When Ann gets her ukulele and I get my nose flute we can jam at lunch!
Does anybody know where I can get a good ukulele cheap? And then teach me how to play?
Chris - how about bringing in a singing saw to compliment the dying baby? Then you'd have both a dying baby AND a wailing mother! Linda on nose flute and Ann on ukelele, and I think you've finally found a way to get everyone out of the building and home for a rest! (The building would be alll yours,,yah-ha-ha-ha-haaaa!) o
Or, you could find yourselves living out a bad B movie at the offices...but you tend to like that kind of thing anyway, so - it's all good!
Concerto for Theramin, ukelele and saw. C'mon all you budding composers. Fame is but a finger's bredth away...
Maybe we could add an ideophone and make it a quartet?
(Glass harmonica)
There's a regualr at the Builder's acoustic night called Dave from Palmer's Green (surnames! Who needs em!), plays the uke and harmonicas and gazoo. Brilliant - actually raises the tone on occasion.
"Concerto for Theramin, ukelele and saw. C'mon all you budding composers. Fame is but a finger's bredth away..."
Yeah, Huw...but which finger??? (o;
My grandma taught me that a lady should never specify.
It's Monday Chris...did you try it out on them today?
OMG! what did y'all do with Chris?!!??!
(Cue Theramin backing track...)
Actually, it isn't a magnetic field, but have fun anyway. Theramins are a gas. I built my first one in '64.
The device requires an interaction with the EM field emitted by the antennae. That is a combination of magnetic and electrical fields that are aligned orthogonally and are intrinsically linked. If there were no EM field, then you would not be able to interact with it in the way it is designed to work.
It will still work then if Chris jumped up in the air - no feet touching the ground for grounding?
I can play it with my tongue. It's not a pretty sight.
Ech! I think it's an induction based variable capacitance oscillator, using the human body as an electrolytic capacitor. the closer the body or part therof to the antenna, the higher the capacitance. Don't know if grounding is important to the thing's actually working. Is that right?
Next week extraterrestrial Radio-Shack fun with the FA interosciter kit (US, Europe and Metaluna pats pending). "Folkii on oikein kaunista"
The whole world is like a theremin -- with the beings that dwell thereupon and thereunder varying the capacitance of the ionic permaflap scuttering over our bowelessence. Hear the music.
Oh, crystal diffusion, stent my amplitude!
Oh, madre amigo, be mine fair barometer!
Cast me upon your thermal vent.
Tincture of iodine, my mama used to say,
that's what you're gonna need to fix that open wound.
Chris - it might have to be with tongue and some other appendage, and if you and Ann get on the Bill at Kent State Folk, I'll certainly do my best to get there!
Huw - better get that "kit" while it lasts - Radio Shack has closed down some stores here...
So, basically, what you're saying Richard and Huw is - any body of mostly HO2 will do? If you threw a cat past the modulator thingie and the oscillator, we'd hear something interesting?
Btw, Huw - "The Island Earth" came out the year I was born. That "interocitor" used as a communications device looks a bit like Tinkie Winkie's triangular antenna.
I can just hear it now: "Warning: the Interocitor as portrayed in the 1955 film, "The Island Earth", was a subversive plot by the far left liberal media..blah-blah.. to utilise the tiragular shape as representative of an alternative lifestyle.... blah-blah-blah". You know, I don't recall ever having seen that film or "Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Movie" either. Was it good?
Mystery Science Theatre 3000 - The Movie. I think I stumbled into that late one beer sodden Friday night. Funny/Facaetious. A winner for me then!
You'll definitely get some sort of noise if you fling a cat at a Theramin? Any body of water? I think not - a contained body of salty water, probably. On the other hand - a theramin will be tuned to produce noise in a certain range of capacitance (if I've got the physics right) corresponding with a human hand or appendage, anchored to a human body. A condom full of brine, a cat or a severed hand or appendage (cue Theramin) might produce notes outside audibility.
I think (if no-one can give me chapter and verse on the way the sensor works - I can't read schematics) Chris could help us out here by dangling objects over the thing from a fishing rod.
Ring Out Ye Cristal Spheres Richard. I'm on codene - what are you taking?
Huw: Clear Channel here. No additives other than caffeine. A gift from my Muse, perhaps? My Mucilage?
Sfumato is one of my favorite words.
Sforzando one of mine! I've just been reading up on MST3K - a series we simply didn't get over here! I feel bereft!
They've got kits on Ebay!
Ooooo, that's really a great site (thereminworld.com) Gary's "Destroy All Humans" was grand and thematic!
I'm just a little worried . . . are you trying to tell us the Xyntons are migrating to earth?
Was there a Star Trek episode that had Spock or Uhura playing a theremin? What is this vague recollection welling up inside my cranium?
