Clara Rockmore's 105th birthday Google doodle

[latigid on]

Theremin forum is a ghost town, but you can practise The Swan with Rockmore today on Google.

[thealien666]

That Theremin Google Doodle is too easy to play, with chromatic scale preset notes. A real Theremin is incredibly much harder to play. Unless you have a version with "Assistive pitch quantization", which Clara Rockmore certainly didn't have in the 1930's. She didn't have "Pitch Preview" either to help her along. She truly was a fantastic Theremin player, and it's nice that Google highlights her birthday.

[latigid on]

That Theremin Google Doodle is too easy to play, with chromatic scale preset notes. A real Theremin is incredibly much harder to play. Unless you have a version with "Assistive pitch quantization", which Clara Rockmore certainly didn't have in the 1930's. She didn't have "Pitch Preview" either to help her along. She truly was a fantastic Theremin player, and it's nice that Google highlights her birthday.

If you can get through the lessons, there's a free playing instrument where you can disable "easy mode" . You can also change scales to major, minor, pentatonic and chromatic in any key.

[thealien666]

Thanks for the heads-up. I didn't notice the "Settings" button on the bottom left. It's already much harder without the "Easy Mode" on. But the vibrato is still automatic...

Although Clara was incredible, I prefer Pamelia Stickney's style of playing, because her vibrato isn't constant but judiciously placed and controlled.

[latigid on]

No worries

Agreed, the best thereministe I've seen is Pamelia Stickney, with an avant garde band called Blueblut. Such killer synth bass! She also had a hand in the design of the Etherwave Pro, and was musing with the current engineers about a re-issue/update.

[EricK]

It is approaching the 100th anniversary of the Theremin. I expect Moog to do something nice.