More Theremin

The stage of Manhattan's Carnegie Hall might have been set for Funnyman Joe Cook one evening last week, or it might have been a physicist's laboratory. It was crowded with odd-shaped pieces of apparatus. Wires ran over the floor. Leon Theremin, the Russian who makes music out of radio static, was back again, to demonstrate new elaborations of his stunt.

Four years have passed since Inventor Theremin astonished people by passing his hands in front of wireless antennae and producing musical sounds. He said then that his invention offered many possibilities and his new devices last week included a dance floor so rigged underneath with Theremin rods that a dancer posturing on it can provide her own accompaniment.

A lady-pupil demonstrated the dance floor, gingerly moved her arms and head to "play" the Bach-Gounod Ave Maria. Theremin's pupils performed individually, on space-controlled instruments which have a tone-quality something like a cello's, and on keyboard instruments which are in principle the same but sound more like woodwinds. Finally the pupils performed altogether, sounded not unlike a group of children, a little uncertain as to pitch, blowing on combs and tissue paper.

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