August 5, 2004

Dr. Paul Tanner was a special guest on a beautiful evening at the “Museum of Making Music” in the City of Carlsbad, California. This was one of the rare moments when he shared his early days of using what was referred to as “Paul’s Box “. Today most of you know it as the Electro-Theremin or Tannerin. Dr. Tanner is most recognized for his many years of trombone playing in the Glenn Miller Band and his teaching of music. He has taught over 75,000 students music and jazz in his 23 year career at UCLA. Dr. Paul Tanner built only one copy of his original theremin box. With just a few days of construction and a very minimal amount of electronic knowledge, he completed it hours before it was called into use. 

Dr. Tanner’s recollection of his relationship with Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys in the early ‘60s highlighted the evening, both of their geniuses and humor were revealed. The Beach Boys hired Paul Tanner and “Paul’s Box” for the fascinating theremin like sound in “Good Vibrations”. The normal recording session usually began after midnight at Brian's home. 

“Paul’s Box” was also used on several Hollywood productions including the 1960's TV show "My Favorite Martian", the sound of Martins antennas raising. With the synthesizer beginning to emerge, an engineer well know in the theremin community visited Paul in search of new ideas. Both agreed that "Paul's Box" was just a Tinker Toy. The time had come for “Paul’s Box” to be retired. He gave it to a hospital in Santa Monica, California where they were interested in using it for hearing tests. The box had a range of tones that would extend outside of the upper and lower limits of human hearing. Year’s later Dr. Tanner checked back with the hospital to find out what happened to “Paul’s Box”, only to find it had been destroyed in one of those California earthquakes! (Sylmar Earthquake 1971)