The Steel Guitar Forum

This past weekend I took one my daughters to a children's concert at Lincoln Center here in NYC. Called the Silk Road Project, its a pet of the cellist YoYo Ma and features instruments native to Asia played along with a full orchestra (this daughter is adopted from China and I try to keep her sense of culture strong). I listened to a demonstration of an instrument called the Zheng which in some ways is like the PSG but IMHO, seems more difficult to play. Its an acoustic instrument, obviously, and is about 6 feet long, horizontal, and has 21 strings with no tuning keys. Instead, it is tuned by individual bridges under each string placed somwhere inbetween the two fixed end points. Its played with the left hand on one side of the bridge and the right on the other. The left hand pushes the string down like our pedals and knee levers. It was amazing to see. I had a chance to speak with the woman playing it and their finger pick arrangement is interesting. They use pieces of plastic shaped like a canine tooth taped to their fingers with First aid tape, and the thumb pick is parallel to the thumb, not perpendicular like ours. She was fascinated by our concept of thimbpick design. wish I'd had one on me for her to try. Anyway, you might find it interesting to see and hear one at http://www.philmultic.com/guzheng/

Oh bugger... only that one! <g>
I thought you were going top talk about a Theremin!
I tried one once-- a REAL one with the big "RCA" and the lightning bolt on the front.
Whoo!! What a bunch of coordination!

JW

I have played both. The theramin seemd easy compared to the chinese zither / dulcimer described. And american hammer dulcimer is actually harder to set up than the chinese version. More strings and unison tempering needed by far. I have seen this used on 128 beat indian ragas and it is impressive beyond words.
But the chinese version is a lovely instrument and not as hard to make "music" on as it appears. It's the left hand bends AND the traditional chinese melodic note bend choices that's the rub.<FONT SIZE=1 COLOR="#8e236b"><p align=CENTER>[This message was edited by David L. Donald on 11 March 2003 at 03:05 AM.]</p></FONT>

In the 70s I got the bug to study koto, a better-known relative of the zheng. (Korean equivalent is, I believe, the wa-gon).

I bought a koto and took lessons in downtown LA for a while. Like the zheng, the koto's string pitches are changed by pushing down (strongly yet carefully) on the string the other side of the movable bridge.

You can also put a nice vibrato on a plucked string by rocking the string a bit with the left hand.

Tunings vary: often pentatonic minor or major. The music is written in a vertical tablature system: Each bar is enclosed in a box. Strings are numbered, and there are symbols for whole notes, half notes, special effects, etc.

There is also a bass koto!

The instrument is gorgeous: pawlonia wood, with 13 nylon strings. Strings run over a bit of shark skin between them and the soft wood body. Finger picks are plastic rectangles inserted into dog skin (really) rings and glued.

FWIW, I cut a couple of tracks on Loggins and Messina's "Mother Lode" album. My fellow student, June, stills plays in "Hiroshima."

My koto is in storage now, but if I get a better place I'd like to set it up and play it.

Quite a pair, pedal steel and koto.

Chris


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now living in the Ocean State ....

<FONT SIZE=1 COLOR="#8e236b"><p align=CENTER>[This message was edited by Chris Brooks on 13 March 2003 at 07:43 AM.]</p></FONT>

Chris How funny this is... I just ordered Mother Lode on Amazon yesterday. It was one of my absolute favorite albums for a long long time.
I had to have it on CD, because it started running around in my head in the car all week out of the blue. And I haven't heard it in 10 years and realised I really missed it!

I was very sad when that band broke up. Like Watching The River Run....
into a hole in the ground and dry up.
I am sure I was a bit koto-tonic for few days when I heard that! What is Jim Messine up to these days? I haven't heard about him in too long.<FONT SIZE=1 COLOR="#8e236b"><p align=CENTER>[This message was edited by David L. Donald on 13 March 2003 at 12:40 PM.]</p></FONT>

Winnie or David,
could you please explain what a theremin is and how it is being played? I have heard the term before but really have no idea what kind of instrument it is.

Thanks, Joe H.

Hi Winnie I actually have your book open next to me at the moment... love the suit on page 16!! And the good PSG advice throughout too!

My friend on Cape Cod built a theramin about 1967 and one day we had it through an old Community fiberglass horn and a 60 watt tube amp aimed across Buzzrds Bay... nice and directional.

Later we saw a complaint filed in the newspaper police reports about the four towns 8 miles across the bay calling all the towns on our side, because they had 50-60 calls from residents asking about martians, and airforce space tests, and this SOUND from the water...

They never were able to figure it out LOL.<FONT SIZE=1 COLOR="#8e236b"><p align=CENTER>[This message was edited by David L. Donald on 13 March 2003 at 12:38 PM.]</p></FONT>

AH ok. if memory serves...
It is a precursor of the analog synthesiser. it is from the 20's or 30's A by-product of electronic research. I wouldn't want to bet that Nikola Tesla didn't have one working before WWI.

It basically had a tone occilator circuit and 2 metal plates that were reactive to your hands capacitances in the air.

One hand held above one plate created a volume level; closer louder /farther quieter.
The other a pitch control; closer higher / farther lower.
Usually with some pots to tune in the sensitivity to your body moisture and the air.

By moving your hands a up and down you could make a form of music.
It is best know as the OOO0weeeeooooAaaa sound of Ed Wood style sci-fi movies and Buck Rogers. Hollywood loved it because it did strange sounds no one had ever heard.

