The first time I heard a theremin was the first time I also saw a theremin, at the house of a friend. His father was a nut for music gear, and the instrument was one of many in a cave filled with gadgets and amps, pedals and keyboards. He played it for us, and unlike any instrument I’d seen before, it required no touch. Swooping and shaking his hands above a platform, the father played a peculiar melody that sounded out of this world.

Since then, I’ve learned that the instrument holds some significance in the electronic music community. The theremin was the first mass-produced electronic instrument, and remains one of the most obscure. Its eerie sound has backed numerous sci-fi soundtracks, including The Day the Earth Stood Still, making its wavering tone synonymous with outer space and little green men.

But the theremin wouldn’t have reached the notoriety it did if not for its most famous player and proponent, Clara Rockmore. A Soviet émigré, Rockmore took to the instrument after tendinitis forced her to give up the instrument she’d played since she was a young child, the violin. Discovering that she could play the theremin without pain “was almost like marrying somebody on the rebound,” she later recounted. Executing fine vibrato, Rockmore used exacting, graceful movements to produce an all-new sound.

“I was fascinated by the aesthetic part of it, the visual beauty, the idea of playing in the air," Rockmore said.

Working closely with Leon Theremin, the creator and namesake for the instrument, Rockmore helped the inventor refine the unprecedented instrument. It clearly impressed Theremin—he asked for her hand in marriage on more than one occasion. (Rockmore declined.)

One adjustment made to the instrument was a lowering of its frontal profile, which brought the performer into better view of the audience. Because, even as I recognized when I encountered it in my adolescence, the theremin was always an instrument of spectacle—of gestural leaps like a dancer’s, at once choreographed and expressive. And as Rockmore illustrates, it was also one of fate: where her love for one form of music ended, a whole new one was born.

In this video, see Rockmore and her unique talent for yourself—and be transported.

The first time I heard a theremin was the first time I also saw a theremin, at the house of a friend. His father was a nut for music gear, and the instrument was one of many in a cave filled with gadgets and amps, pedals and keyboards. He played it for us, and unlike any instrument I’d seen before, it required no touch. Swooping and shaking his hands above a platform, the father played a peculiar melody that sounded out of this world.

Since then, I’ve learned that the instrument holds some significance in the electronic music community. The theremin was the first mass-produced electronic instrument, and remains one of the most obscure. Its eerie sound has backed numerous sci-fi soundtracks, including The Day the Earth Stood Still, making its wavering tone synonymous with outer space and little green men.

But the theremin wouldn’t have reached the notoriety it did if not for its most famous player and proponent, Clara Rockmore. A Soviet émigré, Rockmore took to the instrument after tendinitis forced her to give up the instrument she’d played since she was a young child, the violin. Discovering that she could play the theremin without pain “was almost like marrying somebody on the rebound,” she later recounted. Executing fine vibrato, Rockmore used exacting, graceful movements to produce an all-new sound.

“I was fascinated by the aesthetic part of it, the visual beauty, the idea of playing in the air," Rockmore said.

Working closely with Leon Theremin, the creator and namesake for the instrument, Rockmore helped the inventor refine the unprecedented instrument. It clearly impressed Theremin—he asked for her hand in marriage on more than one occasion. (Rockmore declined.)

One adjustment made to the instrument was a lowering of its frontal profile, which brought the performer into better view of the audience. Because, even as I recognized when I encountered it in my adolescence, the theremin was always an instrument of spectacle—of gestural leaps like a dancer’s, at once choreographed and expressive. And as Rockmore illustrates, it was also one of fate: where her love for one form of music ended, a whole new one was born.

In this video, see Rockmore and her unique talent for yourself—and be transported.