HoboEye Music:
Nils Bultmann, Madison, WI

HoboEye:
Your music exhibits a multi-disciplinary approach. HoboEye contributors tend to be multi-disciplinary artists, blending influences from many art forms. Given your curiosity about many different forms and media, why is music your primary medium? (Bottom line: Why did you choose music over other possible art forms?)

Bultmann:
At some point early I knew I needed to play music. I love it and it keeps getting better. I have put much time and energy into developing tools to express myself through music. I use it to express feelings, moods and as a way to tap into and channel various energies within myself. I look to other art forms as another way of exploring these moods, emotions, and feelings. There is a certain state of being and space I can get into when I’m into creating and I’m interested mainly in that space and presence in any form of art I experience.

Music is unique in that it happens in the way it happens in the moment and I like that.  dance also comes naturally to me. I’ve always moved a lot when I played and when I started playing with modern dancers it felt like home. When I do projects that involve other disciplines I am seeking the same intensity and connection that I do when playing music.

HoboEye:
You mix classical and avante-garde music with seeming ease. What is it that intrigues and compels you to mix these influences in your music?

Bultmann:
I listen to a wide variety of music and so all of these ideas are spinning around in my head and come up for me to draw from when I’m creating. I like the raw energy of more groove-oriented music in pop, rock and jazz on one hand. I also like the complexity and form, as well as the possibilities to create worlds and storylines through western classical music. I don’t differentiate between genres when I’m improvising.  I play what I hear and feel.

HoboEye:
You're currently working on a project that takes the multi-media approach to a different level, experimenting with the combination of video and music. Talk about this project and why you want to explore these two forms together.

Bultmann:
In the studio I often will record a free improvised viola line mapping out some ideas. I’ll then go back and record over what I had just played and it’s an interesting space to be in, just listening and responding to the various hills and valleys in the first line and interact with it spontaneously. I learn a lot about myself that way and have become more proficient at anticipating the surges of energy and directions I tend to go. Again, I enjoy movement and the visual element in what I do and started thinking about creative ways to capture this interaction of several musical lines in film and began experimenting with various video projects.

This particular project is still in the beginning phase. Essentially, I have been filming some of the tracking process in the studio, and then creating videos with multiple layers of performance images so that you an observe the various musical lines in a piece happening at the same time, although they were tracked over a larger time span. I created a series of simple viola duets in which I overlay the images of my recording each individual line and then mix the video by changing the opacity, so that as one voice arises into the forefront of the musical environment, you can see that image of the player (myself) emerge. So the result is two overlapping bodies dancing with each other as they play and interact in this duet. I’m trying to depict visually how I experience the ebb and flow of various musical lines. It’s simple but can be beautiful I think if done well. Like I said, it’s in the beginning stages for me.

I find that a lot of the “music videos” I have seen tend to be a distraction from the music rather than enhance it. For some reason it has always really annoyed me to see lip-synching and air guitar playing or any bad synching up of music and video. For me what is important is to portray visceral element of playing and some insight into the energy and passion and what it feels like to play. So I’m working on that. I definitely feel that I may be branching out more into film-making and more collaborations in that arena.

HoboEye:
Who are some of your primary influences in music? Why and how have they influenced you and your work?

Bultmann:
My mom is my definitely my first musical influence. She is extremely musical and a very sensitive pianist. So she awakened the whole thing in me. At age 7, Roscoe Mitchell from the Art Ensemble of Chicago moved into our neighborhood, he is a brilliant musician, who lives and breathes it and has been a good role model. I now have been working with him and have been learning from much from him about presence, focus, and discipline.

My best friend throughout middle and high school was a heavy metal shredder guitar player so I think a lot of that whole dark heavy metal muscular element is deeply engrained in me. Eighties pop and early early rap  as well intrigued me early in my life. Not so much any more.

Then most of the licks, melodic ideas, and sense of drama I use now come from the classical repertoire, which is dear to my heart. I like big symphonic music, there are whole worlds there I also learned a lot from my main viola teacher Sally Chisholm. Classical violists I really like are Kim Kashkashian and Roberto Diaz.

It is hard to pinpoint influences for me.  A few CD’s that I have listened to over and over, are Miles Davis: In a Silent Way and Pink Floyd Dark Side of the Moon. My favorite classical composers are Bach, Brahms, Hindemith, and Giya Kancheli.

Check out Nils Bultmann's web site >