Good clean fun for teenagers on the 60's!<FONT SIZE=1 COLOR="#8e236b"><p align=CENTER>[This message was edited by David L. Donald on 13 March 2003 at 12:43 PM.]</p></FONT>

Hello Jan, I really appreciate you sharing
this unique instrument I played the sound byte on it and really liked it, I have always
liked this instrument over steel, and wish I could learn to play one someday, now I don`t mean to critisize the steel I love the steel
quite well, but the this instrument is a favorite, wish she could come to our international steel guitar convention and perform, that would be a treat. Steveb

I know of a couple of guys who tried to build theremins after the Beach Boys came out with "Good Vibrations". The theremin was the instrument (?) used to produce the "oo-wee-ooh" sounds.

Mike

The clip I listened to was very peaceful and conducive to relaxation; I may just order a CD.

One wonders, though, do (non-) pedal zhengers worry about their instrument being stereotyped by that wonky Chinese fishing music?

<font size=-2><i>[Drifts away to brew up a pot of green tea.]

Hi Dave,

Glad someone else has Mother Lode besides me! (Actually I bought one this fall here in Providence at a local antiques store)

I don't know what Jimmy Messina is doing these days but if I had his royalties I wouldn't be worrying.

It was a fun session to do. I was friends and neighbor of Merle Brigante, the drummer. He and another sideman were at my house one day and listened to me practice, then suggested that it might go well on the album.

I went up to the ranch in Ojai, stayed for a few days (each band member had a cabin) and cut the tracks in that peaceful, orange-fragrant environment.

Victor Feldman and John Belizikian (sp?) were there too, so we hung out together.

David, BTW, where are you in France? I have a friend in Amiens who I visit from time to time. Are you in the north?

Salut,

Chris

Speaking of the Therimen, it turns out that the inventor, Leon Therimen was actually a KGB agent. He was a soviet spy specialising in electronic bugging. Among his many accomplishments, he designed the system whereby the American embassy in Moscow was bugged. After he came to America, where he was the darling of the avant garde classical music crowd, his real job was espionage and he used his celebraty to get as many state secrets as possible and pass them on the the Russians.

I am not joking. This really happened.

Inventing the instrument was only a side trip for him. I find it interesting that the country he spied for no longer exists, and he will always be remembered for invention the instrument rather than what he considered his "real" work.

It just proves once again that music is more important than politics.

Mike great anecdote!! Victor Theramin " official irradiator of american diplomats"..
I suppose it's a life style choice...

Chris I am glad the Mother Lode sessions were as much fun for you, as they seemed they were to me listening. I expect it any day and it goes irght in the car Cd changer. One of the nicest albums of that decade.

I am near Nimes, right on the center of the Med. coast very much south.
But I have visited the Cathedral of Amiens and viewed what is purported to be John The Baptists head. If memory serves. But who can tell with relics what the true provenance was.

I have driven around 70,000km in France sight seeing over the years, and some of it blurs a bit. I shot the last solar eclipes up near Amiens also.
I am about 4 hours drive to Crowbear's in the west by the Pair O knees<FONT SIZE=1 COLOR="#8e236b"><p align=CENTER>[This message was edited by David L. Donald on 17 March 2003 at 08:05 AM.]</p></FONT>

I wonder if you can play the Zheng with a Red Rajah bar? East meets west in microtonality!

As long as the topic has touched upon the theremin, I'll throw in my two cents. A good friend of mine, Gary Hoffman, who is also a good drummer, owned "The Theremin." His dad was Dr. Hoffman who was the one who actually played all the parts on the early sci-fi movies that the theremin was popular for. There was an extremely talented lady who was so talented on it, you'd have to hear it to believe it. She was able to play it in the symphony! But she didn't think the instrument was made to do commercial projects with. So even though Dr. Hoffman who was quite good at it, if you didn't compare him to the N.Y. master, got all the calls to create the unusal eerie sounds with it at the Hollywood studios. So the bottom line is, I played the actual theremin that was used to record all of these famous parts. I must admit though, I only played it for a total of about a half an hour, and never got even close to good at it. We had talked about playing a duet with Gary on the theremin and me on psg, but unfortunateley that never happened before he ended up selling it for a good chunk of cash, that he needed. -- Marc

Well, WHAT a Theramin is has been answered.
There was a short movie (about an hour) about the theramin and the inventor. I have it on video, and I'm sure it's available in the USA. It has some great interviews.
The lady who played was *Clara Rockmore* a student of Theramins. Her playing is magnicent-- like a beautiful voice.
I'm not sure Theramin was a spy. He was in NYC in the 1920s and disappeared. Foplks thought he was kidnapped by the Russians.
Then word came he was sent to some labor camp in Siberia and died.
Actually, he was working on electronic evesdropping stuff for the KGB.
Someone visting Russia in the 70's (I think) dropped his name, and someone said, "oh, I saw him last week!"
And so, he re-emerged.
The guy whyo did the film brought him to NYC when he was in his 90s, and he had a reunion with Clara Rockmore.
A very nice little film.
And an amazing instrument. Sure it goes "weooo-ooo" but getting it to actually play MUSIC is amazing.
Watching Rockmore-- her left hand (the pitch) is unbelivable-- variations just inb the movement of the fingers.

JW

{quote]I'm not sure Theramin was a spy.[/quote]

According to a recently televised biography of him, he was. The show appeared to be carefully researched and described his life in great detail.