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​I own two Theremins, both Moog Etherwaves. One was bought in the ‘90s when the Moog Company was called Big Briar. The other is a new deluxe model, featuring several modern upgrades. What follows is a comparison of the two instruments, and the results might surprise you.

First of all, let’s consider the new Theremin. With its natural wood colored body, it is a beautiful thing to behold. It also boasts a lot of bells and whistles that the older one doesn’t. Such as:

1. A headphone out so that you can play it at all hours.
2. A mute button which is helpful if you need to leave the instrument for a moment without it making any noise.
3. The antennae attach merely by pushing them into their respective holes, and detach with a simple pull, making for a much easier and quicker set up and take down when compared to the old model (you had to screw and unscrew the poles).

Everything is streamlined with the new model, so that playing it, setting it up, etc. is much more convenient. But convenience isn’t everything. Not at all.

So now, let me tell you about my old Theremin.

I do not know the exact year that I bought the Big Briar Etherwave—but 1998 is a good guess. I played the hell out of that thing. I played it at home, in clubs, in concert halls, in recording studios and even on the streets. That’s right, I busked with my Theremin after having it adapted to run on batteries. The thing was a war horse through and through. One time at an outdoor gig, a dog bounded onto the stage and knocked it over—microphone stand and all. The only damage was that the threads on the flange that attached the instrument to the mic stand were stripped. It was a twenty-dollar fix.
I loved that Theremin, but this year it finally gave up the ghost. I’ve been playing Theremin for nearly thirty years, and this was the only one I’d ever owned. It felt like time for an upgrade, and the latest model Etherwave seemed like a logical choice.
As mentioned earlier, the new additions make things easier for the player in a lot of ways, but where it falls short is the actual playing. For starters, if you touch the volume antennae you often get a sharp popping sound, and if you’ve ever played a Theremin you know that any false move or false noise can totally ruin a melody or immediately ruin a vibe. A quick web search shows that a lot of people have had this problem. There are hacks that can fix it, but I think it is pretty lousy to have to make an alteration to a new instrument. As it turns out, though, the new Etherwaves are all about modifications.

One of the other big differences between the older and newer Moogs is that the new one has a “calibration access panel” on the top. It is a strip of plastic that you can remove so that you can adjust trim pots that alter the range of your instrument in terms of pitch and volume alike using a tool that comes with the instrument. The front panel has knobs that do the same thing, and the calibration access panel is supposed to be for advanced users who really want to fine tune things. What I’m finding is that the knobs on the front panel—which were perfectly adequate on the old model—don’t seem to work as expected. So, at some point, I’ll need to pry off the panel and start tweaking. That’s not how I want to spend my time, but here is why it is absolutely necessary that I do so.

First off is the Zero Beat (the distance away from the pitch antennae at which the sound cuts off), which is sometimes nonexistent. You can walk all the way across the room and the Theremin will still produce a pitch. When the zero beat is present, another problem arises, which is a residual sound that continues after the player has gone past the zero beat, at which point the pitch begins to go higher and continues to raise the farther you get from the antennae—so in essence it is the opposite of how a Theremin is supposed to be played. It is super annoying. I’ve had students who actually wanted to learn to play the instrument backwards because the range was so much greater.
The second reason that I will have to get inside and tinker with my Theremin is volume. As is, my instrument is so loud, that it makes the speakers on my DAW monitors buzz. Same with my headphones, same with the speakers on two different amplifiers. I’m afraid I’m going to fry the cone. So why don’t I just turn the Theremin down? BECAUSE I CANT! That’s right. THERE IS NO VOLUME KNOB on the new Etherwave Theremin. Instead there is a “Volume Range knob” that adjusts the sensitivity of the volume antennae but doesn’t actually control how loud or soft the instrument is. This is my biggest beef with the new instrument. Volume is super important to the way I play. The more ways you can control it the better and there is no matter how close I get to the volume antennae this instrument is too loud.

The final complaint I have with this instrument is how finicky it is in terms of where it is plugged in. It is commonly known amongst Theremin players that the range of the instrument changes whenever you plug the instrument in to a different socket, and that things can change even more if you move the Theremin to a new location (like the club where you’re doing a gig vs. your home). This is not a problem unique to the new Etherwave—the old one did it too. But the changes are extreme with the new model. At the school where I teach music, the instrument is pretty much unplayable. The range is only a few inches with the residual sound I was describing earlier ranging much farther. The zero beat comes and goes at random.
If I had it all to do over again, I would have gotten the old Theremin repaired, and then checked to see if any of the new conveniences that the new model boasts could have been added (I’m lucky enough to know someone who could actually make those alterations), then spent the seven hundred bucks tricking out the Big Briar. At this point, I’ll have to step out of my comfort zone and start adjusting the instrument to get it working the way I need.

