Speaker 1: Get in touch with technology with tech Stuff from how
Speaker 1: stuff works dot com. Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff.
Speaker 1: I'm your host, Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer at
Speaker 1: how Stuff Works and I love all things tech. And
Speaker 1: it is a Riday that means it's time for a rerun.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, I mean a classic episode. That's what you
Speaker 1: call it, classy. This classic episode originally aired on August
Speaker 1: two thousand eleven. This is how Thereman's work, and I
Speaker 1: thought it was appropriate because we're coming up on Halloween
Speaker 1: and I always think of theremans as being sort of
Speaker 1: a halloween ish kind of musical instrument because it makes
Speaker 1: that why noise. You'll hear a lot of me doing that,
Speaker 1: and also Chris Palette, my co host when we recorded
Speaker 1: this episode. So enjoy because this is one of those
Speaker 1: crazy invent chins. I can't believe someone thought of it.
Speaker 1: It involves electro magnetism and lots of careful movements. It
Speaker 1: is very easy to make noise on a theramin. It
Speaker 1: is much harder to make music on one. And I
Speaker 1: got to see someone make wonderful music on it just
Speaker 1: the other day. So I hope you guys enjoy this episode,
Speaker 1: and I'll talk to you again in a moment. First,
Speaker 1: let's get into why we're going to do this episode.
Speaker 1: This comes to us courtesy of a Google Plus suggestion.
Speaker 1: This suggestion comes to us from Mary who and I'm
Speaker 1: going to truncate her message a bit because she actually
Speaker 1: had quite a long with lots of different suggestions, but
Speaker 1: starts off with you may be interested to know. I,
Speaker 1: for one, am not tech savvy, at least compared to
Speaker 1: the crowd of early adopter types here on Google Plus.
Speaker 1: I'm a rhetoric major, should have graduated when I was twenty,
Speaker 1: but in one class short of might be a for
Speaker 1: financial slash academic red tape reasons with miners in French
Speaker 1: and German guten tag Mary. Aside from being a pro vocalist,
Speaker 1: my real job is teaching English to disadvantaged and academically
Speaker 1: struggling eighth graders, which is amazing. I also tad college
Speaker 1: level rhett comp to and have private students tutoring clients,
Speaker 1: mostly college students, some high school, a few middle school
Speaker 1: primarily seeing me for writing instruction or literary interpretation analysis
Speaker 1: and historical analysis with embosses on reading comprehension. Apparently I
Speaker 1: need to take that at any rate. Mary then goes
Speaker 1: on to give several suggestions, the last of which is finally,
Speaker 1: more music stuff for those of us who missed the
Speaker 1: B side, r I P programs like able to end
Speaker 1: pro tools, HD electronics like d being Thereman, and the
Speaker 1: very awesome react table you can see on YouTube worthy
Speaker 1: of its own podcast. While all of that is true,
Speaker 1: we are going to do a Thereman podcast. And I
Speaker 1: know that stuff from the Beast. I did one as well,
Speaker 1: but we're really going to dive down and talk about
Speaker 1: with Thereman. It's his story how it works, uh, and
Speaker 1: you know the what's the basis behind? It's pretty interesting stuff.
Speaker 1: And as I said, the song I quoted at the
Speaker 1: beginning actually does feature a Thereman. Oh so and and uh.
Speaker 1: Just to help people who want to learn more about
Speaker 1: some of the stuff we're talking about today on how
Speaker 1: stuff works. We don't have how Thereman's work yet, although
Speaker 1: I do believe it's actually gone out as an assignment.
Speaker 1: We do have how amplifiers work, and that's going to
Speaker 1: be a very important part of our conversation. At some point.
Speaker 1: We do have an article on the Thereman However, yes,
Speaker 1: we do have articles on the Thereman, just not one
Speaker 1: that specifically breaks down how it works. Yet, like I said,
Speaker 1: I think by the time this podcast goes live, we
Speaker 1: may that may have changed. But I know that there
Speaker 1: is an assignment out there somewhere, floating out in the ether.
Speaker 1: It's not me. I'm not the one writing it so
Speaker 1: or at least it hasn't been assigned to me. So
Speaker 1: let's let's start talking about the history here. You wanted
Speaker 1: to UH talk about our buddy Leo Leon Thereman, actually
Speaker 1: Lev Sergeyevitch Terman, who was a scientist and inventor. UM.
