Showing posts with label Shueh-Li Ong. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Shueh-Li Ong. Show all posts

[S06E02] July 2024 - Shueh-li Ong



In this July 2024 edition of Theremin 30, host Rick Reid plays new theremin music from Peru, the Netherlands, Finland, and Singapore. Rick's guest is Shueh-li Ong, who has a new album out called MissOriented Metaphor.

FEATURED MUSIC*

*The full-length recordings featured in this show were used with the knowledge and permission of the artists and composers. Please support the artists by visiting their websites, purchasing their recordings, and attending their performances. 

ADDITIONAL MUSIC

INTERVIEW GUEST

CALENDAR OF THEREMIN EVENTS

MEDIA LINKS

SUPPORT THIS PODCAST

CONTACT

CREDITS 

Copyright 2024 Rick Reid 


--------------------------------------------

TRANSCRIPT

Please note: This transcript was created with the help of speech-to-text AI.  It may contain some errors.

David Brower  0:00  
Rick, this is Theremin 30. 30 Minutes of Theremin, music, news, events and interviews with a new episode about every 30 days. Now. Here's your host from Chicago, Illinois, Rick Reid.

Rick Reid  0:18  
Hey. Welcome to the July 2024, episode of the theremin 30 podcast. This time around, I've got new Theremin music from the Netherlands, Peru, Finland and Singapore. My special guest is Shelley Ong here to talk about her new album called Miss oriented metaphor. And if I sound a little spaced out today, I'm just having trouble getting back into a good sleep schedule. I recently traveled to Denmark to spend a week with a bunch of Theremin playing friends from I think, 11 different countries. And between jet lag exploring Copenhagen late into the evenings and the very short nights in the Scandinavian summertime, I didn't get much sleep, at least not at the right times. Even a week later, I'm still feeling it, but I think I can manage to stay awake for the next 30 minutes. I hope you can too. So let's get started.

In just a bit, I'll play a track featuring Wilco Botermans on Theremin first though, I have new music from veronik When I interviewed her for the october 2021 episode of the theremin 30 podcast, she told us about a new album she was working on at the time. She's released a couple of singles from the project since then, but now the full album, illusionist pelagrossas is out on her Bandcamp page, Spotify and other streaming outlets in my poorly pronounced Spanish, this track coming up is called concione para un regress, and according to Google Translate, that means song for a comeback. 

We started the show with the Peruvian recording artist Veronica with song for a comeback. It's a track from her new album, illusionist pellegrosis, or dangerous illusions. If you go to this month's show notes at Theremin thirty.com and click on her name, you'll go right to her band camp page where you can listen to and purchase the full album. And after that, I played a track called opti stool, or on this stool from the eclectic Dutch band overlanders, featuring guest musicians, vilko bodermans on Theremin and Joris Vermeulen on a double Reid instrument called tenora. To hear more music from overlanders, click on their name in this month's show notes. It's time now for the theremin 30 calendar of Theremin events. Lydia Cavanagh continues her online group Theremin classes on most Sundays on July 18, modulate featuring thereminist Chris Conway and sound artist Jez Creek, will perform at the Church of sound event in Nottingham, England. July 23 is the birthday of the late great Dr Samuel Hoffman. Commemorate the day by watching a movie featuring his Theremin in the score. On July 25 noritaka ubukata performs with his custom made there sin in Tokyo, and Stephen Hamm has a gig in Vancouver, BC, Canada. For details about these events and more, check out the full calendar at Theremin thirty.com and if you have an event you'd like me to place on the calendar, contact me through the website. Let's get back to the music now, with a single from Kepa Lehtinen that came out about three months ago, but I haven't had a chance to play it until now. This is called Unet in Finnish or dreams in English. 

That was Unet or dreams by Finnish composer and thereminist Kepa lechtinen. You can see the official music video for that song on the theremin 30 YouTube playlist. Just. Search for Theremin 30 on YouTube or follow the link in this month's show notes.

Shueh-Li Ong is a multi Continental, multi instrumentalist with not one, but two live streaming shows on YouTube, and she just released her fifth studio album, Miss oriented metaphor. I visited with Shelly recently to find out all about it. Shelley Ong, it's so good to see you again, actually hear you again on the theremin 30 podcast. 

