Hal Rammel

Hal Rammel is a designer, inventor, builder and explorer of musical instruments. Originally a self-taught visual artist, he began experimenting with music when he asked himself, of music, “What’s the furthest back you can go?” To him, the answer was obvious: start from scratch. Reinvent the wheel.

Hal is the inventor of the amplified palette and the triolin, among myriad creations. He’s also the music curator for Woodland Pattern and hosts the radio show Alternating Currents on WMSE from 6 to 9 p.m. on Sundays. As part of this podcast’s ongoing series with Milwaukee musicians, Mark and Hal discuss the nature of improvisational music – where and how it starts and stops and forms a whole – as well as the relationship between drawing and music, archaic instruments of the 1700s, discovering music through the instrument and not the other way around and how you come to music without any classical training.

You can also subscribe to our podcast with iTunes. Our series continues next week with Andy Noble of Kings Go Forth.

Ed. note: the music clip in the podcast is from the Lost Data project with Jon Mueller and Jim Schoeneker of Collections of Colonies of Bees.