Speaker 1: I got a little information about Mr Thereman from Britannica,
Speaker 1: always a good source for the biographical on these inventors. Um.
Speaker 1: He lived in UH in St. Petersburg and uh Florida, Russia.
Speaker 1: He was well, he was born there in and died
Speaker 1: in Moscow, Florida, No, North Dakota in nine three. I
Speaker 1: wonder if there is a Moscow not anyway. UM. So yeah,
Speaker 1: it's funny that you would say out of the ether
Speaker 1: because the original name for this device was the ether
Speaker 1: a phone, but it was later renamed to be the Thereman,
Speaker 1: and UH basically it's it's known for the way you
Speaker 1: play it, unlike pretty much every other kind of instrument
Speaker 1: I can think of where you actually need to touch
Speaker 1: it to do this. The thereman, you specifically do not
Speaker 1: touch UM. I knew a lot of people who have
Speaker 1: that same policy. But yes, no, you're you're absolutely correct.
Speaker 1: Derriman has played without touching it. Yep. And he actually
Speaker 1: played it for for Lenin in nineteen twenty two and
Speaker 1: and for Albert Einstein in UM patented the instrument in
Speaker 1: in New York in UM, and then he went into
Speaker 1: a lot of other stuff. He UH tried to work
Speaker 1: on other musical instruments and UH worked on an electronic
Speaker 1: security system for prisons. UM ended up in a Siberian
Speaker 1: labor camp in the Soviet Union. Yeah, it's uh. He was.
Speaker 1: He did work did some work for a in a
Speaker 1: military lab during World War Two where he was working
Speaker 1: on UH naval tracking systems and remote controls UM and
Speaker 1: even on spy technology and eavesdropping device for the KGB. UH.
Speaker 1: He got the Stalin Prize for that. UM. Smart guy
Speaker 1: is what we're talking about here. Yeah. Yeah. He became
Speaker 1: a professor of acoustics at the Moscow conservat tory Um
Speaker 1: and uh, you know, had done a lot of a
Speaker 1: lot of different kinds of electronics work. So certainly Um
Speaker 1: a very interesting person. But you know, I think he's
Speaker 1: probably best known. I don't think anyone would argue that
Speaker 1: he's best known for the ether a phone, I mean
Speaker 1: the Thereman. Yes, since it does, since it does actually
Speaker 1: bear his name, or at least the Western version of
Speaker 1: his name. And before we go any further, I think
Speaker 1: it might might behoove us to to have a little
Speaker 1: a little listen to to what a thereman sounds like.
Speaker 1: So this is the sound of the Theoreman. Now, listeners
Speaker 1: may have recognized that from various songs, and really I think,
Speaker 1: I think what that always reminds me of as all
Speaker 1: all those like nineteen fifties science fiction films and TV
Speaker 1: series that either used a theoreman or use some sort
Speaker 1: of other effect to create a theoreman like sound as
Speaker 1: part of the sound track. Because not everything that that
Speaker 1: sounds like a theremin is in fact a thereman. In fact,
Speaker 1: one of the most famous songs that people tend to
Speaker 1: say had a thereman and it did not is Good
Speaker 1: Vibrations by the Beach Boys, almost said beast boys, this
Speaker 1: is that's for you yet, I haven't had enough coffee.
Speaker 1: Is good vibrations by the Beastie Boys and that would
Speaker 1: have been hilarious and wrong. But anyway, yeah, that's not
Speaker 1: that's not a thereman used in that song. It's a
Speaker 1: it's a totally different instrument. Actually, it's called tannerin although
Speaker 1: I mean it does it does have a similar sound
Speaker 1: to it, but you actually do play that by touching. Yes,
Speaker 1: you slide your finger on it, and depending on where
Speaker 1: you're touching it, it it you know, produces a different sound.
Speaker 1: And if you were to look at a theorem and
Speaker 1: you would immediately see that the I guess the most
Speaker 1: notable feature is that it's you know, depending upon the
Speaker 1: design of it, it's gonna look like some sort of
Speaker 1: a box. But from that box, you're gonna see a
Speaker 1: pair of antenna and one traditionally, one antenna is vertical
Speaker 1: aligned to the box, so it's it's up and down,
Speaker 1: and then a second antenna seems tends to come out
Speaker 1: the side of the box. It's horizontal and it's in
Speaker 1: a loop. And using your hands moving them close to
Speaker 1: and further away those antenna that's what controls the sound
Speaker 1: that comes out of the theoreman. Yeah. You you know,
Speaker 1: it's always good to adjusted a little bit to the left,
Speaker 1: you know, get the get the picture just right right.
Speaker 1: Oh wait, I'm sorry, I was thinking of a different
Speaker 1: kind of antenna. Yeah, no, it's yeah, it's not a
Speaker 1: rabbit ears. Um. Yeah. In fact, that's a good point.
Speaker 1: We should mention that this is these antenna are not
Speaker 1: designed to pick up any sort of radio frequency. That's
Speaker 1: not the purpose of the antenna. We'll get into that
Speaker 1: when we start getting into the actual uh ways that
Speaker 1: the the theoreman works. So do you said you wanted
Speaker 1: to talk a little bit at one point about songs
Speaker 1: that you may have heard or perhaps even other ways
Speaker 1: that you may have heard a thereman. Well, yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean I wasn't really a subscriber to XM Radio, the
Speaker 1: satellite radio service here in the United States, and they
Speaker 1: used to have a channel called Special X where they
Speaker 1: would play all kinds of strange and unusual things. And
Speaker 1: they actually had, believe it or not, a whole show
Speaker 1: devoted to music from the Theoreman. And so they were
Speaker 1: all these and again, you're right, period records from like
Speaker 1: the fifties and stuff where there were uh, you know
Speaker 1: thereman songs that they were playing entire pieces on the
Speaker 1: theorem and and actually you could find a lot of
Speaker 1: the stuff on on YouTube. I've seen people I've seen
Speaker 1: theremin orchestras, wow, where there are different people playing songs
Speaker 1: and they have different parts. So everybody's got a different
Speaker 1: purpose of doing it. And it's it sounds kind of
Speaker 1: random when you just hear the sections and segments and
Speaker 1: other songs and pop songs and things like that. But
Speaker 1: you you know, people you can actually play this as
Speaker 1: a musical instrument. And so I've I've heard a lot
Speaker 1: of that kind of stuff. Uh, I'm trying to think
Speaker 1: of something specific. Do you have a favorite thereman song
Speaker 1: other than the one that you quoted before, other than
Speaker 1: the one I quoted before and not really, um, but
Speaker 1: there are other songs that have used it. They're actually uh,
Speaker 1: like I said, it's for me. The thing that I
Speaker 1: think about are all those those like The Day the
Speaker 1: Earth Stood Still? That would be a famous film that
Speaker 1: used a theoreman as a sound effect. Uh. There there
Speaker 1: was a theremin used at least in some versions of
Speaker 1: the theme to Star Trek, although most of the time
Speaker 1: that was actually a vocalist who did that effect. But
Speaker 1: I believe in in one or two versions of that
Speaker 1: you can hear a thereman being used. Um So, I
Speaker 1: mean that there are bands that experiment and they'll throw
Speaker 1: that in the mix, and it may even be that
Speaker 1: it's it's a minor part of the song where you know,
Speaker 1: it's not meant to take the forefront of the melody
Speaker 1: or anything like that. It's just another another layer of
Speaker 1: complexity within a song itself. Chris and I have more
Speaker 1: to say about how thereman's work in just a second,
Speaker 1: but let's take a quick break to thank our sponsor.
Speaker 1: So I guess we can now talk about what a
Speaker 1: theoreman does, like how does it make that sound? Like?
Speaker 1: Why is it that when you put your hand closer
Speaker 1: to or further away from, one antenna changes the pitch
Speaker 1: and the other one controls the volume. That's by the way,
Speaker 1: the vertical one is the pitch antenna and the horizontal
Speaker 1: one is the volume antenna. Awesome, Actually it's uh it's
Speaker 1: funny because uh, typically you think of making music with
Speaker 1: an instrument as you wanted to sound as clear as possible.
Speaker 1: Um And in the opportunity to play a thereman, you'll
Speaker 1: realize that uh uh, it's actually all about creating interference
Speaker 1: because these uh, these antennae um actually have an electromagnetic
Speaker 1: field that and you're interfering with that by coming closer
Speaker 1: and moving farther away to different degrees. So really what's
Speaker 1: what you're hearing is the sound of the interference with
Speaker 1: the machine. Yeah, it's actually to to dive down into this.
