Trimpin: on Music Appreciation
What’s music to my ears, may be noise to yours. The space between cacophony and symphony is the field in which MacArthur genius grant recipient, Trimpin, has been frolicking for a lifetime. He turns found objects into Art and that Art into music, redefining our conceptions of the discarded and the melodic while creating installations that tunefully tickle fancies.
When the inimitable Trimpin visits The High Bar he shares his love of schnapps, exhibits his gift for compositional improv and validates Warren’s tone-deaf shower-singing. Most of all, Trimpin raises a toast to and the bar for… music appreciation. Cheers!
If you’d like to learn more about Trimpin, please see Peter Esmonde‘s TRIMPIN: THE SOUND OF INVENTION
(Shot on location in The Back Bar at Bastille in Seattle, WA. Thanks to Deming, Jason and James.)
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at 1:41 am
Hey Warren: So… When do we get to hear the Tone Deaf Etheredge Choir?
at 5:32 am
I’m not sure the world is ready for that, Austen.
at 8:01 am
I’m sure Trimpin would disagree with you. He could rig you with servo-controlled mallets to persuade you! I think you need to do an episode of The High Bar as a musical.
at 3:49 pm
As long as I can approach my numbers a la Rex Harrison and just sort of speak-sing my numbers. I’d rather not humiliate myself like Pierce Brosnan in MAMMA MIA!
at 7:14 pm
I found his ideas much more relevant to sound design than music (though I can’t deny that the two are becoming intertwined). He’s clearly a remarkable thinker. Particular ideas that spoke to me were: any sound can become music, if we focus our attention to it, his experiments that bring attention to noise pollution, and his ideas about musicianship/training and proximity and enclosed spaces. And I totally relate to his thoughts about recordings. Classical/concert and jazz music is meant to be experienced acoustically and live. The only recordings that hold my attention are specifically composed and engineered for the medium (e.g. popular music and to a certain extent, film music). Of course, I’m grateful for recordings of past masters like Gould and Horowitz, otherwise, I would have had no way to experience their genius, at all.
at 10:25 pm
I can appreciate the humility, integrity and reason for not recording one’s works, but doesn’t allowing musical compositions to disappear rob future generations of grand opportunities?
at 8:58 pm
For those who enjoy Trimpin’s compositions, I urge you to check out Diego Stocco’s work on Vimeo: http://vimeo.com/29273575
Enjoy!