Photo courtesy Caroline Scruggs
The theremin is the world’s first electrical instrument but is played without direct contact. You’ve heard its unique voice in television and films, and Caroline Scruggs makes the gestures that causes the instrument to sing.
The theremin is not that high warbling you hear for the hook in the Beach Boys song “Good Vibrations.” That’s a different instrument called the electrotheremin. And, no, that wordless operatic melody for the original “Star Trek” series isn’t a theremin, either, but the voice of soprano Loulie Jean Norman. The theremin does feature in numerous films and television programs, including the recent “Loki” and “The Electrical Life of Louis Wain.”
In a sold-out show on March 22, Scruggs brings her theremin virtuosity to The Branch Museum of Architecture and Design as part of its “Live at The Branch” series.
“A lot of people who see me play online or out on the street who aren’t familiar with the instrument think that it’s just me humming,” Scruggs says. Perhaps a reasonable assumption to make, because the theremin doesn’t possess a keyboard, strings or valves.
So … what is it?
Russian physicist Leon Theremin devised the instrument in 1919. The box is fitted with antennae that propagate electromagnetic waves manipulated by the movement and proximity of the player that generate sound.
Theremin toured with this singing device, and he later moved to the United States, where in 1928 he patented the instrument. His life’s experiences are movie-worthy. The earliest concert-performing thereminists included the renowned Clara Rockmore and Lucie Bigelow Rosen.
Hampton Roads-based Scruggs didn’t know anything theremin-wise when in 2017 she accompanied her mother and brother to Phoenix, Arizona, and visited the Musical Instrument Museum.
“They have this wonderful room where you can try playing instruments from around the world,” she says, “and they had a Moog Etherwave. I’m a singer first and foremost, and went to music school where I heard about the theremin, but it went over my head. I realized in that moment that this is what I wanted to do: learn the theremin. I became enamored of it.”
She received her first theremin as a Christmas gift, and that propelled her to boldly go to seek out and explore, in her view, one of the most challenging instruments.
The infatuated newcomer to the guitar can practice until their fingers bleed. The theremin, however, requires a different order of intensity involving mental focus and physical dexterity.
Scuggs recalls, “I promptly began teaching myself — while sitting and standing, for hours and hours, and with great frustration — how to create the consistency of notes.”
The theremin taught her about body self-awareness, especially around an instrument that registers, as she observes, “every millimeter of movement in every millisecond. The theremin requires a tremendous amount of discipline.”
Once she became confident enough to call herself a thereminist, she collected more of the instruments, a loop station, an effects pedal “and all that jazz. I used these to build layers melding with my voice and create songs.”
She considers the theremin a second voice. The one she uses to sing comes from the body, while the theremin is a mediator and amplifier. “You have this other instrument, and the relationship between the body and the theremin creates this ethereal voice.”
Take eight minutes to view Scruggs’ June 2022 performance of Linda Kernohan’s Theremin Concerto with the Central Ohio Symphony. More than a million people have tuned in.
I ask Scruggs whether she’s any relation to bluegrass legend and innovator Earl Scruggs. This occurs to me not only because of her surname, but a curious 1971 recording, “Earl Scruggs Performing With Family and Friends.” One track is his famous “Foggy Mountain Breakdown” accompanied by Gil Trythall on a synthesizer.
“A very few tunes on the banjo seemed to be the limit,” reminisces Earl Scruggs on the record, of his growing up playing the banjo, then regarded as a traditional instrument set in a particular genre. “I never felt that way,” he asserts. “If different types of music can be played on different types of instrument, why not a banjo? For several years it’s been on my mind, there’s been a complete new generation come along. And I’m one of them. … I didn’t want to just stick with ‘Cumberland Gap’ and ‘Cripple Creek,’ over and over and over, I enjoy doing different types of music. The further I went with it, the more satisfied I was.”
This resonated with me and Caroline Scruggs’ personal experience.
She naturally knows of the musician, but not this particular recording. And, she says, “It’s never been confirmed or denied by my family that we’re related, but my Scruggs people are from the hills of eastern Tennessee, so I think there’s a chance we are.”
Related or not, the sense of music as an adventure motivates Scruggs to make her unusual music.
“I love dance and movement,” she enthuses. “Playing the theremin is like conducting or casting a spell, or modern dance or sign language, visual and aesthetically pleasing.”
At The Branch, Caroline Scruggs will use her theremin to weave some practical magic.