Speaker 1: The way this works is that you've got coils of
Speaker 1: wire inside the theorem and that are generating electromagnetic field
Speaker 1: and that is propagated along the antenna. And so with
Speaker 1: the case of the pitch antenna, you have two different
Speaker 1: um uh like two different oscillators creating this electromagnetic field.
Speaker 1: One of them is a steady frequency, the other one's
Speaker 1: variable frequency, and the variable frequency all depends upon your
Speaker 1: hand coming into contact with or not contact but coming
Speaker 1: closer or are moving further away from the pitch antenna. Uh.
Speaker 1: What will happen then is that the frequencies from these
Speaker 1: two different oscillators will mix. And this is a process
Speaker 1: that we call heterodyning. And heterodyning is you you process
Speaker 1: these these signal and you take uh. Typically you can
Speaker 1: get lots of different um um results from combining signals,
Speaker 1: but typically you look at the sum and the difference,
Speaker 1: and uh, you choose, you filter one out and you
Speaker 1: focus on the other. And in this case we're talking
Speaker 1: about the difference because the the frequencies that are generated
Speaker 1: by these oscillators are too high for human hearing. But
Speaker 1: the difference is not um So if you are creating
Speaker 1: a variation in one frequency and the other frequency is
Speaker 1: remaining constant. Uh, when you take the difference of that
Speaker 1: and you take that signal, that signal is then within
Speaker 1: the range of human hearing. And because you've got that
Speaker 1: one variable frequency, you can change the pitch. So and
Speaker 1: it all has to do with, of course the capacitance
Speaker 1: that we have. You know, human beings, we have a
Speaker 1: capacitance and uh, it's really most mostly based on body mass.
Speaker 1: So um. There's another interesting point is that if you
Speaker 1: have two different people playing the same theraman, they're going
Speaker 1: to quickly find out like to let let's say take
Speaker 1: one tiny little person and one huge person. So you've
Speaker 1: got ham hands and you've got little dainty fingers. Little
Speaker 1: dainty fingers comes up there and starts playing the theraman
Speaker 1: and realizes that when they when their dainty fingers get
Speaker 1: within a certain distance of the antenna a particular pitches played.
Speaker 1: Then ham Hands comes up and starts to play, and
Speaker 1: then realizes very quickly that it's a different distance for
Speaker 1: ham hands to get to that antenna to to make
Speaker 1: that same pitch. And it has to do with the
Speaker 1: mass of the of of ham hands. So uh, you know,
Speaker 1: it's two people playing the same theraman are going to
Speaker 1: find out that they can't mimic one another's motions and
Speaker 1: get the exact same sound. It's going to be different
Speaker 1: based upon the actual size of the musician and all.
Speaker 1: Like I said, that all has to do with the
Speaker 1: capacitance that we as humans actually have ourselves. So we
Speaker 1: interfere with that electromagnetic field the frequency combine in the
Speaker 1: heterodyning process, as I've said, As I mentioned, we filter
Speaker 1: out the sum we take the difference of those two frequencies. Uh,
Speaker 1: and that signal is what creates the pitch. Now, even
Speaker 1: though it's within the range of human hearing, Uh, you
Speaker 1: can't really hear it very well unless you put it
Speaker 1: through an amplification process, which we'll have to talk about
Speaker 1: in a second. And the second antenna. The volume antenna
Speaker 1: really just has the one oscillator and then there's a
Speaker 1: steady uh voltage being applied further in. And what happens
Speaker 1: is when you move your hand closer to that antenna,
Speaker 1: you are interrupting the first the signal from the first oscillator,
Speaker 1: that electromagnetic field. And as you interrupt the electromagetic magnetic field,
Speaker 1: the signal becomes weaker, which ends up being a control
Speaker 1: on the volume. So, in other words, the closer your
Speaker 1: hand gets to that second antenna, the quieter the sound
Speaker 1: will be. You might think that, you know, you would
Speaker 1: want to get your hand closer to make the sound
Speaker 1: go up, but it's exactly the opposite. So if you
Speaker 1: put your hand close to the antenna, that sounds going
Speaker 1: to be very low. And as you take your hand
Speaker 1: away from that antenna, the horizontal antenna, the volume increases,
Speaker 1: so the pitch will remain the same, assuming that your
Speaker 1: other hand is is steady. And and also I should
Speaker 1: mention when you watch people play the theremin, especially people
Speaker 1: who have just started to play, you might notice them
Speaker 1: moving their hands up and down the the length of
Speaker 1: the vertical antenna that really doesn't have much of an effect.
