The theremin is a legendary instrument on which the performer literally “paints sound in the air.” One antenna (vertical) controls pitch based on the distance of the right hand; the other (horizontal, loop-shaped) controls volume based on the left hand.
The inventor was the physicist Léon Theremin (1896–1993). The most famous 20th-century theremin virtuoso was Clara Rockmore. The theremin sounds in classic cinema (Hitchcock's Spellbound) and in modern electronic music; the similar sound in the Beach Boys' Good Vibrations was made on Paul Tanner's Electro-Theremin, an instrument without antennas. Today young Ukrainian performers are taking up the instrument.
