Hands OFF! 2011 Theremin Symposium

Yesterday saw me hop on a train and head up to sunny Scarborough to perform at the fabulous HANDS OFF! 2011 Theremin Symposium. I am now back home and settled again, and wanted to tell you a bit about it.

First up was an evening of outdoor Theremin dabbling, recording of the “Theremin Hellos”, where each performer recorded a ditty to say hello to the festival, drinking, eating, chatting and my performance of Steve Reich’s Pendulum Music for torches and Optical Theremins.

The setting was amazing. We took up the space inside and outside the café on top of Oliver’s Mount. The view and sunset were fabulous. This really got everyone in the right frame of mind and provided some great photo opportunities.

Anthony Springall, event organiser

Soon, after a couple of pints of the specially prepared Theremin ale (apparently the pump on the first night operated like a Theremin when you pulled it!), it was time for my performance. I set up my rig, asked for four volunteers to perform and away we went. There is probably more footage to come in due course but John Allsopp made a nice recording of it, which is below (thanks!). It includes a lot of waffle from me at the start, which might be worth listening to if you don’t know the piece already…

Note: there were a couple of sound system / lead issues which caused some crackling and volume fluctation. Sorry.

A special thank you to Valentin Ganin (and Kate Sugden) from Aston University who very kindly helped to design and build these new optical Theremins. They were specially made for this event, just in time, because they produce a nice sine wave, which is more akin to a real Theremin than my old square wave mk1s. They made for a much more subtle piece, which I thought fitted well in the context of this event. THANKS!

Afterwards, there was much pub and club banter, with a right-on bunch of “outsiders”.

Today was about Theremin lessons. I had booked mine with Lydia Kavina. I wanted to meet her more formally to discuss one of my favourite albums with her, which she performed on, Messer Chups “Crazy Price”. First though, my lesson, which I am told went very well. It was great fun to play but rather like scratching your head and patting your tummy at the same time, or whichever way round you are meant to do it.

We chatted about Messer Chups. We chatted about my Glatze EP and I gave Lydia a copy. We got on well. That’s nice when it’s someone you admire so greatly. Oh, and her playing was divine. I sat in on another lesson afterwards and she played a couple of classical Theremin pieces. Amazing accuracy and such feel. I was frankly awestruck! This was the the piece she played…

Time for some lunch and a big goodbye to all the lovely people at the festival, and off I went, or so I thought…

Before I could leave I was interviewed by the charming chaps that had volunteered to shoot a documentary about the whole event. I’m going to look like a right fan boy (which basically I am) as I was wearing my Supersonic t-shirt and my Home of Metal badge – hehe.

Homeward bound! I travelled by train too, which meant my journeys were productive. I wrote some process pieces of my own that I am really happy with and dabbled with making some new Reaktor instruments. Nice!

A thoroughly pleasant and inspirational trip away. Thanks to all involved for inviting me and bringing this great event together!

Finally, a few more photographs…

(Scary) Gordon Charlton, event organiser

Lydia Kavina, Barbara Buchholz and Carolina Eyck

A drunken novice, spinning out ;)

Process music

I don’t know what it says about me as a musician that I have such affection for process music. I have written and performed a number of process pieces over the years but my lust to explore them further has been reawakened through reading Andrew Ford’s “Illegal Harmonies” whilst on holiday. This inspired me to write the following process piece. This is only really me putting a toe back in the water but I intend to research and build on this area during my sabbatical.

Natural Score

Take a stereo field recording of any length, of an urban or rural environment. Each prominent sound in the field recording is used to score a piece for multiple instruments / sounds. The range and rhythm of each sound is used to define what instrument / sound is used and how it is scored. Record the score as it is “performed”. Place the various instruments / sounds in this recording in the opposite position in the stereo field as the sounds in the original recording. The final piece is created by mixing both recordings, fading from the original field recording to the scored recording, crossing at exactly 50/50 amplitude at the midpoint of the piece.

Obviously, the key is to get on and record these pieces, which I will do…but as I said, this is about me putting a toe back in the water of writing such pieces, to get my mind thinking in the right way again.

I must thank my father for his part in forming this passion of mine. I was lucky enough be surrounded by such things in my childhood and I even remember a couple of trips to the library to investigate specific pieces more closely.

Lastly, I wanted to include the original hand-written score to Steve Reich’s Pendulum Music, which I have been known to perform for Optical Theremins and torches.