For Caroline Scruggs, playing the theremin means embracing imperfection, embracing humanity and, most of all, embracing weirdness.
“I love that it feels like a little angelic or ethereal or alien-esque kind of weird part of me, you know? It’s like that second voice that’s that little weird character that I get to have along in my music with me,” Scruggs said.
One of the world’s first electronic instruments, the theremin was born of modern technology in the early decades of the 20th century and quickly became famous as the ineffable voice of outer space in countless sci-fi film scores.
While in central Ohio recently to give the world premiere of Linda Kernohan’s Concerto for Theremin and Chamber Orchestra with the Central Ohio Symphony, the Virginia-based Scruggs stopped by the WOSU headquarters to perform a classic song on the instrument she calls her “second voice.”
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Scruggs and I also had a conversation about the theremin – its history, the immense technical challenges the instrument poses those who play it and the element of chance involved in playing the instrument which Scruggs describes as the theremin’s “deep humanity.”
While the theremin might sound like the theme music for an alien invasion, how the instrument makes its extraterrestrial sound is even stranger. A box full of wires releases into thin air an electromagnetic field through two antennas.
The player creates musical sounds by manipulating the electromagnetic waves by moving his or her hands closer to or farther away from the antennas. There’s no fingerboard, there are no frets. The electromagnetic waves are invisible, and you can’t feel them. That means that there’s a lot of guesswork involved in playing the instrument.
That guesswork, Scruggs says, can yield some happy accidents that bring out the theremin’s human side.
“One of the most magical things to me about that is it’s not a digital instrument … and yet it is still so human. You can hear the humanity in it every time I don’t quite get that note,” Scruggs said. “And I think that makes it even more beautiful.”
Transcript of interview:
Jennifer Hambrick: I’m speaking with thereminist Caroline Scruggs. Thank you so much for coming in today, Caroline.
Caroline Scruggs: Thank you for having me. I’m excited to be here.
Jennifer Hambrick: You’re a classically trained violinist, you’re a classically trained soprano and you have mentioned that you really consider the theremin to be kind of a second voice. Could you talk a little bit about what that’s like for you, I guess, as a musician.
Caroline Scruggs: Yes, Yes. Absolutely. Yeah. So, I’ve always kind of considered myself first and foremost a singer, as a musician. Started playing music when I was five but didn’t start singing, really, until I was 16, and then that was it. I was hooked. I was a singer. And I always wanted an instrument, too, but it wasn’t until after music school, like you said, that I kind of stumbled upon the theremin, and I said, “Ah, this is my instrument.” And lucky for me, it’s basically a second voice.
And what that really means to me, I think, is that the fact that there is nothing physical to put your hands on to play it, the fact that it is fully your body, of course along with the instrument itself, but you’re just moving your body in relation to the instrument. And it takes a heck of a good ear to be able to play this instrument, just as it takes a good ear to sing.
Also, the fact that it is so intuitive, like, how you move your body you can’t quite put your finger on – literally and otherwise – on that note. You really just have to feel it and move into it, like you would a note with your voice. And so, the correlation there just completely enamored me. And I love that it feels like a little angelic or ethereal or alien-esque kind of weird part of me, you know? It’s like that second voice that’s that little weird character that I get to have along in my music with me, as well.
Jennifer Hambrick: Like an alter ego.
Caroline Scruggs: Like an alter ego, exactly. Yeah. I would definitely say that’s right.
Jennifer Hambrick: Yeah. You mentioned the sort of outer space kind of aura – I’ll use that word – of the theremin, and the theremin was born of this scientific and technological experimentation – research, I’ll say – in the early decades of the 20th century. But it quickly made its way into sci-fi films. And now, I think where people hear the theremin first, even if they’re not aware it’s a theremin, is in a sci-fi film score, very often.
Caroline Scruggs: Absolutely.
Jennifer Hambrick: But that means that maybe the theremin as an instrument is sort of viewed in a particular way. Is it viewed still as sort of a novelty instrument?
Caroline Scruggs: I think you’re spot on in that it is viewed as a novelty instrument by most who even know what it is, or who are familiar with its sound. And I think that that is such a beautiful opportunity for we who have taken the time to learn the theremin and who are really enamored by its possibilities.
The possibilities of sound created with this instrument are really just endless. One of the most magical things to me about that is it’s not a digital instrument. It’s still quite analog in the fact that I have to learn it, I have to take the time, I have to take hundreds of hours of practice for it to not sound really bad. And yet it is still so human.
You can hear the humanity in it every time I don’t quite get that note. And I think that makes it even more beautiful, like its imperfections in a modern world where everything is just a little bit too sickly perfect, and digitization has just made everything that sickly kind of perfect, this is a beautiful instrument that shows that very human imperfection side of music.
And to me, I see it as this beautiful marriage of, like, electronic music and acoustic. Like, the best of both worlds, creating this really interesting little voice, you know, that has so much possibility. And yeah, it’s just one of my greatest joys to be able to play it and share it with people.
Jennifer Hambrick: So, when you tell people you’re a musician, when people say, “Nice to meet you, Caroline. What do you do?” Oh, I’m a musician.” “What instrument do you play?” “Oh, I play the theremin.”
Caroline Scruggs: What happens?
Jennifer Hambrick: What happens, yeah.
Caroline Scruggs: It’s like half and half. If people know it, they’re like, “Oh, no way,” and the other half of people are just completely blank faces, you know. But they are so enamored, if they want me to expound and I do expound, it just takes everyone aback – which is another cool thing about this. I mean, obviously, I could talk about the theremin all day, but just to have something in this day and age when we have everything thrown at us, where I can play my instrument and with one note that soars into the air, I can have a room of people stop what they’re doing and look and be like, “What is that? Like, that sounds otherworldly.
That doesn’t sound like anything I’ve ever heard before.” To be able to get people to pay attention to that one thing just for, you know, longer than 30 seconds. Oh my gosh. It’s kind of, like, radical these days, you know?
Jennifer Hambrick: Another thing that really kind of makes me stop and think is that the theremin – I think theremin patented it sometime in the early 1920s, maybe even in 1920, something around there.
Caroline Scruggs: Yes.
Jennifer Hambrick: So really, the instrument’s only about a hundred or so years old. Now on the one hand it’s a hundred years old. But on the other hand, when you’re comparing the instrument to, say, a violin, which, you know, there are violinists who play Guarneri and Stradivari instruments that were built in the 1700s, late 1600s.
But what’s so interesting is that we have this relatively young instrument that’s born of kind of at the time very new technology that has all of this humanity, but it also has all of this technical thrust behind it. I mean, it’s just a really rich thing to play, I would have to imagine.
Caroline Scruggs: Truly.
Jennifer Hambrick: And there is a bit of a repertoire for theremin, but it’s not huge.
Caroline Scruggs: Mmm. So, I’m a singer-songwriter. I compose with the theremin a good amount. My own album just released in June of this past year, and it’s on all the streaming platforms. So, you can go listen to the theremin in singer-songwriter-land, which is very interesting.
And I’m actually already working with another composer right now on a new piece of new music for the theremin. So people are reaching out, and I’m always open to collaboration and I’m always getting my hands into new projects and new compositions and – yeah, the possibilities are definitely endless.
Jennifer Hambrick: I’ve been speaking with therminist, singer and songwriter Caroline Scruggs. Thank you so much, again, for your time.
Caroline Scruggs: Oh, my gosh, it’s been a pleasure. Thank you.
