Even this modern maestro won't touch the world's weirdest instrument

Sydney Morning Herald

24-04-2025

Uncanny, spooky, weird. The theremin is a musical instrument with baggage. Depending on your vintage, it's the aliens landing in The Day The Earth Stood Still or the haunting waltz of Midsomer Murders. It's the whiplash shriek in the crazy breakdown of Whole Lotta Love, Miss Huang's instrument of choice during the camping trip in Severance or the trippy wobble in Good Vibrations. The fact that that last example isn't actually theremin but a soundalike synthesiser only illustrates how entrenched the high-pitched, wide-vibrato, 'woo-ooo' sound has become as a signifier of weirdness: a go-to vibe for the modern composer's quantum leap to Far Out.
None of this applied, mind you, to seven-year-old Carolina Eyck, studying classical violin and piano in East Germany in the '90s. The theremin in the loungeroom was just another gizmo Dad acquired for his synth band, shelved on the grounds of difficulty. 'You need to practise,' she says with impish understatement.
With its sci-fi antennae bristling left and right, Russian physicist Leon Theremin's novel invention of 1919 remains the only musical instrument you play without touching anything. 'Aerial fingering' was the technique devised by the inventor's original Lithuanian prodigy, Clara Rockmore, in the 1930s.
At the age of 16, Eyck revolutionised that method and in her 20s, she literally wrote the modern manual: The Art of Playing the Theremin. Today, widely considered the instrument's most accomplished virtuoso, she's practised in explaining its mysteries.
'I came up with the eight finger positions,' she says, snapping shapes at shoulder height with her right hand. 'A closed hand is a basic note, and then open hand is the octave …' She plays the scale as if making shadow puppets in thin air.
'In my new book that I'm releasing, hopefully soon, I expanded the whole system into 40 positions. It sounds a lot,' she says with a laugh, 'but it just makes so much sense.'
Eyck agrees that the sight of a human body manipulating invisible electromagnetic fields adds to the theremin's otherworldly aura. The fact that it sounds like nothing so much as an unhinged soprano – listen again to the original Star Trek theme – adds to the unsettling effect.
'You don't tune it to the A from the piano, but you tune it to your own body and to the surroundings,' she says, citing something called 'body capacitance'. In this way the instrument is unique, 'except for the voice, but that's inside you'.
'With the theremin, you are a part of the instrument because you're within the electromagnetic fields. I like to [say] that the theremin consists of four different parts: the theremin itself … then the electromagnetic fields … then you need a loudspeaker to create a sound, and the fourth part is your body; the player that plays it.'
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Eyck has heard the theory that the instrument is somehow more attuned to female energies. She was taught by Leon Theremin's grand-niece Lydia Kavina. Notable contemporaries include Austrian sound artist Dorit Chrysler and Iceland's Hekla Magnúsdóttir.
'There is something sensual to it,' she says, 'but there are wonderful male players as well. Like with dance or, really, any musical instrument, you just need a sense of your own body and feeling the music.'
In one of her many educational videos online, she comes close to invoking a spiritual dimension to her practice. The meditative stillness required to command the space amounts to 'being in harmony with yourself … It has helped me to become free,' she says.
'On the mental level ... when you study classical music … you have to go through exams; you are constantly judged. You can [get] very nervous on stage,' she says. 'With the theremin, I always experienced that I wasn't part of that. I had my own system. I can invent my own technique. And when I'm on stage, nobody knows what I'm doing … That gave me a lot of freedom mentally.
'Also socially, to connect with people around the world, because there were so few of us. I could go to England, and I would meet friends that I've never met because of that. And then also, while playing, I feel sort of free. Of course I need to hit the notes, but you are in space, and the balance between control and freedom is there. So those three aspects, for me, gave me freedom.'
Airborne liberty and retro-futuristic novelty are both playfully invoked in Hovercraft, a new commission by Sydney composer Holly Harrison which will make its world premiere on Eyck's tour with Richard Tognetti and the Australian Chamber Orchestra in May.
'When I'm on stage, nobody knows what I'm doing… That gave me a lot of freedom mentally.'
Carolina Eyck
'It's fairly rare, at least in this chamber classical context, to write for theremin at all, so I had to do a fair bit of investigation into how this fascinating instrument works,' Harrison says. 'There's a lot of limitations, but what I found super-fun about this commission was using those limitations to my advantage.
'The key thing is actually to treat it like voice, so I tried to weave in almost quasi-operatic elements ... but when you're writing for someone like Carolina, you're writing for a person, not just the instrument. There's not too many theremin players that have such a strong classical background.'
Eyck is delighted with the new addition to what remains a somewhat limited bespoke repertoire. 'For me, it should be either a beautiful melody that I can shape beautifully with my hands, or something that's fun to play,' she says. 'Holly Harrison's piece is both, and I'm so happy about that.'
The ACO's Theremin & Beyond program will also feature a piece from Eyck's Fantasias for Theremin and String Quartet suite, Oakunar Lynntuja (Strange Birds). Improvised in the studio over her own orchestration, it offers the theremin performer a rare opportunity to break the rule of perfect stillness.
'We're walking into a forest, dark green, and these golden creatures come and fly around us,' she says. 'I'm using effects with it, and I don't have to hit certain pitches, so it's more of a dance, a theatrical performance with the theremin.'
As long as none of these imaginary creatures make physical contact there's no cause for alarm. On the fragile instruments scale, Eyck confirms, the theremin is strictly cabin baggage. 'Yeah, for sure. I'm taking three instruments. One is analog, my Moog Etherwave Pro, and then I have a digital one for some extra sounds for Holly's piece, and then I have a small travel theremin, just in case, to feel safe. You never know with theremins.'