Just purchased an Etherwave yesterday, needless to say I was up all night. I admit that I DO NOT have perfect pitch, nowhere near perfect to say the least. Can anyone offer advice on how I can improve upon this? I have it going through my Boss Chromatic Tuner so I can become more familiar with the notes as I thought this might help.
I have heard that the problem with using tuners is that they are made for, well, tuning and not playing. They are too slow in responding. However, for just learning scales, it might be very good.
For people who have been trained in piano, there is a proper way to play scales, with the thumb moving under the hand when moving in one direction, and the middle finger moving over the hand when moving in the opposite direction.
There are two “schools” for playing notes (instead of sci-fi swoops) on the theremin. The most common is to use the entire hand. This is often seen with people pinching together their finger tips, using a fist, or the open hand. This is common because most people think that is the way it should be done and what seems most obvious.
However, the real pros use something called “aerial fingering.” This involves multiple hand positions to achieve different notes. It is more complex and takes practice, but allows for greater speed and accuracy.
Few people know about this type of fingering unless they have seen a real pro use it. If you are interested, there is a DVD you can obtain which, IMO, is the best instruction for the theremin. It’s at http://www.peterpringle.com/dvd.html
Thanks for the info Don. That makes complete sense about the tuner, as I did notice latency when switching between notes.
I attended the Electro-Music.com conference in Philly this past June and witnessed Kip Rosser and his Etherwave Pro. He is amazing and I could tell had been playing theremin for several years. Check him out if your ever in N.Y.
Take care and thanks again, I’m sure I will be frequenting this forum often.
mdp