Shueh-Li Ong  15:36  
Thanks, Rick. So good to see you and hear you too. It's been a few years, but always glad to see your smiling face.

Rick Reid  15:44  
It's been about three years since you've been on the show, and back then we talked about your musical history and how you got involved in the theremin. So I don't want to repeat that, but I do want to find out what you've been doing since then. 

Speaker 1  15:57  
Well, in the last few years, I've endeavoled to experiment with different ways in which I could articulate the voice of the theremin, and it was a slow kind of assembly, because there was a lot of playing around with until I got something that I went, Aha, I could use this. So it's been a while since I released an album. I thought, why not consolidate these experiments in new composition and then further develop them as I put them together as I went along? And I wanted to also create a repertoire of original music. You probably know this, I have a degree in piano performance, and I did study synth techniques during my post grad period. So I'm naturally inclined towards live performance. It's kind of like, you know, kids in the playground I like to play.

Rick Reid  16:53  
Yeah, I seen some videos on your YouTube channel where you collaborated with some of the musicians that I think are on the new album. Sort of the early development of some of these tracks. 

Speaker 1  17:03  
I was road testing these works for venue versatility and playability with live musicians again, because I wanted to make sure these could be executed live. And again, these pieces were really more for my live performance repertoire. But you know, people like to receive my fans and friends like to receive these finished works in a recorded version. So hence the album. That seems to be the way musicians do it. They write, they record it, and then they play it. So, but I wanted to play it and then record it a friend of mine, bassist Brian Mooney, who appears on the album, he had reached out to me to work with me in live performance. So he played the first gig with me on the New Jersey prop house music series in 2018 and I enjoyed working with him live and on my music video, so much. And I said to Brian, you know, these are new pieces. Would you like to play on the music video with me, as you know, version one? So I I had a, I had, like, a recording or a document of what I had done. And he said, Sure. And I enjoyed his working with him so much, he repeated his performance, so to speak, on the album. And guitarist Dean parks, he didn't appear on my music videos for this album, but he had worked with me before on my third album, which was written under my Monica zanovites. And when he record on my third album, Crossing Paths, I became such a fan of his excellence, and I'm not mad another musician like him, I plotted to have him appear on this fifth album, Miss oriented metaphor.

Rick Reid  18:50  
The album title is mis oriented metaphor. Yes. What does that mean? 

Speaker 1  18:57  
Miss oriented metaphor was nicknamed the concerto. So it began as a concerto because I had in mind it would be an instrumental with the soloists being the theremin the synthesizer, and I had a tin whistle in there as well, against luscious orchestration. You know, as you would imagine, a concerto would be the title plays on the words oriental, disoriented and the Cassandra metaphor, which in Greek mythology, Cassandra is the daughter of Troy, and she was given the gift of prophecy, but cursed With having her prophecies disbelieved. 

Rick Reid  19:41  
You play multiple instruments and you're playing with the band this time. Did you record together in the same room at the same time, or is this a multi track thing that was done remotely? 

Speaker 1  19:52  
I wanted this album to feature a few of my friends, and because of the nature of the genres. Yes, and the style in which the tracks, I call the movements, because it's supposed to be a concerto, they each movement has different sections to it and and they span several genres, so I wanted a real person's appearance to kind of tackle these changes, these transitions, but they would follow my written score, but in certain parts, they would imbue their lines with their own. What take on things for a drama it be feels for bass players, similarly, and of course, I had a guitarist, the one and only Dean parks, where lines were written for him, of certain guitar sounds that I was looking for, but others where I went, I said, Just do what you feel you hear in whatever genre it is that We're working in egy. I'd say this will be stadium rock in field, you know, but he's had six, almost seven decades of experience, so no big deal. And there was one part in the finale where I said, you know, this is your solo cadenza. I'd like you to be flamboyant dean. And I recorded remotely, but in real time. So he looked at me and he said, You asked for it. The other musicians recorded independently of me, but again, I had directions and I had my demo. So my method of writing is I write record straight into my door, and I play the instrumental lines the way I would want to hear it in my finished product. Bear in mind, these pieces must be playable live. All those things that you hear, those will be reproduced live.

