The New Consonance / Urban Ugly -- theremin by Beat Frequency / photography by Highton Ridley

[organdude44]

Love your work, Gordon. You really explore the range and colors of the theremin more than anyone playing today that I've heard. I have a degree in vocal music but, who wants to hear the same old stuff over and over again? I into analog electronic music and, especially the theremin. Though I'm afraid i can't handle the legion of Clara Rockmore wannabe's!

[GordonCharlton]

Thanks, Organdude. :-)

Yeah, it didn't take me long to figure out that playing classical theremin wasn't for me, and the connection of electronic instrument to electronic music seems rather obvious, so I stopped worrying about pitch and decided to see what I could do with some simple effects instead. :-)

[organdude44]

Gordon, I downloaded your CD, The Chordless Chord, from itunes and have it on my ipod. It kills! You should check out the great Pauline Oliveros-improvised accordion with an electronic signal processing system she designed. She has a wikipedia listing with links. I think you'd find her work really interesting.

[dananedelea199]

Extremely well done, very good colab between "dark" urbanscapes and a very atmospheric music.

[Sandbagger101]

Really nicely edited - merges well and creates a lovely haunting atmosphere

really great work, thanks for sharing

(sand)

[Thereminstrel]

Excellent audio / visual combination - the two seem perfectly matched and, together, have possily greater impact than either alone. Thanks!

[gotomaria]

This is an amazing combination of photo and music. It gave me the chills. Very well done in my humble opinion. :)

[HightonRidley]

You've done a grand job on setting my essay to music - I love it Gordon!

Big pat on the back - the two media fit so well together in your composition.

[GordonCharlton]

It's easy when you've got good material to work with.

[javiz07]

Good work, Gordon... and of course: EXCELLENT images, Mark!

[yeapsystar]

Wow! This sounds cool with the LFO like effects!

I love the images too!

[GordonCharlton]

Thanks yeapsystar (and everyone that commented so far!) The effect was done by passing the audio through a pitch shifter with two outs - one of which was detuned here 25 cents sharp. When the two are combined it gives beats related to pitch - low notes get slow beats and high notes get fast beats. (I combined them with a two input ring-mod to emphasise the effect.)

Sidebar: One of Theremin's other instruments - the rhythmicon - related pitch to rhythm, so this is a new take on an old idea.

[GordonCharlton]

You can find out how Mark produced such high-contrast images here:

bit . ly/inwjq

(It's a web address. Remove the spaces on either side of the dot before use. Youtube hates proper links.)