Here's Californian performance artist Eliot Fintushel playing Debussy on a theremin. Something about the way it's compressed by YouTube makes him look like a badly-drawn Second Life avatar. Not strange enough? Try this one, with cracker crufix munching... (Thanks, Mikey)
Posted by Tom Whitwell.
Makes me think of Isao Tomita's Snowflakes are Dancing. I would offer my last hair to anyone bringing me a vinyl record of this piece of strangeness...
Thank you so much for posting this! it was a joy to watch such a beautiful piece be played so well, plus just seeing someone use the theremin as an actual instrument and not just a wacky "Whoa, UFOs!" sound effect generator as it's so often misused.
I know his appearance is sort of distracting and yeah the bad compositing of the blue-screen background compounded by YouTube compression makes the edges of him look weirdly pixely (nice call on the Second Life avatar) but watching his hands is absolutely fascinating, he has such precise control over his finger placement and he does wonderful vibrato. Not saying this makes him an exception to all the other talented theremin players out there, it's just nice to see a clear shot of "the business" as they say.
Anyway sorry for the extended gushing/verbal diarrhea, I just really enjoyed this performance. Hoorah for Music Thing!
He's probably for real, but I know it takes such a rare level of skill to perform that precisely on a theremin that I found myself looking for signs of "air theremin" mimed along to a recording of Lydia Kavina or such. How do you tell if a thereminist is faking?
Guys, this video is nice but he's got way to go before leveling to Takeuchi Masami or Lydia Kavina. He's not playing that good, so no way he's faking (but this instrument is damn hard to play, anyway).
it doesn't take a rare level of skill as much as a born ability to perceive relative pitch without visual cues. anyone who can play Duane Allman, or play a nice saw melody, should be able to play complex melodies on a theremin.
Beautiful and haunting. What really cracked me up in addition was comparing him to a "badly-drawn Second Life avatar". When we get avatar puppeteering inworld, I'd sure like to see someone do *this*!
: 10:35 am