Rick Reid  21:55  
Now, speaking of live performance, the way you're releasing this album is non conventional, non traditional, as well. 

Shueh-Li Ong  22:03  
Well, I've been running this live stream that features friends and friends of friends in the music and entertainment industry called music and chat. And Rick you and I talked about that previously, so I thought, well, you know, I have my viewership there already, and these are the people who've been supporting my work and supporting me in this live stream situation. So why not use the live stream and thank my friends and fans at the same time in the release of this album, end of June on the 29th and 30th of June, that's the weekend before Fourth of July. And I will release the album in two parts. The album is in digital form, so first part will be the first three tracks, and the second part will be the next three tracks, and I'll feel questions live as well. So, yeah, live stream. So anyone can put in questions in a live chat, and I will respond to them. The album, again, is in digital form. But if I have what I call YouTube chat, my youtube channel donors. It's a PayPal, you know, donation, little spot, if you donate 35 and above, I will actually hand assemble a physical CD, autograph it, and mail it to you, US residents only, because postage overseas is quite exorbitant.

Rick Reid  23:36  
Okay. Well, thank you so much for taking the time to talk with me about your new album. You have such an interesting and unique take on the theremin, especially, and really all the genres that you draw from. It's really fascinating to listen to. 

Speaker 1  23:51  
Thanks, Rick, thanks so much for having me. It's always a pleasure talking to you.

Rick Reid  23:56  
 If you missed the live streamed album release event on Shelley's YouTube page. It's still available to watch anytime there's a link to it in this month's show notes on Theremin thirty.com and you can stream and purchase the full misoriented metaphor album on her band camp page. I have the link for that too. Now let's finish the show with a track from Miss oriented metaphor. This is called calor, which is the Spanish word for heat. Shelly tells me this part of her concerto was inspired in part by flamenco music. 

It's time to thank Veronik, overlanders, Kepa Lehtinen, and Shueh-Li Ong for sharing their music with us this month. Please support these artists by following them on social media, streaming or downloading their music and attending their live performances. Also, thanks to Shueh-Li Ong for being my guest this month, and as always, a special thanks to the listeners who helped me cover my expenses with small one time or monthly donations. If you'd like to help out, go to the theremin 30 website and look for the tip jar while you're there. Check out the library of past episodes for more great Theremin music from around the world. I'll be back soon with another episode. Until then, I'll see you somewhere in the ether.

David Brower  29:50  
You've been listening to the theremin 30 podcast. Visit Theremin 30 on the web at Theremin three zero.com.
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[S03E02] May 2021 - Shueh-Li Ong

 

Shueh-Li Ong

The May 2021 episode of the Theremin 30 podcast features music from Spain, England, and the USA. Rick Reid interviews Shueh-Li Ong, host of the YouTube livestream series Music and Chat with Shueh-Li Ong.

▶️ Listen to this episode on your favorite podcast platform.


FEATURED MUSIC*

*The full-length recordings featured in this show were used with the knowledge and permission of the artists and composers. Please support the artists by visiting their websites, purchasing their recordings, and attending their performances. 

ADDITIONAL MUSIC

INTERVIEW GUEST

CALENDAR OF THEREMIN EVENTS

MEDIA LINKS

SUPPORT THIS PODCAST

CONTACT

CREDITS 

Copyright 2021 Rick Reid 

----------------

TRANSCRIPT

David Brower
This is Theremin 30, thirty minutes of theremin music, news, events, and interviews, with a new episode about every 30 days. Now, here is your host from Denver, Colorado, USA -- Rick Reid.

Rick Reid
Hey, there! Welcome to the May 2021 episode of Theremin 30, the world's number one monthly theremin music podcast. I think it is safe to say that. This month I've got some wonderful music from England, Spain, and the USA. And my special guest is the multi-talented Shueh-Li Ong, host of the YouTube live-streaming show Music and Chat with Shueh-Li Ong. It is going to be a challenge to get everything into a 30-minute show, so let's get right to it.

First up, it's brand new music from Therematic, a project of Spanish thereminist Javier Diez Ena. Javier uses several theremins and Abelton Live to create both audio and MIDI streams at the same time. The result is a style he calls theremin dance music.  The name of this track is "Exotique Mecanique." 

