and, I presume, the looper are embedded in the score.

At first I was overwhelmed because I improvise when playing, and dealing with "patch" changes on the fly seemed exceedingly difficult. I perform with multiple synths and processors and changing patches in real time seemed out of the question, but I use a program for MIDI control called Bome MIDI Translator Pro which makes this possible. I'm inspired to give it a try.

(I use Bome because MIDI OX doesn't seem to work with Windows 10. What a shame).

[Acoustic Interloper]