If you've seen today's Google Doodle, you might have come across the name "Clara Rockmore," the person who more or less single-handedly popularized the serious use of the theremin, and who would have celebrated her 105th birthday on March 9. In honor of Rockmore, here's a little history on how the theremin came to be the harbinger of electronic music as we know it - and how Rockmore helped institutionalize the first-ever electronic music device, and how without it, the contemporary musical landscape would be nothing like it is today.
Invented by Léon Theremin in (or Termin) 1918, it was the byproduct of an experiment with proximity sensors for the Russian government gone wrong. The "music" the device produced was made by waves generated by two metal rods attached to the box, and could be played by hand gestures operating within that space. The instrument began to catch on in the 1920s after Theremin debuted it in Russia in 1922, but it was Rockmore, his protege, who is credited as changing the reputation of the theremin from a no-handed wonder into a serious art form.
"I was fascinated by the aesthetic part of it, the visual beauty, the idea of playing in the air, and I loved the sound," Rockmore once said, as reported by Vox, who named the musician "the Skrillex of her day." "I tried it, and apparently showed some kind of immediate ability to manipulate it."
It was the "manipulated" part that was hard to do for most - besides talents like Rockmore and Theremin before her, not many could actually play the fingerless instrument. While Rockmore is mostly remembered as a musician, working alongside the New York Philharmonic, the Philadelphia Orchestra and the Toronto Symphony, she is also an innovator in her own right, figuring out how to expand the range of the instrument from three octaves to five; developing aerial fingering, which helped with easier note changes; and influencing others, like pianist Josef Hofmann, to take their own crack at increasing the playability of the electronic melody-maker.
Rockmore is credited as turning the theremin from a novelty into a legitimate instrument. She subsequently created the space for its inspirational uses, to be implemented in a number of other and later musical movements. Brian Wilson from the Beach Boys was and has been an outspoken fan, and incorporated it into seminal pop songs like "Good Vibrations." The theremin was also used on countless tracks for the Rolling Stones and prog rockers Led Zeppelin, two of the biggest acts in rock 'n' roll history. Other acts using the instrument include the Polyphonic Spree, the Decemberists, All-American Rejects, Devotchka and Sufjan Stevens - a bevy of different musical genres, no?
Perhaps Rockmore's biggest influence, however, was her impact on Robert Moog, the inventor of the eponymous first voltage-controlled synthesizer. As Vox noted, without the theremin or Rockmore's contribution, electronic music from Yazoo to Skrillex would more or less be an impossibility.
In honor of Rockmore and the theremin, listen to both Rockmore and the instrument's inventor play a couple of songs in the video clips below.
Photo: possan | Flickr