Rick Reid
We started the show with a song called "Exotique Mecanique" by Therematic, the new dance music project by Javier Diez Ena. After that we heard a Claude Debussy composition, "Beau Soir," or "Beautiful Evening," performed by UK thereminist Charlie Draper and Harpist Holly Lowe, a duo calling themselves Stranger Strings. Debussy wrote this piece to accompany the words of a poem by Paul Bourget. The duo recorded this track last November for a TEDx presentation. You can watch the video on the Theremin 30 YouTube playlist.

It's time now for the Theremin 30 calendar of theremin events. On June 5th, concerts are back around the world with the Divine Hand Ensemble performing at a cemetery in Philadelphia, The Narcolepter on stage in Australia, and Javier Diez Ena performing as Therematic in Madrid, Spain. Lydia Kavina continues her online theremin workshops on most Sundays.  Yoko Onishi hosts another edition of the RCA Theremin Evening on YouTube on Saturday, June 26th. And on July 4th, the New Note Orchestra featuring thereminist Alexx Mazonovich will present a live-streaming concert with music from their new album. For details, visit the calendar page on Theremin30.com.

I'll have music from Armen Ra later in the show. And coming right up, I'll visit with the host of Music and Chat with Shueh-Li Ong. So stay tuned!

Rick Reid
Shueh-Li Ong has been called Singapore's Diva of the Theremin. The Nashville Scene newspaper has called her Queen of the Theremin. And I called her just a few days ago to find out more about the streaming talk show she has been hosting from two different continents during the pandemic.

Rick Reid
Sheuh-Li Ong. Thank you so much for being on the Theremin 30 podcast.

Shueh-Li Ong
Thanks Rick. Thanks so much for having me.

Rick Reid
We met in Durham, North Carolina, during Moogfest, a couple of years ago.You were performing at the Arcana.

Shueh-Li Ong
Yes, I was. And it was a pleasure as well to meet you finally in person.   

Rick Reid
You play keyboards and synthesizers and theremin. And it seems like every theremin player's got a story about how they became a theremin player. So what's your story?

Shueh-Li Ong
When I considered the theremin, I had reached a juncture in my development as a musician. I already had a degree in piano and post-graduate research in interactive multimedia performance systems. And I had just left a position as head of marketing and game development lead with this particular company in Singapore to then direct a music and technology show design company. I know it sounds like a mouthful, but I was always very keen that way to do too many things. So I was quite ready to incorporate other languages into my work, other musics. And the theremin was a natural choice. The grandfather of electronic musical instruments. I thought it deserved some airtime. I thought I could be a proponent -- one of many. Being a student of the theremin has also shaped the way I view and resolve problems in life. I hope I'm a little wiser or a wiser learner because of the experience.  Feeling inadequate is a catalyst to progress and a good thing if it challenges you. I guess you could say the impostor syndrome is a version of what I'm talking about. Some people are on the other end of the spectrum, the moment they start playing an instrument, they can do something, be it artistic or arithmetic or whatever. They go, "Nah, I'm really good at this. And look at me."  And I had come from the other side where the more I do,  the less I know, but the more excited I am.

Rick Reid
It seems like a lot of theremin players starting out or even after a few years still feel like an imposter. I know, I feel that way.

Shueh-Li Ong
The theremin is such a humbling instrument. Isn't it? It really forces you to just get down on your knees and pay attention. I know so many musicians and good ones who decide they want to play the theremin and realize it's not one of those instruments you can tame easily.  

Rick Reid
You've been playing theremin for more than 20 years and you've got a theremin with the Bob Moog signature on the top, did you ever get a chance to meet him?

Shueh-Li Ong
Yes, I did very briefly because we communicated over what I would like to have as a quote-unquote, player of the instrument, which was to have the volume antenna inverted. So he kindly did that for me. And when it came to purchasing my Etherwave Pro, he also did the conversion on that for me. A funny anecdote was during a photoshoot someone hit and toppled the E-Pro and damaged the antennas and it was sent it back to him to Moog Music. But unfortunately, Bob Moog had already left us and was only there in spirit. And the guys at Moog Music said to me "Bob did not leave any blueprints so we'll have to reverse engineer this and --hope we can fix it!"

