Some might be wondering what I’ve been up to since July. Well, after my trip to Wash. D.C. I have been returning to my “roots.” When I was a teen, my Dad was an electronics engineer, and brought home a lot of goodies for me to play with. A lot of it was tube analog circuitry, as transistors were just becoming a part of the electronic vocabulary. I wanted to build an electronic musical instrument I had been hearing about. Rumors of heterodyning circuitry were bubbling up. My dad was pretty much against heterodyning, something that was meant to be eliminated rather than encouraged in radio circuits.
Lev Termen was a poet. He could see beauty in circuitry, imagine it as Art. He made electronic musical instruments that were played without touching them- the musician’s electromagnetic aura provided the pitch and expression. He staged interactive electronic dance productions using this ethereal method in the late 1920’s and then disappeared. Rumor has it he was abducted, but more information reveals he was disappointed that the world was not ready for what he had to offer. The RCA ”Theremins” he designed did not sell so well. He was disappointed, too, with his marriage it seems, so he went back to Russia and obscurity. He designed undetectable listening circuits to spy on the U.S. This was very successful.
I have always wanted to complete this part of my past, so when I came across a design by Christopher at Old Temecula, my fate was sealed. I am in the middle of this project, so I will have pictures and discriptions as soon as I have an instrument in a presentable case. More on this.
