{"id":10059,"date":"2020-09-17T01:42:08","date_gmt":"2020-09-16T22:42:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/theremintimes.ru\/?p=10059"},"modified":"2021-04-19T10:55:29","modified_gmt":"2021-04-19T07:55:29","slug":"carolina-eyck-the-bbc-music-magazine-interview","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theremin.today\/?p=10059&lang=en","title":{"rendered":"Carolina Eyck THE BBC MUSIC MAGAZINE INTERVIEW"},"content":{"rendered":"

Carolina Eyck THE BBC MUSIC MAGAZINE INTERVIEW<\/span><\/p>\n

The world\u2019s foremost theremin<\/span>
\nplayer reinvented her\u00a0 instrument as a teenager, and<\/span>
\nhas since brought its ethereal\u00a0 sounds to new audiences,<\/span>
\ndiscovers Kate Molleson<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\"CarolinaCarolina Eyck<\/strong> was 17 when she published her first book on theremin technique. This was no hand guide to the basic mechanics of the thing, nor a glossary of existing playing styles, nor a history of theremin virtuosos. Eyck\u2019s book, The Art of Playing the Theremin, introduced a new way of playing with refined hand gestures and unprecedented precision. Still a teenager, she had identified how to finesse her own performance style using a method she called the Eight Finger Position Technique.<\/span><\/p>\n

S<\/strong>he has spent the intervening 15 years honing that technique, commissioning works for theremin and composing her own albums layered with ambient vocals. She has even given a TED Talk on why the theremin is the ultimate gauge of a musician\u2019s emotional well-being. Now 32 and speaking to me during lockdown from her flat in Berlin, she is busy finishing off a second book and teaching students across Europe via Zoom. It\u2019s fair to say that Eyck has established a new school of theremin playing, and she is extending the reach of the instrument to audiences around the globe. Her lulling transcription of Ennio Morricone\u2019s The Ecstasy of Gold has had more than 15 million online views. It helps that her instrument is yet young. <\/span><\/p>\n

Eyck has just a century of predecessors \u2013 which means the field is still relatively open, compared with the weight of tradition faced by violinists or pianists. The theremin was invented in 1920 by Russian scientist, cellist\u00a0 \u00a0Lev Sergeyevich Termen, or Leon Theremin as he was known in the US ( Theremin — the original spelling of the last name that family members used Approx. Theremin Today<\/strong>)<\/em>. Surely the only instrument that is played without anyone touching it, its physics are simple: two antennae emit electrical fields and the player interrupts them with any part of their body. In general, the left hand controls volume while the right hand determines pitch. That\u2019s pretty much it \u2013 except it\u2019s not, as far as Eyck is concerned.<\/span><\/p>\n

If I want to play in tune, I have to feel in tune! Because my body is all I\u2019ve got The world\u2019s foremost theremin player reinvented her instrument as a teenager, and has since brought its ethereal sounds to new audiences, discovers<\/span><\/p>\n

Termen developed his instrument in St Petersburg, initially giving it the whimsical name of \u2018etherphone\u2019. Then he brought it to New York City under a new moniker. His invention tapped the spirit of the wireless age with its electricity and its unearthly voice floating through thin air. A side-story, beguilingly told by the writer Sean Michaels in his wonderful theremin novel Us Conductors, was that Termen was ordered to spy for the Soviets while he was in the United States. ((In his fictional novel, Sean Michel made Lev Theremin a spy and murderer, he found such fantasies appropriate for the book. It is very strange that the author of the article refers to this fiction book when she talks about the biography of Lev Theremin. Approx. Theremin Today<\/strong><\/em>) That side of things perhaps inevitably meant he wound up in the labour camps of Siberia. The original theremin virtuoso was Clara Rockmore. A fellow Soviet \u00e9migr\u00e9 in New York, she had been a star violinist but suffered from tendonitis and gave up playing. Then she got to know Termen, fell in love with his invention (and possibly with him, though she rejected his marriage proposals) and learned how to make the theremin sing. At the heart of her repertoire were wordless elegies: \u2018The Swan\u2019 by Saint-Sa\u00ebns, Rachmaninov\u2019s \u2018Vocalise\u2019, the \u2018Serenade M\u00e9lancholique\u2019 by Tchaikovsky.<\/span><\/p>\n