Rick Reid
You use a lot of effects with your electronic music. Do you have a favorite effects pedal that you use with your theremin?

Shueh-Li Ong
I started off experimenting with effects pedals and then ended up using plug-in effects on Mainstage instead.  Mainstage is the performance accompaniment to Logic Pro, which is the DAW that I use. 

Rick Reid
The other reason that I wanted you on the show, not just because you're a theremin player, you have a show of your own --  Music and Chat with Shueh-Li Ong. What is that? How do you explain it to someone who hasn't seen the show?

Shueh-Li Ong
I began Music and Chat with Shelly Ong, a YouTube live stream, as a means to stay in touch with friends and fans during the pandemic. And friends from the industry and their friends have been my guests. Sharing their behind-the-scenes work as inventors, concept artists, VFX supervisors, composers, orchestrators, synthesists, magazine editors, et cetera, et cetera.  The whole idea was to stay in touch with everybody and to bring some fun and joy and party spirit. When I say party, everyone gets together and it's a hearty party. I say you feel like you're gathering with friends and you are interacting with them because it's real-time, everyone gets to, have conversations with each other, as well as with the guest and with me. And they really enjoy that. So do the guests, which is really nice. 

Rick Reid
People can ask questions of your guest?

Shueh-Li Ong
Yes. And they do. Very often they are more informed than I am, being fans of various areas or musical genres, or even the guest, in particular, they have followed the history or the trends of the era or the person in question. And they have more in-depth information than I might have.  And I love it because we all learn from each other. That's the whole point, isn't it? I'm just hosting it. I'm not claiming to be the historian. And I have had some. Interesting historical and anecdotal accounts as well from our various guests, who have included Peter Zenovieff of EMS London, Jim Scott and Herb Deutsch on their work with Bob Moog, Pat Gleeson and Don Preston on synthesizing Apocalypse Now, performers from Moogfest  '07  when it was still held at B.B. King's Times Square. I've been trying to find video clips from MoogFest '07, and I believe someone out there has it. So I'm hoping to bring the gang back again to view some of these clips, which I hope will be in a few months' time.  I'll have some other guests such as Dean Parks and Chuck Rainey, Fairlight and Synclavier exponents Rory Kaplan and Chris Currell, and Bob Clearmountain will be back for round two. Bob is a premier mix engineer well-known for his work during the eighties and nineties, I believe, and still carrying on.

Rick Reid
And your show is music and chat. So you actually perform live during part of your show.

Shueh-Li Ong
Yes, I do at the very start. I chat with my viewers and then I play something live for them. And "live" is the operative word.

Rick Reid
Synthesizers and theremin?

Shueh-Li Ong
Yes. Sometimes tin whistle. On the odd occasion I sing.

Rick Reid
If people want to watch your program, is it every week?

Shueh-Li Ong
I just launched season three last Saturday,  And due to my teaching schedule, I'm doing it every fortnight or some people might say every two weeks. And I will see how my schedule works out. I might start doing it weekly.

Rick Reid
I've been putting it on my Theremin 30 calendar. And  I put a note in there because sometimes you change the time depending on your guest's schedule.

Shueh-Li Ong
Because it's live. I do need to accommodate the guests depending on where they're coming from.  I feel very fortunate being in this pandemic situation that people are still reaching out and that's the whole point of Music and Chat, that we can come together, share music, and just share our companionship. And our guests have been very nice to agree to appear and allow us to do that.

Rick Reid
If I miss a show, can I watch it later?

Shueh-Li Ong
Yes. They are currently archived on my YouTube channel.  If you are interested in checking it out it's Oceanachine spelled O C E A N A C H I N E.  It's one word, or if you get lost, you can type my name in, but you need to spell it correctly. And it's S H U E H L I and my last name is Ong, O N G.  

Rick Reid
it's Music and Chat with Shelly Ong and it's every fortnight. it's either on a Sunday or a Saturday, depending on what part of the world you're in.

Shueh-Li Ong
I usually put a placeholder on the spot where the live stream will take place eventually. And it gives you time and dates and how many hours to the live stream. You won't ever get lost. And if you subscribe and hit the bell symbol, you'll be alerted to when the live streams take place.

