Theremin
More info
- Creator
- Lev Termen (Léon Theremin)
- Released
- 1920
- Type
- Electronic instrument
The instrument you play without touching it: the distance from your hands to two antennas sets pitch and volume.
Lev Termen hit on the principle in Petrograd in 1920 while working on proximity sensors. Two radio-frequency oscillators run just above the audible range; one is fixed, the other is detuned by the capacitance between the player's hand and a vertical antenna. The difference between them — the heterodyne principle — lands in the audible range and becomes the note. A horizontal loop antenna controls volume the same way.
RCA built a few hundred units in 1929–30, and the sound soon became film-score shorthand for aliens and psychological distress. Playing in tune is notoriously hard because there are no fixed positions. A young Robert Moog built and sold theremins as a student before moving on to the synthesizer.