Oddly enough, it seems that most of the places that used to sell etherwaves are now out of stock. It isn’t clear from the Moog website whether they are still being produced or not. Perhaps Moog are taking a step back and rethinking their design. Let’s hope so.
 

Although widely considered a disappointment, I found a lot to like about the Disney reboot of Snow White. Overall, the film had more strengths than weaknesses, but the weaknesses hit pretty hard.

Rachel Zegler was a delightful Snow White. She brought a great energy to the role and managed the persona of the classic princess without being pandering or overblown. She looked great and sounded great. I think she gives the animated princess a run for her money. In fact, I think she wins.

To me, something that can make a film great is the ability for the writers and cast to allow the audience to feel like they really get to know minor characters––some of which have only a few lines. Snow White does this masterfully with several lesser players, but it is most evident with the Dwarves––each of whom is given enough room to display the personality that aligns with their namesake. Additionally, the dwarves are just cool looking with their bulbous noses and colorful costumes. The CGI animals were similarly defined and equally appealing visually. It’s like having a movie starring stuffed animals. They’re just adorable really.

The plot of the movie succeeded masterfully in riding the thin line on which it had to stay true to the story’s roots, while still offering a different direction. I found the new twists just surprising enough, but I won’t say any more about this as I’m not one for spoilers.

It is worth mentioning that the film is politically charged with a fairly heavy-handed message of equality and fairness, especially coming from positions of power. One can only hope that the Evil Queen’s takeover of The Good King’s realm won’t be mirrored in the contemporary U.S., although it won’t be from lack of effort by the Trump administration. Rachel Zegler’s outspoken personal politics have tanked the film in online reviews. MAGA trolls from far and wide have trashed it––in all likelihood without having seen it. But, honestly, the obvious effort on Disney's part to include people of color (chief among them, Zegler, who is half Colombian, which isn’t white enough for some people) would have sent them to their screens and keyboards with rants of poorly worded vitriol anyway. And speaking of Zegler being outspoken, she also had a lot to say about gender roles in the original film, which infuriated many Disney purists. To be honest, I haven’t seen the original since I was a kid, but at this point, it is nearly ninety years old, and I just can’t see how anyone could be surprised that it might need a little touching up in terms of how women are portrayed. It makes me wonder if, back in 1937 when the original came out, there were fairy tale purists who were upset that Disney aged up the heroine from the Grimm’s tale, where she was only seven, or that they omitted the queen’s gruesome punishment—being forced to wear iron shoes heated by hot coals and dance until she died. Lastly, those who say that Zegler’s career is taking a hit (from comments on a Yahoo Entertainment article: "12 months, she will be on OnlyFans in a Snow White outfit, that's about the only gig she can land now") and condemn her feminist stance might want to look at what happened to Adriana Caselotti, the voice of Snow White in the earlier film.

The new songs in this film have promising titles and premises: "Waiting on a Wish," "Princess Problems," "All Is Fair (When You’re the Fairest of All)." They suggest a modern aesthetic with snappy wordplay, but unfortunately, they fall far short of any potential that the titles insinuate. To be blunt, the songs contributed to the film by the writing team Pasek and Paul are abysmal. They consist of do-nothing melodies, overblown arrangements, and lyrics that fail to be cute, relevant, or anything at all. These shortcomings are never more obvious than when standards from the original film, "Whistle While You Work" and "Heigh-Ho" (even with their unnecessary updated lyrics), are performed, giving the listener an apples-to-apples comparison. The older songs are zippy, lighthearted children’s songs, while the new ones are smarmy, middle-of-the-road trash ballads. The songs don’t do justice to Zegler’s voice and are not a match for her talent. By contrast, Gal Gadot’s horrid auto-tuned vocals are a perfect match for the soulless fluff that permeates the soundtrack (side note: other than Gadot’s questionable singing, she is pretty much fantastic).

​In the end, I enjoyed the film. It is way better than the catastrophic attempt to modernize Mary Poppins that came a few years ago. Blaming Rachel Zegler’s culturally divisive social media posts for the film not being the mega-blockbuster it was predicted to be is unfair. Her performance was fantastic. If there’s any one thing to blame for Snow White’s box office failure and overall weakness, it is the tunes––plain and simple.

I wish they'd included this song:

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