Friday, November 09, 2007

Found On The Internets: Unusual Instruments' Music Videos

The creative and strange set of folks who brought you A Soviet Poster A Day now bring you the Unusual Instruments' Music Videos blog. As with its sister site, once you've written the title there's really no need to describe site's contents.

One of the gems from the site:



The instrument at the core of that performance is a theremin, played masterfully in the video by a musician adjusting the proximity and shape of his hand relative to two antennae. If you've ever heard the Beach Boys' song Good Vibrations, you've heard a theremin an instrument designed to sound like a theremin (see comments). The model above is an Etherwave Pro Limited Edition theremin recently manufactured by Moog.

1 comment:

Colin said...

At the risk of calling Andy out, it appears that wikipedia disputes the Beach Boys' use of the theremin in "Good Vibrations":

"One of the most persistent theremin myths is that The Beach Boys used one in the 1966 recording of 'Good Vibrations.' Brian Wilson did request that a theremin be included in the studio orchestra for this recording, but neither the instrument nor a musician to play it were available at the time. Instead, Paul Tanner was brought in with his homemade device called an Electro-Theremin, which featured mechanical controls that could mimic the theremin sound. For concert appearances, a slide-controlled oscillator was designed and built for Wilson by Robert Moog.

I like how this section starts with "One of the most persistent theremin myths . . . ." How many pervasive theremin myths are there?