Ondes Macabres – Theremin Poster

The thereminvox, better known as the theremin, is an enormously expressive instrument capable of expressing an infinite range of emotions and moods in the hands of a thereminist worthy of the name. But in popular culture, it’s often associated with adjectives like “weird,” “eerie,” “creepy,” or “mysterious.” These adjectives do not do justice to the infinite palette of emotional states that the instrument can cover, but among these, the theremin can certainly be eerie. One reason is that the sound generated by the instrument’s circuits can, under certain circumstances, resemble the sound of a human voice. But the main reason is that the thereminvox has been used in soundtracks in dramatic films to underline situations of disorder in the mind of the protagonists, when not in horror or science fiction contexts.

Nothing wrong with that; we love the theremin for that too. And so, we decided to draw a theremin setting it in a cemetery, with a skeleton playing our beloved instrument. Is it playing a macabre dance?