Rick Reid
And I'll have the link to that on the show notes for this episode. So if the listeners don't remember how to spell your name, they can just click on the link on the notes and get right to your show on YouTube.

Shueh-Li Ong
If I may tell your listeners that if they're interested in lessons with me, I can do them remotely, or if they want a song or album to be produced and they need help, I can do that, too.

Rick Reid
Oh, cool. Thank you very much for being on the podcast.

Shueh-Li Ong
Thanks, Rick. And you take care, and thanks so much for having me as well.

Rick Reid
Now, let's finish this segment of the show with some music by Shueh-Li Ong that features upright bass player Brian Mooney. This is a medley of two short pieces called "SarahSaoirse" and "Izeibil."

Rick Reid
There's still music on the way from Armen Ra, so stay tuned!

Rick Reid
Let's finish the show with two tracks from Armen Ra's 2018 album Theremin Discmorphia.  I was going to play just one song, but these two tracks seem meant to stay together. First, you'll hear "Nessun Dorma," the aria from the Puccini opera Turandot. "Nessum Dorma" translates from Italian as "Let No One Sleep."  After that, we'll hear "Let Me Sleep."

Rick Reid
Thank you so much to Therematic, Stranger Strings, Shueh-Li Ong, and Armen Ra for sharing their music, and another thank you to Shueh-Li Ong for visiting with me about her Music and Chat show on YouTube. Coming up in the June episode, I'll be playing new music from Paulo Pascual and the New Note Orchestra. Until then, please do all you can to support the recording artists and guests who appear on Theremin 30. It has been a difficult time for everyone in the theremin community, so we need to continue to lift each other up. I'm your host, Rick Reid. I'll see you around on Twitter and Facebook.

David Brower
You've been listening to the Theremin 30 podcast. Visit Theremin 30 on the web at Theremin30.com.

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[S01E02] May 2019 - Jason Barile



The May 2019 episode of the Theremin 30 podcast features music from Mexico, USA, and England. Rick Reid's interview guest is Jason Barile, founder of ThereminWorld.com, possibly the world's first website about theremins.



FEATURED MUSIC*
*The full-length recordings featured in this show were used with the knowledge and permission of the artists and composers. Please support the artists by visiting their websites, purchasing their recordings, and attending their performances. 

ADDITIONAL MUSIC
INTERVIEW
CALENDAR OF THEREMIN EVENTS
CONTACT
CREDITS
Copyright 2019 Rick Reid

-----------------------

TRANSCRIPT

David Brower 00:04

This is Theremin 30, thirty minutes of theremin music, news, events, and interviews, with a new episode about every 30 days. Now, here's your host from Denver, Colorado, USA, Rick Reid.


Rick Reid 00:19  

Hello and welcome to Theremin 30. Every month I feature theremin music mostly from unsigned artists around the world who have all given me permission to play their recordings on the podcast. I also let you know about upcoming theremin concerts, workshops, and festivals, and I'll visit with a special guest. This month. My guest is Jason Barile, the founder of ThereminWorld.com, probably one of the oldest websites dedicated to the theremin. Coming up, I've got music from right here in Denver, Colorado. First, let's start things off with some music from Mexico City. From his album called Cosmo: Theremin Music, this is Ernesto Mendoza with "Tesla."