Speaker 1: It can change the pitch a little bit, but the
Speaker 1: real change in pitch has to do with the distance
Speaker 1: from the antenna. So you can keep your hands steady
Speaker 1: at the same level respective to the vertical antenna and
Speaker 1: just change the the distance your hand is from that
Speaker 1: antenna and that would change the pitch. You don't have
Speaker 1: to move your hand up and down the length of
Speaker 1: the antenna in order to change it. Because you really
Speaker 1: need both hands to operate the well, yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: because you have to. I mean because otherwise you would
Speaker 1: just have a steady volume time, right, So you need
Speaker 1: you need to be able to, uh, you know, have
Speaker 1: both hands free to operate the theoremans. You know, both
Speaker 1: the pitch and the volume. Um. And you know, I
Speaker 1: think it can also depend not only on the person,
Speaker 1: but on the instrument itself. No, sure, yeah you can.
Speaker 1: You can actually tune a theoreman as well. And that
Speaker 1: that all has to do with the electronics that are
Speaker 1: inside the theoremin because depending upon the electronic components you've
Speaker 1: put in there and the the frequency difference between the
Speaker 1: variable frequency and the steady frequency. Uh, you you will
Speaker 1: have a certain octave range that that thereman is capable
Speaker 1: of playing and uh, and sometimes that octave range can
Speaker 1: be quite uh large, very large range. But that means
Speaker 1: that you have to have even more control when you're
Speaker 1: playing it. Uh, that that tiny changes in the distance
Speaker 1: between your hand and the antenna will result in fairly
Speaker 1: significant changes in pitch, which is why the theremin is
Speaker 1: one of those instruments that's know, you can step right
Speaker 1: up and start playing it uh and have fun making
Speaker 1: weird noises, but if you want to be able to
Speaker 1: actually play a tune with with regularity, it takes a
Speaker 1: lot of practice. It's one of those really difficult to masterpieces.
Speaker 1: And uh. I actually have a list of some of
Speaker 1: the components that are in a typical theraman if you
Speaker 1: would like to hear. Sure. Okay, so we've got the
Speaker 1: two antenna. As I mentioned before, the the volume antenna
Speaker 1: is actually a loop. It looks like a semicircle that's
Speaker 1: attached to the horizontal side one of the horizontal sides
Speaker 1: of the theremin itself. There The reason for that design
Speaker 1: is that the old thermans were all based on vacuum
Speaker 1: tube technology, is before solid state technology was really a
Speaker 1: thing at all. The first Theraman and so um in
Speaker 1: order to be able to make this antenna and have
Speaker 1: it fit with the old system, you actually had to
Speaker 1: create this loop so as you had the right antenna
Speaker 1: length without interfering with the other electronic components of the device.
Speaker 1: So even though we've reached a point now where most
Speaker 1: modern theramans still use vacuum tubes at least in some capacity,
Speaker 1: and we'll talk about that a little bit. Ha Hey,
Speaker 1: But Chris, I'm sure we'll have something to say about
Speaker 1: using vacuum tubes as opposed to solid state. Being the
Speaker 1: musician you would, you would know more about this than
Speaker 1: I do. But in general, it has to do with
Speaker 1: sound quality. So there are still vacuum tubes used in
Speaker 1: most modern theramans, but they also involve some solid state
Speaker 1: electronic components now, which means that you no longer would
Speaker 1: have to do that loop um to achieve the same effect.
