Dorit Chrysler has been dubbed a superior wizard of the theremin. An Austrian-born, New York-based composer, producer, and singer Chrysler is the co-founder of the New York Theremin Society and founder of the first school for theremin. As much as the theremin is a tool in Chrysler’s electronic instrument arsenal she’s also one of the most visible thereminists spreading the gospel of this mysterious sounding instrument which is basically played by massaging thin air.
Her music has been described by Ann Magnuson in Paper Magazin, “Imagine if Marianne Faithfull and Nikola Tesla had a love child with Jane Birkin as the nanny and Bjork as the wayward Girl Scout Leader!”
Arte TV calls Dorit “Theremin Goddess”
Wall Street Journal “A futuristic Lotte Lenya”
DoritChrysler.com
https://www.facebook.com/doritchryslerofficial/
https://www.instagram.com/doritchrysler/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=WKmMRtuLfCc&list=UU2FnHcTW8yYhKX8WGQcKEsA&index=1
Resources Dorit mentions:
New York Theremin Society – https://www.nythereminsociety.org/
Dorit at CERN Hadron Collider for 100th anniversary https://www.moogmusic.com/media/electric-storm-100-years-theremin
The Theremin 100 – https://www.nythereminsociety.org/theremin-100-4
THEREMIN GOES BROADWAY
I am happy to have contributed theremin for “Falling In Love With Mr. Dellamort” a “mysterious new audio musical” by Jack Feldstein and Paul Doust with a Tony-nominated cast – released on Broadway Records and making a splash on Playbill.
In the podcast I used snippets from The Dark Shadows theme by Bob Cobert, Good Vibrations by the Beach Boys, and Clara Rockmore performing The Swan.
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Remarks
I’ve been fascinated by the theremin since 1966 when I used to watch Dark Shadows every day after school. Then of course the iconic sound of the instrument in Good Vibrations took the theremin out of the scary movie realm and into popular music. In 1993 we saw Theremin: An Electronic Odyssey in the theater and I learned more about the instrument’s origin as the first electronic instrument invented in 1920. That’s also where I learned of the amazing Clara Rockmore, Theremin’s first virtuoso performer.
The idea of shaping sound in thin air with your hands intrigues me so much. I’ve never been patient enough to learn an instrument but I’m drawn to weirdness of a theremin.
My guest, Dorit Chrysler, is a virtuoso herself and a teacher. She’s been playing for 20 years, and warns us that the theremin is difficult to learn. A lot of people start then give up. In our conversation Dorit describes her teaching approach and how to avoid some of the pitfalls that frustrate people so that they lose interest.
I kicked myself a few years when I missed an opportunity to take a class with her locally.. I learned about it too late. I sincerely hope I’ll get another chance. Here’s the interview.
Transcript
Liz Sumner
My guest today is Dorit Chrysler, an Austrian born composer, producer and singer. Dorrit has been dubbed a “superior wizard of the theramin.” She is the co founder of The New York Theramin Society and founder of the first school for theramin. Welcome Doric,
Dorit Chrysler
thanks for having me.
Liz Sumner
So first of all, tell our listeners what is a theremin?
Dorit Chrysler
The theremin is the very first electric instrument that was created invented by Leon Theremin in 1920. It is an instrument based on electromagnetic waves. And it has a very unique interface in comparison with traditional acoustic instruments in so far as that you play it without touching anything. You wave your hands in the air, and your body alters the frequency as part of a system called heterody ning. And that’s created, it’s a very direct mechanism of motion of your body to sound, motion to sound, and this based on the tiniest movements of your body, so it is very hard to play. And that’s one of the many reasons perhaps why you’ve never heard of a theremin before.
Liz Sumner
So different bodies would make different sounds, then?
Dorit Chrysler
That is a very interesting question. No, it is not that different bodies make different sounds it is your body is acting as a conductor, conducive the mass, the liquid of your body shortens the frequency. And what creates and influences the sound is whichever part of your body is the closest to the pitch and volume and tenor. So it doesn’t matter how your body is being shaped, or the volume or mass of it. But whichever part of your body comes close and enters that electromagnetic field.