Does a computer touchpad operate on the same principle as a theremin? If so, does it really matter? I know these are tough questions for tough times.
I would LOVE to have a touch-pad that was as flexible as a Theramin! Think of the subtle art you could make AND if you make the whole key-board velocity-sensitive, you wouldn't need to hit the CAPITALS key to shout, simply hit the keys harder!
Perhaps someone can figure out how to reroute the electrostatic field of my 21" CRT monitor screen to a music program (like Logic Express) to simulate a theremin. I could wave my hand across the screen to create beautiful sounds. And imagine the incredible explosion of sound you'd get when degaussing!
Now, wait a minute...you guys are getting WAY too close to inside my dreamworld....that's supposed to be private space.
Hmmm. I'll bet you could lash up a USB Theramin, don't know how high a voltage is required, but it's just a question of more turns in the sensor coil I suppose. None exists in Google, though there are occasional musings from boffins.
Ho hum, klaatu barada nicto as they say.
Theremin - sorry. I've asked a mate who does that sort of thing. I'll let you all know.
Klaatu!? Run! RUN FOR YOUR LIFE!!!!!!!!!!!!
My Dad used to say to me, "You talk like a woman with a broken head face." Or, "You talk like a woman with a broken lip."
One day I will figure out how to make music from Muscae Volitantes -- minute remnants of embryonic structures in the vitreous humour. Also known as floaters. Just imagine the suite pastoral sound. Then, rub your eyes aggressively for a loud movement with colored flashes... Neue Beethoven!
Well then, I'd be a busy composer for sure, and I'd most likely have to wear ear plugs after a while.
I've always assumed they were a toxacara remnant. Instead they turn out to be a latin tautology!
A primate model for the study of Toxocara canis infection was created by intravitreal, periocular, systemic, and intracarotid injection of viable larvae in cynomolgus monkeys. The results were quite interesting.
Intravitreal? That's gotta hurt - especially if the monkey bites you! Anyway, I don't think there's any Theremin stuff in the Island of Doctor Moreau...
One more day until another Theremin Friday. I already feel soothed.
What's this I hear about a "pocket theremin", Huw -
did I miss something?
Well - it's Friday and in London it's 7.20 PM. I can only guess that in Ohio the wierd, sinuous sine-wave strains, accompanied of course, by the rinkydinking of the honourable ukelele are echoing along the corridors of FA... Everyone in the building is now aware - they are not alone!
(cue "Twilight Zone" intro music here...)
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1139163
Fresh Air from WHYY, March 1, 2002 · Robert Moog is the inventor of the Moog synthesizer, an electronic keyboard that makes unworldly sounding electronic music. He invented it in 1963. Also, Moog didn't invent the theremin, but he manufactures this early electronic instrument. A Russian invented it 70 years ago, and it's been used on many science-fiction films because of its eerie, wavering tones.
Theramin ended up making bugs for the KGB (after a spell in Siberia for making decadent musical instruments). I guess he really did know he wasn't alone!
Huw: How could anyone know that?
Heaven knows where I first heard it, there was a BBC4 documantary a few years ago. Try Wikipedia - all terribly reliable I know. The BBC is generally on the money - even when it's getting crucified for telling fibs!
Richard wrote: "Huw: How could anyone know that?"
I'm guessing he meant how could any of us know that we're really not alone...right?
If you want to spook yourself, check out local.live.com and take a peek at your own abode. I thought to clean up the junk pile in the back yard when I saw that "bird's eye" view - yikes!
JoLynn: I meant, "How could anyone know that obscure bit about the KGB and Mr. Theremin?" But then Huw answered. Now all is well in Rod Serling's universe of sight and sound.
Ah! But Richard - knowledge of obscure facts seem to be the forte of quite a few folk hanging around this think tank...
It's gotten to the point that if there's some topic or fact I cannot find, what comes to mind is, "I know...let's ask (so-and-so) from the Folk Alley bloggers - you included!
CODA:
Fridays are Theremin day in East Summit Street. Over here we have set days for vaccinating small children, which is what led to my listening to FA at work - headphones make great ear-defenders when the kiddies are screaming (heartbreaking sometimes, stoicism is out of fashion amongst modern youngsters). On Tuesdays and Thursdays I might get away with a Theremin recital unnoticed around here.
CODA:
Fridays are Theremin day in East Summit Street. Over here we have set days for vaccinating small children, which is what led to my listening to FA at work - headphones make great ear-defenders when the kiddies are screaming (heartbreaking sometimes, stoicism is out of fashion amongst modern youngsters). On Tuesdays and Thursdays I might get away with a Theremin recital unnoticed around here.
Be careful with your CODAs, Huw. Wouldn't want to get us into an infinite loop or something.
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Theremin Friday
