Breathing & Aethering (5 one Hour Theremin Improvisations)
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Three things inspired these recordings: 1) I admire free improvisation and free jazz, but I mainly want to do musique concrète, where there's not much possibility. 2) Have long wanted to learn the theremin and finally got one and thought a great way to learn is just to play and learn by doing. 3) I am also inspired by "endurance art", where the hardship of enduring performing for a long time straight is the most important part of the art.
So this is me learning to play the theremin by performing and recording one hour improvisations. No pauses, no editing, no looping, no removing or altering poor performances. A little over one hour seems to be longest length possible for a track uploaded to bandcamp and it's still long enough for the performer to lose focus and grow weary (which is part of the art).
So be warned, this is not about musical perfection or good melodies. This is raw improvisation - by a performer who is in no way an expert in the instrument performed. I know Theremin World says not to record music as a beginner and wait 'til you can play a song. But they are missing the point made with this recording: it's not about playing a song nor achieving perfect pitch (playing classical tunes perfectly on theremin has been done plenty!). It's about free improvisation, no restrictions, "caveman running barefoot through modern technology" experimentation and playing without pause for a long time. And I know no thereminists, who does that.
At the same time, this is played into the air and thus recorded in the air (as opposed to the electronic sounds going straight into the recording device). That means, that all other sounds heard in the vicinity also appears on the recording. Be it neighbours, traffic, dogs, the old house creaking and microphone dropouts... it all ends on the recording and stays there. As said, this is not about musical perfection.
That being said, I do like to add a little learning and challenge to each performance in order to improve (see track-by-track info for more)
- 160:28
- 260:32
- 360:35
- 460:22
- 560:30
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