Liz Sumner
Okay. So how did you become interested in it,
Dorit Chrysler
I encountered the theremin in my years living in New York, I come originally from classical music training back in Austria, and then I emigrated to New York to break with tradition, and I was playing in a rock band. And then a friend of mine had a theremin at his house. And because I also have studied musicology, I was immediately intrigued by this instrument that I had up to this point I had never heard about, and I was really surprised why this unique sound source is still somewhat in obscurity, it’s something that’s changed quite a bit. We were talking about 20 years ago, when I first encountered it. So it, it felt an obligation a duty to, to pay attention to this wonderful instrument and to also do whatever I could to help contribute. Having it get more attention. And also, the instrument has a curse in so far that it’s very easy to produce sound on it by you know, just with your body close to the instrument. But that might not necessarily sound very musical. And because the instrument is so unestablished, and there’s no strong reference for it. Really a lot of people don’t take it serious as a music instrument.
Liz Sumner
Yeah, so so going beyond the scary movie sounds and and into actual music.
Dorit Chrysler
Absolutely, yes.
Liz Sumner
So how did you learn?
Dorit Chrysler
Well, at the time, there were not really many sources, unlike today where you can just go online and especially these days, you can find online theremin classes and you can find people having developed their own techniques and tutorials that they’re posting online. So you can find a lot of information which can be very good, but also confusing. I had to be self taught at that point because there was absolutely no other way to learn. And having studied classical instruments, you know, piano and flute for many years, it was very helpful in strategizing approaches in how to play or master the theremin. Which is quite a challenge because again, you don’t touch anything you have no reference. It’s it’s, it’s very hard to control. But I also thought that was a beautiful challenge and opportunity to create my own style on this blank canvas, so I really enjoyed having that freedom to actually just experiment and find my own approach. And I’m telling students these days that it really depends on what your goal is with this instrument. And that’s how you should approach playing and learning the thing.
Liz Sumner
So what are some of the things that you start with? What are the first steps that you teach your, your beginning students,
Dorit Chrysler
I think most important there, everyone does need some help to just understand how different this instrument is from all the other instruments we know. So you have to just really rethink or forget everything you know, and open your mind. And it’s beautiful, because it puts someone that has studied instruments to someone that has never played an instrument pretty much in the same position you, you’re completely at a loss. So it’s very important to understand how the theremin works and how to position yourself correctly. And then there’s this thing called calibration, which is also very abstract concept it in a fast sense, it is like tuning a guitar. But what you’re actually really doing is you have two antennas on each theremin instrument, one is for the pitch, and one is for the volume. And you have to calibrate each antenna. And what that means is you set the audible range for each of these antennas. And to know how to do that and to do it in the way that it allows you the biggest amount of control, you know, in the best possible position stable position, that is something that you know, is hard to understand when you first start and that needs help. That’s good when you get instructions for that. And then you can take it from there by just having you know, it is really mental references to hold your body in the most stable way. Because even if you think you’re not moving, it already alters the pitch, it responds to the slightest motion, even breathing. That’s why Clara Rockmore, the famous theremin, and first female electronic music pioneer really said “playing the theremin. it’s like tickling butterflies.” It’s incredibly delicate. So you really have to slow down and zoom in and understand that the slower you move, the more musical it will sound. So it’s so really philosophical, you know, complete big mental approach to, to zoom into getting into the detail of this instrument.
Liz Sumner
That makes me guess that there are probably pieces of music that really would not be appropriate because you couldn’t do fast notes, you would need to be doing slower kinds of melodies.
