Interferences

It seems most likely that Termen first noticed a new possibility to produce pitched sound while he was fixing the radio station in Detskoe Selo (near Petrograd) during the Civil War in Russia. A little while later, just after military service, Termen was hired by the Institute for Physics and Technology in Petrograd. He developed a special tool to measure the dielectric resistance of gases, based on the heterodyning principle, which could produce controllable pitched sounds in the presence of a human body. That was the final point of invention. According to the stories of witnesses the next day, Termen was already performing music with his tool. “Termen is playing a voltmeter,” his colleagues were kidding. In October 1921, Lew Termen played music on his instrument before a fascinated Lenin, who gave him support and the opportunity to travel all over Russia to promote the ideas of the “electrification” of the country. (Andre Smirnov)

05 10 2017 opening concert mir: the village and the world - an artistic discovery of the Russian village in the commemorative year of the centenary of the Russian Revolution, a project by the Austrian Cultural Forum Moscow, Ploshchad Mira Museum Centre, Krasnoyarsk