Shedding Light on a Misunderstood Instrument

Few people are familiar with the theremin and those who have heard of the musical instrument know it mainly for its use in old horror movies and in the Beach Boys hit “Good Vibrations.”

The theremin is one of the earliest electronic instruments, and was invented by Leon Theremin in the late 1920s. According to the website Theremin World, the instrument is played without being touched and features two antennas, one that controls pitch and one for volume. 

It’s known for making a high-pitched, spooky sound, but there’s more to the theremin than that. And Theo Popov is determined to change the common perception of the instrument as something that makes weird sounds.

Popov is a senior in Princeton University's music department and will share his theremin skills during his May 20 senior concert at Taplin Auditorium on campus.

“Unfortunately, that’s what most people associate it with, the Beach Boys and horror movies, because it has been used (mainly for) sound effects and very little for music playing, but there are quite a few professional (theremin players) in the world and they play classical repertoire,” Popov says. “They play real music and they’re trying to break the stereotypes that this is just a sound effects instrument.”

The instrument has developed a devoted following and a documentary “Theremin: An Electronic Odyssey” was released in 1994. Popov is a composition major at Princeton, studying with Steven Mackey, Dmitri Tymoczko, Paul Lansky and Barbara White and specializing in music of antiquity. 

He started playing the theremin during his sophomore year, thinking it might make for a fun hobby. He now studies at Oxford with Lydia Kavina, the niece of Leon Theremin, and plans on playing professionally. 

“I realized how much potential there was to the instrument, to develop it in a way that nobody has before,” he says. “It has been in existence for quite a bit, pretty much a century now, but it fell into oblivion for a while and it’s been resurrected by several musicians but it never gained the fame and recognition that it, in my opinion, should have as the only instrument capable of these properties.”

Those properties include melody, something that doesn’t come to mind when you think of monster movies. But Popov says the instrument is very melodic and has a flexibility like no other instrument.

The instrument’s melodic properties influenced Popov’s choice of pieces to perform during the concert, which is titled “A Romantic Journey Through the Ether.” Popov will perform pieces by Cesar Franck, Leos Janacek and Frederico Mompou, accompanied by Jeff Li (of Princeton's Class of '13) on piano.

“I wanted to show that romantic music, music that is extremely emotional and expressive, could be performed on the instrument with certain modifications,” Popov says. He chose Franck’s Violin Sonata, which says has never been attempted on the theremin before, because he wants to prove that it can indeed could be played on the instrument. He’s also premiering theremin arrangements of works by Mompou and Janacek.

“Their music is not only chromatically interesting but melodically very stimulating,” Popov says. “I thought if you rearrange the piano so that you could bring out the melody and put them on the theremin and keep the harmonies in a romantic piano setting, the effects could be quit new and hopefully very interesting.”

Learning to play the theremin presented its challenge because, he notes, there’s a lot about it that’s out of player’s control.

“There is so much that depends not on you when you’re playing because it creates an electromagnetic field that surrounds you so anything can affect it,” he says. “If there’s an audience member that’s close by breathing too heavily, that changes your pitch, if a big insect flies by, that changes your pitch. Pretty much everything around you can affect your playing.

“It’s very intuitive once you understand the properties of the instrument. There’s an initial threshold when you can’t play anything, then all of a sudden you realize how simple it is to play melody but then after that, to make them perfect, it takes years.”

Popov has already written some pieces for the theremin and plans on writing more. By learning how to play it, he’s figured out what works on the instrument and what doesn’t, which he expects to help with his writing and his goal of widening the appeal and knowledge of the theremin.

“I hope to be able to develop the instrument itself,” he says, “so that (people) can write things that were previously considered unplayable but now are quite possible.”

Theo Popov will perform “A Romantic Journey Through the Ether” at Taplin Auditorium on the campus of Princeton University, May 20 at 8 p.m. Admission is free. For information, call 609-258-4241 or go to www.princeton.edu/music/