Later generations of composers found other musical potential in the theremin\u2019s knack for the uncanny, its sense of the celestial, its affinity to the human voice. The Beach Boys gave the chorus of \u2018Good Vibrations\u2019 a swoopy descant. (The author is mistaken — the theremin did not sound in the Beach Boys, only an emulator approx. Theremin Today<\/strong> )<\/em> Bernard Hermann clinched the sound of sci-fi in The Day the Earth Stood Still. Martinu wove moments of otherworldly tenderness into the otherwise bruising textures of his Fantasia for theremin, oboe, piano and string quartet.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Carolina<\/span><\/p>\n

Even so, stereotypes die hard. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u2018People come up to me and say, \u201cWoah, you play the theremin? Wooooo!\u2019\u2019\u2019 <\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

On my laptop screen, Eyck is shaking her head and mimicking people who do ghost impressions at her. She says she is used to explaining her craft. In taxis, in caf\u00e9s, the \u2018what do you do?\u2019 question involves a weary deep breath and a basic physics lesson. So how did she arrive at the instrument? It is not every parent who would give a child an obscure touchless noise-maker: the answer is that her parents had a head start. In late 1980s Berlin, Eyck\u2019s father played in a band specialising in meditative electronic music. \u2018They had a lot of synthesisers,\u2019 she recalls.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u2018My mum would do the lights for their performances. Electronic music was a normal thing for me to be around. I was always backstage, hearing the sounds they were coming up with.\u2019 A friend of the band suggested they should add theremin to their line-up. \u2018My dad was totally into it. I had already started playing piano and violin, but my dad thought theremin was perfect for me.\u2019<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Her first instrument was a Moog Big Briar 91A, for those in the know. (She still plays a theremin made by Moog; specifically, the last instrument designed by Robert Moog before he died in 2005.)<\/span><\/p>\n

When she was seven, her parents found her a teacher, Lydia Kavina, a descendent of Termen himself. (Lydia Kavina is not a «descendant» of Lev Theremin — she is very distant relative from the side of Lev Theremin’s father’s sister approx. TT<\/strong>)<\/em>
\nThe fact Kavina lived in Russia and came to Germany only once a year meant that Eyck had to figure out a lot on her own, forging her own relationship with the instrument from the start. Is there something innate about the theremin \u2013 the mysterious nature of the sound, the apparent magic in its mechanism \u2013 that makes it the ideal instrument for children to learn? \u2018Actually, I\u2019m not so sure,\u2019 Eyck shakes her head.<\/span><\/p>\n

Big waves Theremin repertoire to discover Aside from Martinu\u02da\u2019s Fantasia and new works by Fazil Say (Universe Symphony) and Kalevi Aho (Theremin Concerto, see p48), the theremin pops up in a few of classical music\u2019s nooks and crannies. Written between 1932 and \u201934, Edgar Var\u00e8se\u2019s Ecuatorial was one of the first pieces to mix electronic and traditional instruments. (Mistake — in «Equatorial» was used not a theremin, but another musical instrument created by Lev Theremin approx. Theremin Today»<\/strong>)<\/em> A Mayan invocation to the creative gods, the work\u2019s premiere featured two theremins, although subsequent performances used ondes Martenot. Gershwin\u2019s pupil Joseph Schillinger\u00a0 \u00a0(The mistake here is that Joseph Schillinger was George Gershwin’s teacher for many years, but not vice versa. approx. Theremin Today<\/strong>)<\/em>\u00a0wrote his 1929 First Airphonic Suite for Lev Termen, the inventor of the theremin (above) \u2013 highly Romantic in style, the suite incorporates the instrument as naturally as if a cello or violin were the soloist. Although not originally scored for the theremin, the Australian composer Percy Grainger\u2019s theoretical Free Music Nos 1-4 suits them well, being written for an unnamed instrument of free, continuous pitch without rhythmic elements. In the film world, meanwhile, the theremin has been used for eerie sci-fi sounds, most notably by Bernard Herrmann (The Day The Earth Stood Still), Howard Shore (Ed Wood), Danny Elfman (Mars Attacks) and, notably, Mikl\u00f3s R\u00f3zsa (Spellbound). Mind games: Ingrid Bergman and Gregory Peck in Spellbound<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u2018It is very difficult. Especially with body posture, you need total awareness.<\/em>\u2019 <\/span>Eyck continued taking lessons on piano and violin, and eventually she studied viola at music college in Sweden. But a shoulder injury forced a turning point, and now she is more attentive than ever to matters of physical and mental well-being. \u2018I discovered this is the best way to work with my own students,\u2019 she explains. \u2018I call it meditative practising. We have a C drone going, and they can play anything above that. We just lean into whatever we feel needs most work that day. We notice how we feel in the whole body. We notice the mental processes. I can only guide them if they tell me how they feel. I can detect any tension because it is audible instantly.\u2019 It sounds like an attuned relationship with the body that would be more commonly found in dancers than instrumentalists. \u2018Totally!\u2019 she says. \u2018But instrumentalists should think about it so much more.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"
Carolina Eyck — theremin bbc<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