Dorit Chrysler
Well, not necessarily. Now as the international theremin community’s rapidly growing, there are certainly techniques where you can separate the notes clean and you can you can perform you know as a reference, classic melodies that have been notated for violin or cello, some theremin virtuosos, not many, they can get pretty fast with melody lines and clear exactly on pitch. So it is possible and there are techniques for it the basic principles that you constantly intonate, you’re always in the air you there’s no note sets of where you’re touching it to hit it. So you have to constantly search and intonate and develop a technique that allows you to do that very fast. And you can partly influence that with the volume. And you can have a finger technique that approximately gets you to where the note is but even with that you still have to constantly intonate and I always call it is it’s as if you stand on one leg and you have to balance so every note you have to kind of you know you’re standing on top of a stair and to balance so with every note, so the faster you can do that, the faster you can play melodies. The question is also, how does a theremin really fully bring out the its full potential? What can it do best? I personally think if you’re kind of chasing pitches in a very fast succession on this theremin it’s kind of like acrobatics or sports and you lose a lot of the musical quality that this instrument specifically offers. Because, for me of all the electronic, especially yeah, specifically electric instruments, none of them has the potential of dynamic range like the theremin, that really brings it very close to acoustic instruments or the voice because it is so physical it is your body being really the instrument. So it has a very organic quality, yet being electric. And that’s the fascinating thing and these details of dynamics to carve them out. That is something that if you play possibly a bit slower, you can get more out of it. But that, again, is a matter of taste.
Liz Sumner
I watched some of your videos online, and I’ll put links to them in the show notes. And one of the things that amazed me was that you had a room full of students who am I was assuming we’re fairly new to it. And it was beautiful music. Beginners were making beautiful music together. How did this happen?
Dorit Chrysler
Yeah, that’s, that’s been kind of a breakthrough. And I really think it’s helped getting so many people all over the world excited to try out the instrument, it was made possible by an instrument that was created, that’s based on theremin technology called a Theremini. And that not only allowed to put more than one theremin next to each other. So we always teach in classes of 10, we make a circle of 10 theremins, usually, theremin prototypes, they interfere with each other. So you cannot really do this. But these instruments have specifically weak capacitors. And then they have the capacity to combine digital technology with the original theremin technology, in so far, that you can set the range of the of the keys of the root note and of the scales. So suddenly, you can have 10 people playing in the same setting that’s, that’s set on a specific scale, filtering out the wrong notes. And we all actually can experience not only playing the theremin for the first time, but also playing suddenly with other people together and learning how to listen and learning how to interact and all of them facing the same challenge. So that is a very healthy experience that gets most people really excited. And that’s been the curriculum and concept that I developed with this kid cool family school, too. And it was made possible by this instrument. So you probably saw an excerpt of that. And once you have this experience, also of the brain, because when you start playing the theremin, it’s really hard to make it sound beautiful, and it’s so difficult to control it, really hard. And so a lot of people they get excited originally, and then they just lose heart along the way. And so with some of these instruments, you kind of you have to bridge I said before you can pick a song you like and find the right scale and play along. But then if you really you know, dive deeper then you can of course take these things off and go to the original setting and but it kind of lures you in and gives you a little bit of a result and less frustration and a good starting point.
Dorit Chrysler
Okay, so that’s called a Theremini?
Dorit Chrysler
Moog Music Theremini. And it’s it’s it’s quite affordable and but of course the thing is, the volume response is maybe not as high quality as other instruments on the market that are more expensive, but it’s it can be potentially a good starting instrument.
Liz Sumner
And what are the other kinds of instruments? I learned recently that Good Vibrations wasn’t an actual Theremin. It was an electro theremin. What are what are the different types?
Dorit Chrysler
Yeah, well, we don’t have too many prototypes on the market to choose from in comparison with other instruments yet, I think the Beach Boys they use the tenor, it was a special device where you actually would slide your finger along a board and they would mark the notes. And that makes it wonderfully easy. There has been in America there’s been literally just one company producing different theremin types for which has been Moog Music. There’s also another small company in on the west coast, but other than that, it’s very difficult to get prototypes. The old original ones, they’re very few. And they’re very expensive and they need to be fixed. I do, there has been just a new release on the market called the Claravox. That is the best prototype I’ve encountered. So I think we’re working towards higher quality instruments being available, which will make a difference in also producing better players and then along with that, hopefully better, more repertoire and more presence of the instrument in classical and popular music, but it’s still quite a long journey.
Liz Sumner
Another question I had from watching your videos, you have one where you’re with the Hadron Collider, and another one where you’re out in a beautiful wooded setting, does the environment make a difference to the sound?
Dorit Chrysler
Yes, it does, which is quite interesting and unusual for a music instrument. The theremin is very responsive, for instance, it can interfere with you know, a lot of concert halls, for instance, have sound systems for hearing aids, which are also based on electromagnetic fields that can certainly interfere, positioning the theremin if you are in a venue with strong light circuits, that can also very much interfere unfortunately, and if you’re outside, that’s very interesting, I’ve had this happen a few times, strong winds can also interfere and make, you know, make the pitch kind of influence the pitch. So you asked me about also playing at CERN, the Hadron Collider, it was very exciting for me to, to, you know, bring the theremin that’s based on electromagnetic fields to one of the biggest scientific institutions like CERN, where they also their their research is based on the electromagnetic fields of the earth. And so to to combine these fields and bring them together seemed to me, a very exciting opportunity.
Liz Sumner
Yes, and appropriate.
Dorit Chrysler
I think so.
Liz Sumner
What else are you working on? What’s your next challenge?
Dorit Chrysler
Well, I like challenge. And I like good challenge. And it’s interesting for me to bring the theremin in different settings that are very established to to also help the instrument gaining ground. My favorite thing to do with the theremin is composing film soundtracks. Because I think for me as a composer, because the theremin has a very expressive emotional potential, especially if you put many layers of the harmonies on top of each other. And I do think specifically in composition, the theremin still is being used below its potential of, you know, using it as a melodic solo instrument. But there’s so much more you can do, it’s it’s microtonal, and you you can create these abstract sound pastures. But you can also be very precise and melodic. So for me, recording soundtracks is very exciting. Other than that, I just there has just been a release of a Broadway musical that because of COVID was recorded as an audio version. It was in the works already for many years. The theramin– I played theremin on that production, it’s called The death of Mr. Dellamort, I can send you the link, it’s just– Playbill just wrote a big article about it. So so that’s bringing the theremin in completely new context and it works well. I will be doing a Dutch dance production where I’m onstage, you know, making the music and also interacting with the dance. So that is exciting for me. And then I just got commissioned a sound piece that I will turn a video by the MoMA in New York, and because they’re showing Alexander Calder at the moment, and I want to have several theremin instruments interact with some of his mobiles that are shown there, because he wanted his you know, he wanted his sculptures to move and to be alive and so they can play the theremin and then to see what happens when those two entities that were kind of created at the same time, the result and and documented and then make a piece out of it. So so very excited. So so you can see I’m trying to really, there’s so many possibilities of different. And that’s the exciting thing about the theremin because it still hasn’t found its set form. And so to experiment and see all these different interactions with other mediums or art forms, how to fair that. That’s interesting.
Liz Sumner
That sounds very intriguing. I would love to have links about that, do you have live classes going on anytime soon?
Dorit Chrysler
Well, you know, the COVID era, for me, it was impossible to imagine to teach not with people in the room, you know, to really experience and for people, especially to try out the theremin. So, but the concept of online classes has worked not so bad, because if people have already an instrument, so that I do say, I’m currently based in Berlin, but often in New York. So I would think that the start, again, some online and on site classes in the fall, depending on what the situation and possibilities are, but it’s very, very grateful that there really is a great demand for people wanting to explore this instruments, that makes me really happy. And I hope and I’m also enjoying teaching children because I think it’s an instrument that lends itself in today’s era, you know, interface iPad, and they’re, you know, that for them, it’s very natural to the concept of interfaces, and, and the concept of their own body producing sound and how that is very free and loose and opens up the imagination. I think it’s very healthy and and can be very educational. And I do want new generations, you know, to be familiar with the vocabulary of electronic music and musical experimentation, and also the kind of open concept to it so we can practice and soom in and work on melodies. But you also should be very fearless, and there’s no right or wrong. And the theremin has this kind of openness.
