play the theremin -- today's Google Doodle

[Artemis@BC]

Anyone else been wasting time on this today? I actually have a theremin app on my phone, but this one works better.

You can jump straight to the theremin here.

 

[Garden Kitty]

That theremin woke the garden kitty up and he did not look pleased with my efforts.

 

[jlai]

Took me a while to understand how to play it

 

[Anemone]

I played with it earlier - it was fun. I would love to have a chance to try playing a real one - the method of playing just sounds so strange!

 

[jlai]

Which was probably why the idea never took off. People like to touch their instruments instead of "waving their hands in the air", so to speak. Having said that, now we are in a digital era, maybe not touching an instrument may be the new way of music.

 

[dinakt]

I played with it earlier - it was fun. I would love to have a chance to try playing a real one - the method of playing just sounds so strange!

It is hard... the pitch is severely affected by humidity, temperature, any metal nearby, accidental movement... At its best it sounds like a voice. Fascinating instrument, and Termen (aka Theremin) was a fascinating/controversial man, so much history there, movie-worthy.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Léon_Theremin