Rick Reid 09:15  

We started that set with "Tesla" by Ernesto Mendoza, then we heard from Victoria Lundy with the title track of her 2015 solo album, Miss American Vampire. Victoria is arguably the most versatile and busy theremin player in Colorado. She performs with the highly entertaining indie rock band the Inactivists and several different experimental music projects. We'll feature one of her tunes with the Inactivists in the June episode. It's time now for the Theremin 30 calendar of theremin events. There are a bunch of great theremin-related concerts, workshops, and festivals this month and into June. Here are just a few you may want to check out. Lydia Kavina will accompany that The 1932 silent film The Idea being screened on May 4 and fifth at the Brompton cemetery chapel in the Kensington district of London. She will also be among the presenters in a two-day theremin and ondes Martenot workshop on the Oxford University campus May 11 and 12th. Also on May 11, Thorwald Jørgensen will be performing in Chicago at the Ravinia Festival. He also has concerts coming up in the Netherlands, Switzerland, and Spain. Meanwhile, Charlie Draper, Pamelia Stickney, Dorit Chrysler, and Sarah Rice also have gigs over the next several weeks. And on May 23, Bob Moog's birthday, the Bob Moog Foundation will open the doors of their new Moogseum, which I'm told will feature several different pyramids designed by Dr. Moog and an exhibit about the pioneering work of Leon Theremin. The 23rd will be the soft opening of the museum, with a grand opening event set for Professor Theremin's birthday in August. Go to calendar.theremin30.com and follow the links for more details on all of these events and many more. And if you have an event you would like to put on the calendar, send in all the details using the contact form on Theremin30.com. One of the events on this month's calendar is a May 12th performance by Duet for Theremin and Lap Steel. I recently got to meet thereminist Scott Burland. Here's a track that he and bandmate Frank Schultz were kind enough to send me to play on the podcast. It's called Serpentariae.


Rick Reid 15:32  

There's more music to come on the Theremin 30 podcast and I'll visit with Jason Barile, the founder of ThereminWorld.com. So stay tuned.


Rick Reid 16:10  

Remember, you can find links to all of the artists featured on this podcast at Theremin30.com. And be sure to subscribe to Theremin 30 on Stitcher or wherever else you get your podcasts. Let's get back into the music now with Modersohn-Becker, one of several aliases used by London UK artist and musician Greta Pistacecci. This track is called "Not" from her Wrong album.


Rick Reid 19:02

My special guest this month is Jason Barile, founder of ThereminWorld.com. I caught up with him during Moogfest in Durham, North Carolina. Thanks, Jason, for being on Theremin 30.

Jason Barile 19:15

Well, thanks, Rick. This is great opportunity. I really appreciate you having me on the show.


Rick Reid 19:20  

To start out with for people who haven't seen your website give us a basic overview of what it is and how people use it.


Jason Barile 19:27  

Theremin World is the website. It's a community for theremin players and theremin builders from all over the world. We have forums where people trade ideas for how to play the theremin, which theremins they like and don't like, how to build theremin circuits. There's been a lot of debate over the years of various types of circuit design for theremins and it's been fascinating to watch the evolution of that. And it's a great place to come and hear some theremin music and discover theremin artists you might not have heard of.


Rick Reid 19:52  

So how did you personally get involved and interested in theremin?


Jason Barile 19:55  

When I was in college, I had very little spending money. So I volunteered for the concert committee, which was a group of students who basically provided free roadie services when bands would come to perform. And as a thank you for working, they let us get into all the shows for free. And so I was at a show, I think it was for They Might Be Giants and the band Pere Ubu opened. Because I got in free, it was general admission, I was on the front row. And they held a theremin up over the front row so we could interact with it and play with it during one of the songs. I was fascinated. I was instantly captivated. And thought I don't know what that is, kind of looks like they built it themselves. So I want to learn how to build one of those myself. And then I started asking around and did a little bit of research and started finding schematics in our school library. And right around that time Leon Theremin passed away. And there was a story on NPR., My parents heard that and called me and said, Oh, you should check this thing out. And they gave me a little bit of information that I hadn't heard as well. And around the same time, the World Wide Web became available to students there. And so I set up a little homepage, it was a little single website called the Theremin Homepage. And it ran out of my student account, and it started getting discovered. I'm not even sure how people found it. I think eventually I listed it in Yahoo back when Yahoo was run out of a student account at Stanford. People started sending me schematics. The fax machine in the grad student lab I worked in would suddenly just start spitting out their own schematics randomly at some points. So I would scan those in and put those on the website. And then the school invited Bob Moog, actually, to come and do a presentation, talk about the theremin and show the documentary. And I got to talk with him a little bit. And he also invited me out to his workshop in Asheville and gave me some theremin schematics to share as well. And it's really just kind of grown over the years from that. It's been a long obsession.


Rick Reid 21:42  

Now, weren't you involved in some sort of robot theremin project?