Speaker 1: But I think a lot of a lot of theramin
Speaker 1: designers like to use it anyway, just kind of as
Speaker 1: a throwback to the original theraman. So it's almost like
Speaker 1: it's almost like a traditional thing at this point. I
Speaker 1: hope you guys are enjoying the spooky classic episode the
Speaker 1: Bupha Thereman's work. But though we're going to listen to
Speaker 1: a word from an advertiser. Boh. So inside the theremin,
Speaker 1: you're going to find typically a pair of chassis. One
Speaker 1: chassis is gonna be for your electromagnetic components, and this
Speaker 1: is where this is what generates that electromagnetic field for
Speaker 1: both of the antenna UM. You would normally find three
Speaker 1: oscillators in there. You would find two oscillators for the pitch,
Speaker 1: one oscillator for the volume. UH. The this chassis often
Speaker 1: called an upper chassis, and a lot of the theramans
Speaker 1: I've looked at UH is has to be separated from
Speaker 1: the other chassis, which has the amplification and power UH
Speaker 1: elements to it, because otherwise the electromagnetic field would interfere
Speaker 1: with the operation of those elements. All right. So the
Speaker 1: lower chassis where you get the power coming into the
Speaker 1: device UH, and you have the amplification oscillators and usually
Speaker 1: we use triodes and that you probably have heard of diodes. Diodes,
Speaker 1: of course, are those electronic components that allow electrons to
Speaker 1: pass through one way but not back yet. It's a
Speaker 1: one way lane. It allows electron UH flow in one direction.
Speaker 1: Only Triads are a little different. Triads are well, it's
Speaker 1: a kind of vacuum tube and and from a superficial level,
Speaker 1: they resemble a light bulb. And the way a triode
Speaker 1: works is that there are typically three elements within a triode,
Speaker 1: which makes sense when you hear the name. You've got
Speaker 1: the cathode, which is the part of the triad that
Speaker 1: that will shed electrons. You've got a grid of some
Speaker 1: sort that will control the flow of electrons. It kind
Speaker 1: of acts as like a gate in a way. And
Speaker 1: then you have the anode, which is where the electrons
Speaker 1: want to get too, because it has a positive charge. Now,
Speaker 1: remember electrons have a negative charge, so negative wants to
Speaker 1: be attracted. It is attracted to positive. So you have
Speaker 1: a positive element on one side, a negative element on
Speaker 1: the another side, and a gate in the middle to
Speaker 1: control the flow. And that's the basis behind um the triode. Now,
Speaker 1: in order to control the flow of electrons, what you
Speaker 1: have to do is you hook up that gate to
Speaker 1: a source of electricity. All right, Now, if you're generating
Speaker 1: electricity and you're you're putting a current through that gate,
Speaker 1: that means you're putting negative electrons through the gate. Now
Speaker 1: that's going to repel the electrons coming out of the cathode.
Speaker 1: All right, so you've got the cathode. Let's imagine that
Speaker 1: the cathodes on the left hand side, and in the
Speaker 1: middle is this gate that has electrons running through it,
Speaker 1: and on the right you have the anode. Now, the
Speaker 1: the current that you're putting through that gate is going
Speaker 1: to vary because that's your input. That's that's the signal
Speaker 1: that's going into like when you're making a sound electronically
Speaker 1: speaking into a microphone or playing a musical instrument that's
Speaker 1: plugged into this amplifier. So it's a variable frequency again,
Speaker 1: a variable current and uh and so sometimes the current
Speaker 1: is going to be is going to allow a certain
Speaker 1: number of electrons through because there's you know, you as
Speaker 1: you build up the h the charge on the cathode side,
Speaker 1: some electrons are gonna pass through that gate. Is gonna
Speaker 1: be s long enough energy for it to go through
Speaker 1: the gate. Other times, the the signal is going to
Speaker 1: be lower, it's gonna allow more electrons through. That's the
Speaker 1: whole basis of the amplifier. So the cathode looks like
Speaker 1: a filament you have to in order to make electrons
Speaker 1: shed you have to add energy into this system. So
Speaker 1: and this is a rather than the variable source which
Speaker 1: is what we see in the gate, this is a
Speaker 1: steady power source that's going into the cathode. So it
Speaker 1: heats up this filament which gives off light. Depending upon
Speaker 1: what kind of vacuum tube it is, it may be
Speaker 1: a different color, like a lot of them are kind
Speaker 1: of an orange ish color. If you're talking about a
Speaker 1: vacuum tube for like a big power system, it tends
Speaker 1: to burn white hot, but that's when it starts to
Speaker 1: shed thousands and thousands of electrons. The energy from the
Speaker 1: electricity is enough to break the electrons free from their
Speaker 1: shells and then they will go toward the positively charged anode.
