io9: theremin

Tadpole-Shaped Theremin Sings the Star-Spangled Banner

Lauren Davis — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 16:30:00 PDT

Novmichi Tosa, of the kooky art collective Maywa Denki, demos his theremin-like instrument, the Otamatone. The instrument is meant to resemble a tadpole, but it looks more like a smiling sperm with a Muppet-like mouth when it sings.

[via Tokyomango]

Our Favorite Star Trek Tributes, Spoofs and YouTubes

Meredith Woerner — Sat, 09 May 2009 16:30:23 PDT

With the opening of Abrams' Trek comes an outpouring of fan vids. We picked out our favorite submissions including Breakfast Club Trek, old Star Trek updated Abrams style and a Theremin Trek jam session.

Trekkie plays Star Trek theme on Theremin

Starship Enterprise Destroyed By The Death Star

(T)Raumschiff Surprise

Trek Yourself: What If Star Trek Was A Teen Comedy

Funny Videos | Funny Cartoons | More Video Clips

Star Trek Themed Remixed

Lost Meets Star Trek

Soviet Teens Rock Out to Tesla Coils and Theremin

Lynn Peril — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 13:00:32 PDT

I admit I have no idea what exactly is supposed to be going on in this clip from a film titled Komsomol, the name of the Communist Youth League. We’ve got Tesla coils snapping and sparking all over the place, commie teens little dreaming that their great-grandkids will shop for jeans in Red Square, deco television cameras (I think this dates to the 1930s, so perhaps they're just movie cameras), and to top it off, a Theremin performance. All in all, it kind of reminds me of that “Worker and Parasite” cartoon from the Simpsons (sorry, Annalee) but feel free to write your own scenario.

Leon Theremin: Rocker, Lover, KGB Agent

Annalee Newitz — Tue, 20 May 2008 19:57:57 PDT

You've probably heard the ethereal theremin, often called the first electronic instrument, in countless scifi movies and the Beach Boys song "Good Vibrations." A simple device which produces sound when your hands come into contact with an electro-magnetic field, it was invented by an engineer named Leon Theremin in the early 1920s. An amazing documentary from the early 1990s called Theremin explores the life of this bizarre inventor, who also created the first perimeter alarms, passive listening devices, and color television. You can see him performing here in the early 1930s. He stunned the New York art world with his interracial marriage to the American Negro Ballet's prima ballerina Lavinia Williams, and then disappeared mysteriously in the late 1930s.

Turns out he'd been a KGB agent all along, and had to return home to get back to work on his surveillance devices. He was imprisoned for many years, and forced to work on listening devices, when it seemed that all he really wanted was to build weird musical instruments. While in the U.S., he had set up an electronic music lab and hung out with Einstein and dozens of famous modern composers. He also romanced the young Clara Rockmore (who later became a theremin virtuoso) in the geekiest way possible. He designed a device (pictured) that moved when her body came close it it, then put her birthday cake on top. So when she approached the cake he'd gotten her, it slowly spun around.

This documentary is completely fascinating, and also incredibly depressing. Theremin really just wanted to be a music geek, and his life was torn apart by Soviet politics. Still, he reported later that one of his proudest moments was teaching Lenin to play the theremin (apparently Lenin was pretty good at it). You can read an interview with Theremin that gives a lot of backstory on his life here, though it's sad that he's forgotten almost everything — and had some of his own life brainwashed out. Or you can watch the documentary. [Theremin via Amazon]