Trip to the Tank Center for the Sonic Arts

Sun rises over The Tank

On 5/31/2017, I had a great opportunity to record music on my theremin at the Tank Center for the Sonic Arts in Rangely, Colorado. The Tank is an empty water tank that is a delightful space full of rich reverberations. The web site for the Tank is at tanksounds.org, with a great description of it at tanksounds.org/the-tank/.

I was a guinea pig for testing new recording equipment there at the Tank. What a pleasure!

For each clip or song that I recorded, I came away with 4 microphone tracks, called Side, Mid, DPA1 and DPA2. Side and Mid were near my small amplifier and DPA 1 and 2 were up high to catch all the reverberations. Those last 2 were my favorites, and matched how things sounded to me while I was playing. Part of my problem with the Side and Mid microphones were because, let’s face it, my theremin is a little harsh sounding for now. That's the next problem to solve.

This piece is a blend of 3 sessions- One walking around the tank with a small kalimba, aka finger piano, playing a figure every 15 seconds or so. One consisted of a track of rumbling sounds made in the lower registers of my theremin. I considered that track to be a sort of drone. The third was an improvised song on the theremin using its string-like voice. I cut drone track in two to fit everything in and make the rumblings happen more thickly. In this piece the tracks are not cut up at all, except for cutting the drone track in two. The volume of the drone and kalimba is adjusted here and there to provide the best accompaniment.

This piece is a blend of an improvised song on the theremin using its flute-like voice, paired with the "drone" track of theremin low rumblings. In this case I did cut up the drone track, moving the sound sections closer together and deciding carefully where each would start. There's a little bit of voice at the end of the second song that wasn't planned, but I liked its sound so much I put it back in. There are so many reverberations in the tank, that voice at any distance, as this was, becomes indistinct and abstract. That little bit of abstract speaking voice has given me an idea of the next tank piece I want to do.

Ann on theremin, Sammi singing

Duets with Sammi Wade

There were some lovely and fun duet sessions with Sammi Wade singing and me playing theremin. Here are two songs:

Sammi and Ann One (3:22)

Sammi and Ann Two (5:24)