Speaker 1: So that is the basis. You just got a it's
Speaker 1: like a podcast within a podcast that was a basic
Speaker 1: electronics of what a triot is and what it does.
Speaker 1: We're really vacuum tubes in general, although there are other
Speaker 1: kinds of vacuum tubes besides tryouts, they're not it's not
Speaker 1: a one to one, you know. Tryout is just one
Speaker 1: type of vacuum tube, all right. So you've got several
Speaker 1: of those in there acting as amplifiers. UM. And then
Speaker 1: you've also got your your power source, you've got your capacitors,
Speaker 1: you've got resistors UM, and then you've got the antenna.
Speaker 1: I've already spoken about those as well, and the copper
Speaker 1: coils which generate the electromagnetic field. Those are your basic
Speaker 1: components that all together make up the guts of the
Speaker 1: thereman and there Actually, I've seen videos online that kind
Speaker 1: of give an overall view of how to build a theraman,
Speaker 1: and they're also a theramin kits out there if you
Speaker 1: want to try and make your own. UM, it's an
Speaker 1: interesting project, I understand. Like even the guy who was
Speaker 1: I was watching these videos, the guy who built olds
Speaker 1: the theorem and actually said, um, I could build them,
Speaker 1: but I can't play them. So he said he loves
Speaker 1: he enjoys building them, and he tends to build them
Speaker 1: for other people like like bands and stuff that are
Speaker 1: interested in using the thereman. Well, um, anyone interested in
Speaker 1: in playing the thereman should check out an article that
Speaker 1: Jane mcgrathrope for the website called how to play a
Speaker 1: theoreman um and she actually quoted some of the people
Speaker 1: who are well known theoreminists thereminist dereman players. They come
Speaker 1: from the future. It's terrible. Uh. Lydia Kavina is one. Uh.
Speaker 1: She actually studied under Leon thereman um and basically had
Speaker 1: suggested that it's good to keep your feet about a
Speaker 1: foot apart zero point three meters UM. But it really
Speaker 1: depends on the theoreman and uh, you know, and how
Speaker 1: far you want to stand away from and of course,
Speaker 1: as you mentioned, the capacitance of the person playing it. Um.
Speaker 1: But generally depending on the number of octaves available um
Speaker 1: in that theorem, and I mean the the range of
Speaker 1: the theorem, and uh, you might have to stand farther
Speaker 1: away if it has a greater range um, according to
Speaker 1: uh um Miss Cavina Um. Also, apparently you can actually
Speaker 1: tune the device yourself by putting your right hand at
Speaker 1: your shoulder or I guess your left hand, depending on
Speaker 1: how you're playing it. So you start with your hand
Speaker 1: at your shoulder regardless UM. And then just uh she said,
Speaker 1: the idea is you need to play the song slowly
Speaker 1: when you're getting started, because um, it takes a while
Speaker 1: to get used to uh controlling the pitch that you're
Speaker 1: trying to to make if you're actually trying to play
Speaker 1: a song and melody with it um and Uh. Clara
Speaker 1: Rockmore another person that UM Jane quoted in her article
Speaker 1: and basically said that you have to be very conscious
Speaker 1: of what you're doing with your body. Um. You know,
Speaker 1: as a percussionist, I tend to groove a little bit,
Speaker 1: you know, start getting into it and bobbing and getting
Speaker 1: into the motion. That can affect the way you're playing,
Speaker 1: because the theremin is uh going by your body movement
Speaker 1: and how close you are to it. So anything any
Speaker 1: other stray movement is going to affect the sound coming
Speaker 1: out of the theraman. So you have to be very
Speaker 1: careful um, and you have to be very conscious of
Speaker 1: what you're doing when you're when you're trying to play that.
Speaker 1: You know, posture and and uh, stray movements can affect it.
Speaker 1: It's a lot different from saying a guitar where you
Speaker 1: have a string that, assuming it's properly tuned, when you
Speaker 1: play that string while pressing down at a certain threat,
Speaker 1: it's always going to produce the same note, right. Uh,
Speaker 1: there's there's no variation there. But with the thereman, it's
Speaker 1: all about the distance between and the antenna and uh
Speaker 1: and and not and and again your your body mess.
