Virtuoso Theramin Playing

The theramin is one of the coolest instruments around, but I find that most people associate it with bad playing, or eerie sounds without real melodies. This is because there are very few true theramin players, and for good reason: it's one of the hardest instruments to play. (If you don't know what a theramin is, check out the wikipedia entry here. It's neat that it got used extensively in psychedelic music and such, but little do people know that it had a classical heritage - it was originally an instrument to play classical music!

So here's a few great theramin players: Randy George, who is a modern virtuoso, and Clara Rockmore, one of the original players of the instrument. You'll be completely surprised if you're used to thinking of the theremin as a soundtrack/psychedelic noise maker. It's really interesting how expressive it can be.

Here is Randy George playing "Crazy" by Gnarls Barkley:


Here's Clara Rockmore playing "The Swan" by Charles-Camille Saint-Saëns: