Hans Tammen creates sounds that have been described as an alien world
of bizarre textures and a journey through the land of unending sonic
operations. He produces rapid-fire juxtapositions of radically
contrastive and fascinating noises, with micropolyphonic timbres and
textures, aggressive sonic eruptions, but also quiet pulses and barely
audible sounds – through means of his “Endangered Guitar”
and interactive software programming, by working with the room itself,
and, as a critic observed, with his “…fingers stuck in a high voltage
outlet”. Signal To Noise called his works “…a killer tour de force of
post-everything guitar damage”, All Music Guide recommended him:
“…clearly one of the best experimental guitarists to come forward during
the 1990s.”
His numerous projects include site-specific performances and
collaborative efforts with dance, light, video, and theatre, utilizing
technology from planetarium projectors to guitar robots and disklavier pianos.
He received a Fellowship from the New York Foundation of the Arts
(NYFA) in the category Digital/Electronic Arts in 2009 for
the ”Endangered Guitar” – a hybrid guitar/software instrument used to
control interactive live sound processing.
Hans Tammen currently plays an analog modular synthesizer built around chaotic behaviors, where small changes in the settings may yield widely diverging sonic and rhythmic changes, forcing the player to constantly rethink and rearrange the music.
His THIRD EYE ORCHESTRA open form compositions for large ensembles and live sound processing, or laptop/electronic ensembles, are inspired by Earle Brown’s Available Forms, and based on numerous scored “building blocks” that are constantly rearranged when performed.
His works have been presented on festivals in the US, Canada, Mexico, Russia, India, South Africa and all over Europe. He recorded on labels such as Innova, ESP-DISK, Nur/Nicht/Nur, Creative Sources, Leo Records, Potlatch, Cadence, Clang and Hybrid.
Guitar-Controlled Live Sound Processing
The Endangered Guitar is a journey through the land of unending sonic operations, an interactive hybrid between a guitar and a computer. The software “listens” to the playing, to then determine the parameters of the live sound processing.
The guitar is the sound source, but the same sound is also used to control the software. Sounds of the guitar are processed in realtime, pitch and various other parameters of the actual playing serve as control source of the processing. Additional control sources are a proximity sensor and accelerometer data from the iPhone.
Current projects sometimes use sound input from other players to be processed, but the live sound processing is still controlled by guitar sounds.
Hans Tammen received grants and composer commissions from MAPFund, Mid-Atlantic Arts Foundation, American Music Center, Chamber Music America, New York State Council On The Arts (NYSCA), New York Foundation For The Arts (NYFA), American Composers Forum w/ Jerome Foundation, New York State Music Fund, Goethe Institute w/ Foreign Affairs Office, among others.
http://tammen.org/endangered-guitar/
Hans Tammen currently plays an analog modular synthesizer built around chaotic behaviors, where small changes in the settings may yield widely diverging sonic and rhythmic changes, forcing the player to constantly rethink and rearrange the music.
His THIRD EYE ORCHESTRA open form compositions for large ensembles and live sound processing, or laptop/electronic ensembles, are inspired by Earle Brown’s Available Forms, and based on numerous scored “building blocks” that are constantly rearranged when performed.
His works have been presented on festivals in the US, Canada, Mexico, Russia, India, South Africa and all over Europe. He recorded on labels such as Innova, ESP-DISK, Nur/Nicht/Nur, Creative Sources, Leo Records, Potlatch, Cadence, Clang and Hybrid.
Guitar-Controlled Live Sound Processing
The Endangered Guitar is a journey through the land of unending sonic operations, an interactive hybrid between a guitar and a computer. The software “listens” to the playing, to then determine the parameters of the live sound processing.
The guitar is the sound source, but the same sound is also used to control the software. Sounds of the guitar are processed in realtime, pitch and various other parameters of the actual playing serve as control source of the processing. Additional control sources are a proximity sensor and accelerometer data from the iPhone.
Current projects sometimes use sound input from other players to be processed, but the live sound processing is still controlled by guitar sounds.
Hans Tammen received grants and composer commissions from MAPFund, Mid-Atlantic Arts Foundation, American Music Center, Chamber Music America, New York State Council On The Arts (NYSCA), New York Foundation For The Arts (NYFA), American Composers Forum w/ Jerome Foundation, New York State Music Fund, Goethe Institute w/ Foreign Affairs Office, among others.
http://tammen.org/endangered-guitar/