Full disclosure, one of my bands has a lot of theremin in it ;)
“Eyck agrees that the sight of a human body manipulating invisible electromagnetic fields adds to the theremin’s otherworldly aura. The fact that it sounds like nothing so much as an unhinged soprano – listen again to the original Star Trek theme – adds to the unsettling effect.
“You don’t tune it to the A from the piano, but you tune it to your own body and to the surroundings,” she says, citing something called “body capacitance”. In this way the instrument is unique, “except for the voice, but that’s inside you”.
“With its sci-fi antennae bristling left and right, Russian physicist Leon Theremin’s novel invention of 1919 remains the only musical instrument you play without touching anything. “Aerial fingering” was the technique devised by the inventor’s original Lithuanian prodigy, Clara Rockmore, in the 1930s.”