Trimpin
From Sequenza21/NetNewMusic Wiki
Trimpin (b. 1951 in Istein, Germany) is an amazing Seattle-based composer and inventor who has vastly increased the possibilities for acoustic instruments by creating machines to play them via MIDI. Although his music is computer-driven, he almost never uses electronic sounds - not because he objects to them on principle, but because he thinks that loudspeaker design, basically unchanged for 100 years, has lagged behind the rest of electronic music technology.
Growing up near the French and Swiss borders, Trimpin (who uses only his last name) was the son of a brass player, and as a child had access to old brass instruments to experiment with. He played brass instruments himself, but developed a skin allergy that made him give up playing. Trimpin's father treated him to spatial musical experiences, playing at some distance in the German woods, and young Trimpin also experimented with old radios. He studied at the University of Berlin.
In 1980 Trimpin moved to America because he needed access to old, used technological components, which were difficult to find in Europe; hearing that Seattle was a nice place, he settled there. One of his early installations was a six-story-high microtonal xylophone running through a spiral staircase in an Amsterdam theater, with computer-driven melodies ripping up and down it. Another piece was a water fountain instillation in which drops of water, timed in complex rhythmic fugues, dripped into glass receptacles. Trimpin has invented a gamelan whose iron bells are suspended in air by electronic magnets; a photo sensor prevents them from rising past a certain point, and since they don’t touch anything, once rung they will sound with a phenomenally long decay. He has invented an extra-long bass clarinet with extra keys spiraled around the instrument for a microtonal scale; this instrument requires a human to blow through the mouthpiece, while the dozens of extra keys are played via computer. In 1987 he met Conlon Nancarrow, composer of experimental player piano music, and invented a machine to convert Nancarrow's player piano rolls into MIDI information, thus saving their contents from potential deterioration and disaster. One of Nancarrow's last works was written for Trimpin's "instant prepared piano".
Trimpin has invented machines to play every instrument of the orchestra via MIDI commands. His mechanical cello can achieve virtually unnoticeable bow changes, and his MIDI timpani can be rubbed quickly by the mallet, for a timpani drone unachievable by human hands.
Trimpin's one work to use electronic sounds is one he was commissioned for, a tornado-shaped column of electric guitars called "Roots and Branches", installed in Seattle's Experience Music Project. Difficult to reach, the guitars tune themselves automatically, theit tuning pegs turned via computer whenever pitch sensors register too flat or sharp. (He has imagined a piano built on the same principle.) Beginning in July 2005, several Washington museums are engaged in a year-long survey of Trimpin's work, with installations and/or performances will occurring at the Henry Art Gallery of the University of Washington, Consolidated Works, the Frye Art Museum and Suyama Space in Seattle; the Museum of Glass in Tacoma; the Washington State University Museum of Art; and, across the border, at the Vancouver Jazz Festival.
Trimpin was the recipient of a 1997 MacArthur "Genius" Award.