Speaker 1: So while two different people can pick up the same
Speaker 1: guitar and play the same series of notes just following
Speaker 1: the same threads, that wouldn't necessarily be the same story
Speaker 1: if they were trying to play a theramin and standing
Speaker 1: at the same distance from the device. Just pretty interesting
Speaker 1: to me. Um. You know, I had mentioned also about
Speaker 1: the amplifiers using vacuum tubes and that that tends to
Speaker 1: be a preference. Would you like to to weigh in
Speaker 1: a little bit as a musician about that, Well, you
Speaker 1: know it, it kind of depends on the sound you're getting,
Speaker 1: you know, Um, most of the musicians and whom I
Speaker 1: rarely talk to people about using a theraman in a band,
Speaker 1: but I mean vacuum tubes and amplifiers in general, vacuum tubes.
Speaker 1: Most of what I've heard people say is that they
Speaker 1: feel that vacuum tubes produce a warmer sound, which is
Speaker 1: the yeah, and again it's it's really in the ear
Speaker 1: of the listener. To be honest, you might say that
Speaker 1: solid state produces a flatter sound, And I mean, these
Speaker 1: are all terms that don't really have a way of
Speaker 1: It's hard to it's hard to put it in a
Speaker 1: measurable sense. But it is. It is one of those
Speaker 1: things that when you start listening to it, you say,
Speaker 1: you know what that does? It just sounds better? Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know. And uh. And even today, a lot of
Speaker 1: amps out there for various musical instruments, not just the one,
Speaker 1: not just the amplifiers that you'll find in theirman still
Speaker 1: use vacuum tubes, even though the technology otherwise has almost disappeared.
Speaker 1: Solid state era. Yeah, well solid state too. I mean
Speaker 1: you turn on a solid state device amplifier whatever, um,
Speaker 1: it's going to be on a lot quicker. Yeah, it
Speaker 1: doesn't have to warm up. Yeah, and a vacuum tube
Speaker 1: device will um and you can and you can see
Speaker 1: it too, if you have, if you could see through
Speaker 1: like I have, for example, I have a vacuum tube
Speaker 1: amplifier and a solid state amplifier. Um. You turn it
Speaker 1: on and at first the vacuu tubes, you know, look
Speaker 1: as though they are you know, they would win the
Speaker 1: devices off, and then they start to glow and you
Speaker 1: could see that things are coming on. And you could
Speaker 1: turn on a source of sound, say you know, uh,
Speaker 1: turntable or a tune or radio tuner, and at first
Speaker 1: you won't hear anything, and as the vacuum tubes warm up,
Speaker 1: you know, the amplifier will begin to play the music
Speaker 1: because you're actually coming online, but it takes them a while.
Speaker 1: Um makes me think of the the beginning of the
Speaker 1: documentary Back to the Future. Yeahs turning on all the apps, right,
Speaker 1: yea documentary. It's a good one. Yeah, but uh yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean it's it's funny though, because it's sort of
Speaker 1: like vinyl for a lot of musicians too, because for
Speaker 1: you know, the the vacuum tube manufacturers almost became extinct,
Speaker 1: and as time has worn on and people have said,
Speaker 1: you know what, I really like the way that that works.
Speaker 1: I like the sound that I get from vacuum tube amps.
Speaker 1: Or you know, I had this other thing that uses
Speaker 1: vacuum tubes and I really like it. I actually have
Speaker 1: a ham and organ that uses um vacuum tubes too,
Speaker 1: and you know, without some manufacturer, you know, so these
Speaker 1: things have have stayed in production, even though solid state
Speaker 1: for a while it looked like it was going to
Speaker 1: knock it out. But yeah, and just like U, just
Speaker 1: like an incandescent light bulb, vacuum tubes will eventually burn out.
Speaker 1: They uh, I mean it's it's not going to be
Speaker 1: super fast or anything. But that's why it's important that
Speaker 1: these industries still exist, because otherwise we would have a
Speaker 1: finite number that and once we got to the end
Speaker 1: of it, that would be it. So I guess we
Speaker 1: should be thankful for devices like the Thereman and guitar
Speaker 1: amplifiers for keeping a a what what otherwise people might say,
Speaker 1: an absolute technology alive and kicking. I want to thank
Speaker 1: Dracula for joining my show there and introducing the second
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Speaker 1: Thanks a lot, Dracula. Guys. If you want to learn
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