When I trained in Germany, nobody was talking about it. I used to get Stage hands: (clockwise from left) Eyck performs at the 2015 Echo Klassik Awards; teaching at a summer academy in France, 2014; at the Prague Spring International Music Festival in 2019 ALAMY, GETTY pain when I was practising. Now the pain only comes when I lose my awareness.\u2019 Eyck\u2019s own music draws on her voice and her breath as well as the sounds she summons from the instrument. On her latest album, Elegies for Theremin & Voice (2019), she loops and layers improvised vocals and uses the theremin as a duet partner. She has also been growing the repertoire of new works, commissioning composers including Kalevi Aho and Faz\u0131l Say to test new expressive capacities of the instrument.<\/span><\/p>\n

It is telling that when I ask what interests composers who write for theremin, Eyck\u2019s first response is to talk about the visual aspect \u2013 not the answer I\u2019d expect if discussing, say, a new violin concerto.
\nAgain, it casts her as much as a dancer as a musician, which you can see in her YouTube videos in which her movements are deliberate, poised and elegant.<\/p>\n

\n

Are the movements dictated by the sound they produce, or is it the other way around? \u2018Both!\u2019 Recently, Eyck has been developing ideas around gesture and space.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

She wants to work on surround-sound performances: \u2018When I make a gesture as though I am sending out some birds, moving my hands to imply birds fluttering around the room, I will also manipulate a joystick that will add a new dimension, flinging the sound around the room, throwing it around the space.\u2019 She wants to add visuals, too, which reminds me of her parents\u2019 meditative electronic band and its light shows. But before any of that, she\u2019s going back to basics.<\/span><\/p>\n

Her first book, the one she wrote when she was 17, was essentially the first formal manual of theremin technique. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u2018Clara Rockmore wrote some exercises, but she didn\u2019t explain that much. It was just a summary of things. She used four finger positions because she was a violin player. The classic thing we do with the ring shape\u2019 \u2013 she holds up a thumb and index finger up to the camera \u2013 \u2018that was Clara Rockmore\u2019s invention.
\n<\/span>My own teacher had five positions because she played the piano. I went for eight positions because that\u2019s what made sense to me. Let\u2019s say eight positions like I\u2019m using my hand as a major scale. The biggest difference is that I move my hand as little as possible. I don\u2019t use my arm. I measure the detail of the space.\u2019\u00a0<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

She developed the technique because she wanted to be sure a note would be in tune before it sounded. \u2018In the past, players would be approximate, maybe adjusting their tuning with vibrato. In the 1920s and \u201930s, the fashion was to play with a lot of vibrato.<\/span><\/p>\n

I prefer to keep the sound pretty straight, so it\u2019s more important to hit the note bang-on. And that requires precision.\u2019 Is it like string players in terms of their muscle memory on a fretless fingerboard? She laughs. \u2018Yeah, sort of\u2026 except of course it\u2019s all in 3D. And there\u2019s no fingerboard.\u2019 There\u2019s no anything: just air. \u2018Air, and my body. That\u2019s the point. If I want to play in tune, I have to feel in tune! Because my body is all I\u2019ve got.\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Source —<\/strong><\/em> https:\/\/www.classical-music.com\/magazine\/issues\/august-2020\/<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Carolina Eyck THE BBC MUSIC MAGAZINE INTERVIEW The world\u2019s foremost theremin player reinvented her\u00a0 instrument as a teenager, and has since brought its ethereal\u00a0 sounds to new audiences, discovers Kate Molleson Carolina Eyck was 17 when she published her first…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":10071,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10059","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-1","wpcat-1-id"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theremin.today\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10059","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theremin.today\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theremin.today\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theremin.today\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theremin.today\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10059"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/theremin.today\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10059\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10072,"href":"https:\/\/theremin.today\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10059\/revisions\/10072"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theremin.today\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/10071"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theremin.today\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10059"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theremin.today\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10059"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theremin.today\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10059"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}