Ellen Fullman's first proper full length for Important Records follows her collaborative work with Barn Owl (imprec327) and a split LP with Eleh (imprec318). She was also featured on The Harmonic Series: A Collection Of Work In Just Intonation (imprec272).
In 1981 Ellen Fullman began developing the Long String Instrument, an installation of dozens of wires fifty feet or more in length, tuned in Just Intonation and ‘bowed’ with rosin coated fingers. Fullman has developed a unique notation system to choreograph the performer’s movements, exploring sonic events that occur at specific nodal point locations along the string-length of the instrument. She has recorded
extensively with this unusual instrument and has collaborated with such luminary figures as composer Pauline Oliveros, choreographer Deborah Hay, the Kronos Quartet, and Keiji Haino. She has been the recipient of numerous awards, commissions and residencies.
Through Glass Panes
In composing “Event Locations No. 2”, I set out to focus more strictly than I ever had on detail in the choreography of my notation. Through writing the piece I designed ways to add more specific information in the score. The tuning uses a set of pitches based in the key of A, in combination with Arnold Dreyblatt’s tuning system based on F. These two roots generate tones in common but also complex or “dissonant” tones.
I wanted to find a way to incorporate more dissonance into my sound and intentionally worked with beating frequencies in this piece.
Never Gets Out of Me, a duet with cellist Theresa Wong, and Flowers, a trio recorded with Travis Weller and Henna Chou, are adaptations from Stratified Bands: Last Kind Words, originally composed for the Kronos Quartet in the Other Minds Festival. The composition is based on Last Kind Words Blues, a haunting song by Geeshie Wiley recorded in 1930.