[PD] Re:[OT] How do your performance environments looks like?

[Maurizio Umberto Puxeddu]

On Sat, 2003-04-19 at 02:48, jose manuel berenguer wrote:
> hello
> 
> >I think Kiilo meant to compare the relative stability of the traditional
> >instruments to the way we are still working today with electronic
> >devices. Theremin may be still in use and have influenced many other
> >interfaces to electronic devices but sure it is not a well established
> >instrument.
> 
> it is not really a well established instrument, it is true. anyway, 
> there is a list of more than 400 bands and musicians using the 
> Theremine
> 
> http://www.thereminworld.com/bands.asp
> 
> among them, Jarre (Oxigene 10, 1997) and Spencer, as has been said, 
> but also John Zorn and many other well known musicians.
> 
> Moog is selling one and it is MIDIfied...
> 
> http://www.moogmusic.com/cgi-local/SoftCart.100.exe/products_t.html?L+scstore+jmzx8890ffe6c8e6+1093474143
> 
> an interesting thing about Theremine that I don't know if it has been 
> transferred to other newer electronic devices is its highly developed 
> technique of playing...

This is was also my point in a previous mail. Anyway in this specific
case (instrument), as far as I heard the technique is highly developed
in the sense of playing traditional music or music that is in fact not
very different from traditional music. I never listened to John Zorn
playing theremin but since he made several works on cinema, recreating
sound tracks for immaginary movies he may have used theremin in a
idiomatic manner.

This is specifically true for the original theremin which is an
instrument designed to play music of pitches (in fact the theremin is
associated to a specific timbre, it's a real traditional instrument).
With MIDIfied theremin, that is theremin used as control device (like
radio baton etc), this is not true but I think you can use a theremin to
exploit something like PD.

When I talk about reaching an instrumental technique on electronic
devices, I am not necessarily referring to music written as traditional
instrumental music but a music that can possibly exploits the essence of
the specific device. In this sense the use of haptic devices "just" for
the feeling of an acoustic istrument is not a priority for me (nor it is
a tabu).

Maurizio Umberto Puxeddu.