Liz Sumner
At different times in my life, I have gone online to try to find a theremin that I could buy. And I see things that are like lesser versions of them. Are there any particular kinds to avoid? I mean, I don’t want to, to get some sort of cheesy thing that pretends it’s a theremin, but really isn’t.
Dorit Chrysler
Well, there are some theremin instruments, some very cheap models that just have a pitch antenna so you can only play the pitch. And if you don’t have a volume antenna and the pitch antenna, you cannot really stop sculpt the sinus note in the air and be musical. So I definitely recommend a theremin of, yeah, that has that level. I mean, there’s really not so much to choose from. I would just choose an Etherwave that the Moog Music company has theremins in all these different price levels, and to maybe start there of what you think. There’s no other real mass productions of theremin instruments. And if you have customized theremin at a higher cost as a beginner to maybe want to first start with more affordable instrument and then if you really get somewhere you can dive into that. And this may be made to your specifications. So I will just say that either the basic Etherwave Moog Etherwave theremin, or Theremini a good starter instrument. You can get those used online. A lot of times people really think their instruments are broken because they just have never cracked the concept of how to calibrate it correctly. So these instruments should be pretty solid and working. It’s also important to understand that if you have a theremin you also need to have an amplifier to properly hear yourself. It doesn’t have to be loud. But you know, it’s not an acoustic instrument, you need to set it up correctly to start really getting something.
Liz Sumner
And it has the same kinds of inputs as a guitar or something like that?
Dorit Chrysler
Yes, it works on that same principle, you put in a quarter-inch cable like a guitar, and you need to have amplification like, exactly.
Liz Sumner
Okay, good. What resources can you recommend for people who would like to know more?
Dorit Chrysler
Well, I would steer them towards the NewYorkThereminSociety.org. If you get on the mailing list, you will always get information about workshops all over the world, online or offline. There are articles and also different things to other platforms in this theremin world, which is a blog. In the last 10-20 years, there was some very specific electronic blogs. But now that several theremin Facebook groups in different ways, there’s new york family society on Facebook, but there’s also I think, a French group, and then there’s one specifically for thereminis. So if you just Google then you can have a look and see what fits. But theremin society is a very good International Society community platform that, you know, can keep you informed about what’s going on. So I recommend enrolling in that. For instruments, I would go look at Moog Music and see what different prototypes they have, until hopefully, they’ll be more companies producing more instruments, but their instruments are pretty high quality.
Liz Sumner
Anything you’d like to say in conclusion?
Dorit Chrysler
I thank you for the opportunity to talk about the theremin. And I’m so happy that there’s a growing interest. I recommend a listening experience. That is a publication also by the New York Theremin Society. Last year, was the centennial of the instrument. And so we produced a record that collected but we had a call, international call for theremin submissions. And it was absolutely stunning and overwhelming that there was so many people in all corners of the world, dedicating themselves with so much passion to this instrument, and how versatile the instrument really can be. That was a big surprise. So I helped select and produce three and a half hours of original compositions of the theremin– 50 thereminists of 17 countries submitting contributions from very professional classical players to pop angles to very experimental hobbyists. But so just when you listen to this with joy, and you know, you just get an overview of of the of the spectrum of where we want it to deliver a snapshot of 100 years have passed of this young instrument. Where’s the instrument now? And so this compilation is called Theremin 100. You can find it on Bandcamp and the New York Theremin Society or you can find it on the NewYorkThereminSociety.org. So yeah, I recommend that as an inspiration to dive through all the different styles that this instrument has to offer. It’s a fun listen.
Liz Sumner
I will put the link to that in the show notes as well. I thank you so much. This has been a lifelong dream and I will get myself an opportunity to play one. I don’t know that I’ll ever be any good at it, but I would definitely want to try. My thanks to Dorit Chrysler, you can find out more about her and her work in the show notes. I invite everyone to write and tell me what you’ve always wanted to try. I’m Liz Sumner, reminding you to be bold and thanks for listening