You may not know the name, but you'd recognize the sound: that spooky electronic music that's was a staple of science fiction movies. It comes a from the theremin, an instrument invented by a Soviet scientist in the 1920s, and has had a mixed reputation among serious musicians. But for one man in St. Johnsbury, Vermont, the theremin is makes music worthy of respect. He explains his devotion to the instrument which he taught himself to play to VPR's Steve Zind.
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Piece Description
You may not know the name, but you'd recognize the sound: that spooky electronic music that's was a staple of science fiction movies. It comes a from the theremin, an instrument invented by a Soviet scientist in the 1920s, and has had a mixed reputation among serious musicians. But for one man in St. Johnsbury, Vermont, the theremin is makes music worthy of respect. He explains his devotion to the instrument which he taught himself to play to VPR's Steve Zind.
Transcript
(Host) In 1922, Soviet scientist Leon Theremin gave a demonstration at the Kremlin for an audience that included Vladimir Lenin. It involved a new electronic musical instrument that Theremin had named after himself.
Nearly a century after its invention, the theremin still seems as novel as it did back then, and few people think of it as a serious musical instrument. But a St. Johnsbury, Vermont, man who’s a self-taught theremin player thinks the instrument deserves some respect.
VPR’s Steve Zind reports
(Zind) Its spelled T-H-E-R-E-M-I-N. Maybe you haven’t heard the word, but there’s a good chance you’ve heard the instrument. Kevin Colosa is a theremin player – and a student of its history.
(Colosa) “This is the theremin that most people have heard and will say, ‘Oh yes! I know what that instrument is, I’ve heard that a hundred times!”
(Zind) In the 1950s and ‘60s the ther...
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