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ABOUT

I am a trumpeter improvising with no-input mixing, trumpet (un)preparations and movement.

I am from Eau Claire, Wisconsin.
I left the USA after the invasion of Iraq in 2003.
I spent 14 years in Prague, Budapest, Bristol, Edinburgh, Osaka, Lisbon, Venice.

 

I write.
On music, sound
hearing, listening.

I draw on the trumpet as an object of war. Long before representations of heralding Angels became associated with the trumpet-object or sound-symbol, we find it in contexts of war and battle. It is a device of communicative aggression across millenia of conflict, from flugelhorns calling Prussian military flanks into battle to the the Celtic Iron Age 'carnyx' striking fear in opponents through sound and design.
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They are the sounds of change, of destabilization, of the permanent liminality of war in civilizations.
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​This use-memory rests in every brass object.
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This spirit is what I am curious to draw out of my horn.
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People gather around music like they gather around fire. We listen, we gaze. 
Making fire and making music are kindred human activities that create shared sensory collectives.
Heat and vibration, materials through which we build ourselves.
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There are two general ways I approach performing the trumpet.
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Fire - Rancor
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Wind - Falkor
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Fire is making energy.
Wind is following energy and displacing it.
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The Wind is like how one canoes by following the flow of a river in an ecological manner. 
Falkor is the Wind
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Setting fire to something unleashes uncontrollable energy.
Rancor is the Fire.

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To drive out evil, to let in divine
Ancient uses of ritual
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 The Blues
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More than a specific harmonic or melodic content, the Blues to me is about the Howl.
The inner-howl of Humanness.
Sharing your Howl is the Blues.

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My lips, my breath
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I make several types of embouchure across the entirety of my lips.
Nothing is fixed.
There is no discourse without a mouthpiece.
I am less interested in breath control and more in letting the breath control me.

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Amygdala
How do we know what we know?
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I rely on body knowledge.
Tacit knowing.
Instinct, survival.
Desire.


 



 

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