MUSIC FROM THE AIR.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVII, 30 July 1928, Page 5

MUSIC FROM THE AIR.

A NEW APPARATUS. LONDON, June S. About six months ago M. Theremin gave a demonstration of the production of “music from the ether,” a phrase that conceals one of the most significant discoveries of our time. At the Coliseum this week M. Maurice Martenot, a Paris musician and scientist, is giving a similar demonstration. There can bo no question that M. Martenot, working along somewhat similar lines to that of M. Theremin, bus gone much further towards producing perfect musical tones from what is colloquially described as “ether waves.’’ It is now possible to control these tones so us to imitate very closely the various timbres of the modern orchestral instruments. It is possible to play staccato notes, to accentuate any note or notes in a musical phrase. „ It is possible to vary the dynamic value from a very considerable “fortissimo” to the faintest whisper. Further, that while M. Theremin “played” on the air; so to speak, in this new apparatus the operator holds' a wire in his hand, and by a sort of sketch plan of a keyboard (placed, for convenience, on the floor at his feet), he can, as it- were, visualise pitch. That is to say, he can “sight” the pitch with one banc} and thus avoid playing out of tune. Both the art and the science of this form of music are in their infancy, but it. is considered that both are as certain to progress as wireless science lias progressed since those clays, not go many years ago, when Mr. Marconi was experimenting in a garden with the frame of an ordinary umbrella. M. Martenot plays a few simple old carols, waltzes, and some simple things to piano accompaniment—for at present the apparatus comes into the category of solo instruments. The effect is often beautiful