[Max Wolf]

hi
i’m a pupil in bavaria, germany and in my final year at school i have to write a scientific text about a topic that has to do with one of our specialized courses (some call it “termpaper”, in german it’s “Facharbeit”). and because i’m a musician and one of my specialized courses is physics, i have decided to take the theremin as my topic.

i’ve almost finished my text, but there remain some essential questions i have to clarify.

one of them is: which effects have different shapes of antennas? why have most theremins a stick as pitch-controlling antenna and an arc as volume-controlling antenna?

thankfully i’m looking forward to your answers!

[Thierry Frenkel]

An arc gives a greater electrical capacity and a closer elcromagnetic field, so that you need less movement in order to control volume. With lesser movement there is also less risk to disturb the pitch field.

Since one wants a extended pitch field to allow accurate playing over 5 or more octaves, an antenna in stick form is better because of its lesser capacity and the resulting bigger electromagnetic field.

If you have further technical theremin-related questions, you may send me an email on frenkel(dot)thierry(at)orange(dot)fr

I’d prefer if you write in German , since my English is very bad and I’ll be able to give better explanations in French or German.

[Author]

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