Jason Barile 21:47  

Yes. When I was in graduate school, I did an electrical engineering degree and worked in a robotics lab. And the robots we were building were intended to help people with disabilities to feed themselves. And so we had video cameras. And we had these to look at a person and try to find their face and put a spoonful of soup in their mouth. But because robots can be, you know, scary and strong, we were using these special robots that had rubber actuators that kind of worked like muscles in pairs. Turned out they were really, really hard to control because they would oscillate back and forth as the rubber bounced. And it wasn't me but one of my co-workers in the grad student lab had the great idea to make it play the theremin because he knew I was obsessed with them. But we realized that it kind of looked like the robot was trying to play vibrato, and it was wiggling back and forth. And so we wrote a little bit of software and connected it to a MIDI keyboard. So you can play a note and then the theremin would play the right note. And then we also made it able to listen to a sound and mimic that sound. So you could sing into a microphone and it would play that same note, which was really fun. I wish we still had it.


Rick Reid 22:44  

Being in charge of that website, which I would say is probably the most visited theremin website in the English language, which is my hunch, how has it affected you as a musician and creative person?


Jason Barile 22:56 

For me, it's really opened a lot of doors. I've gotten to meet so many incredibly cool and interesting people from all over the world. People that you know, I probably never would have had a chance to interact with before and everybody brings something different to the theremin conversation even for such an elegantly simple instrument. There's still so many unique ways of playing it and types of music you can make with it that everybody has been really fascinating to learn from. So it's been a great opportunity.


Rick Reid 23:23  

So over those years, do you think the instrument has gotten out of its sort of novelty reputation to be a more accepted instrument in the general music community?


Jason Barile 23:34  

it is certainly more accepted than when I first kind of learned about it. I think it does still have a novelty appeal to a lot of people. I think a lot of people just like to kind of wave their hands and add some echo and effects and you know, make some noise with it. And it's a fun instrument to watch somebody play. I think that's a very valid use of the theremin for entertainment. But I think what's been truly amazing is to see some really incredible performers start to grow and find their own way of playing the theremin and find their niche within the various musical genres out there. People like Thorwald Jørgensen or Gregoire Blanc have started to do things with the theremin that we thought maybe only Clara Rockmore could do. And so it's been great.


Rick Reid 24:14  

Right now we're having this sort of unofficial 100th anniversary of the theremin. And are we going to see more events?


Jason Barile 24:21  

Yes, we are actually in the works of creating a common section on the site where people could list events. We'll have a common hashtag, I think everybody will be using #theremin100 to try to spread the word. There will be events all over the world. We'll start to see more and more announced in probably later this year. There's a little bit of uncertainty about when the theremin was actually invented. The book by Dr. Albert Glinski says that it was in spring of 1920. And there's been some additional research that suggests maybe the inspiration or the original project happened a few months before that in late 1919. So we're really treating the next year-and-a-half, two-year period as the 100th anniversary, which is great because that just means more theremin events for everybody.


Rick Reid 25:07  

It's kind of like how we celebrate Leon Theremin's birthday twice.. every year. 


Jason Barile 25:10

Exactly. Exactly.


Rick Reid 25:12

Remind people of how they can find your website. 


Jason Barile 25:15

Just go to www.ThereminWorld.com. you can read all of the content, read the forums without signing in, but you're welcome to create a free account as well if you want to participate in the global theremin conversation.


Rick Reid 25:27  

Great. Thank you. Let's finish this month's podcast with music from an artist I got to meet and hear performed during my trip to Durham from Nashville Tennessee This is Shueh-Li Ong with a track called "My Summertime Dreams."


Rick Reid 29:06  

I want to express my thanks to all of the musicians who provided music for this episode. You can find out more about them by following the links at Theremin30.com. And be sure to subscribe to Theremin 30 wherever you get your podcasts. In the June episode, I'll be featuring the music of Thorwald Jørgensen and Eric Ross. And I'm planning to have Eric on the show to talk about his 1991 meeting with Professor Theremin. So that's a show you won't want to miss. And finally, if you have a recording of your own original theremin music that you would like me to play on the show, please send it in. I'd like to feature as many thereminists from around the world as I possibly can. You can find all the details on the website. I'm your host, Rick Reid, thank you for tuning in.


David Brower 29:50

You've been listening to the Theremin 30 podcast. Visit Theremin 30 on the web at Theremin30.com.




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