We were lucky to catch up with Ben Neill recently and have shared our conversation below.
Alright, Ben thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. When did you first know you wanted to pursue a creative/artistic path professionally?
When I was in my early 20’s around 1980 I had been studying classical trumpet with the goal of getting a position in an orchestra or other ensemble. However, my musical interests were much broader than classical music. musical tastes were quite diverse, and I was particularly passionate about the art rock of David Bowie and Brian Eno, the electro-jazz experiments of Miles Davis and Jon Hassell, and the sounds of punk and new wave. I began seeking something that would force me to completely rethink my relationship to the trumpet, almost as if forgetting how to play it conventionally in order to invent or discover an entirely different approach.
The continued pursuit of virtuosity in a classical music context was starting to feel more and more like sports, with the primary goal always being to “win the game” by playing all of the right notes without mistakes. Different teachers would instill a variety of ideas on how to prepare psychologically for highpressure situations such as playing difficult solos in an orchestra or performing concertos. These psychological approaches seemed to be quite removed from the more ecstatic aspects of music-making that had attracted me to the art in the first place and added to my increasing disillusionment with this kind of
career path. I had been reading John Cage’s Zen-influenced writings for several years at this point, as well as the writings of philosophers Alan Watts and Erich Fromm, all of which advocated a less egocentric way of thinking and living. Being a classical performer seemed to be totally at odds with these philosophies. In order to successfully perform under intense pressure, the ego had to be fortified and artificially built up. This contradiction was troubling to me and was a big part of my turn toward creating my instrument and music.
Another big part of my motivation for creating the Mutantrumpet was my desire to connect with broader audiences, something that had great appeal since much of the music I was most passionate about was outside of the classical canon.
The limited nature of the audience for classical music was discouraging, and the artists that I was most inspired by all had managed to successfully bring experimental ideas into a popular context. This became more and more of a goal for me, and my instinct was that reinventing my instrument could be a way for me to realize a similar vision. My experiments started when I put a removable trumpet bell on the first valve slide of a normal trumpet. This allowed me to create multi-timbral effects
acoustically using mutes. By depressing the first valve, the sound could be redirected to a different muted timbre. However, it defeated the normal pitch function of the valve, which severely limited the utility of the instrument. Despite that handicap, the timbral manipulation was extremely compelling, opening up a new dimension to the instrument that I had devoted so much of my life to up to that point. The limitation felt liberating; by subtracting possibilities from the way I played, it forced me to rethink and modify my whole conception of performing. The sonic result of slowly pressing the trumpet valve to mix and gradually shift between two timbres strongly evoked electronic music gestures from the outset. The idea of emulating electronic musical vocabularies with acoustic instruments was already prominent in music I had been playing and studying. However, I quickly discovered in my earliest experiments that the repurposing of the trumpet valve as a timbral controller brought about a heightened level of connection between the acoustic and electronic realms.
The new functionality of the valve as a sonic crossfader acoustically mirrored the sweeping of a resonant filter in electronic music. The sonorities that were produced were emergent, in that the resultant combinations created by blending different open and muted sounds could only partially be predicted, resulting in a kind of sonic alchemy. I also realized that I could treat the instrument as having multiple voices instead of the normal single sound source, defined by different timbres.
The actual genesis of the Mutantrumpet came to me as a dramatic epiphany that I experienced in 1981 while visiting the studio of visual artist Jim Pernotto for the first time. Pernotto’s studio was a dark, cavernous second floor of a former department store on the nearly abandoned main street of downtown Youngstown, Ohio. The space was phantasmagorical; Pernotto’s work was powerfully hallucinatory, consisting of large-scale, handmade, three dimensional paper pieces with depictions of carnival freak show characters, religious icons, and the decaying factories that loomed like dinosaurs around
the city. The artwork was interspersed with relics from abandoned local industrial sites that Pernotto had scattered around the space, adding to the surreal atmosphere. As I entered the studio, which was more like a warehouse than a typical atelier, I distinctly remember the strong sensation of a new world being revealed to me, a premonition which turned out to be true on many levels.
This feeling intensified later in the evening as I sat inside of one of Pernotto’s pieces, a pyramid-shaped sculpture with a mirrored floor that serves as a kind of meditation chamber. Aptly titled after Jimi Hendrix’s song All Along the Watchtower, the exterior of the pyramid is translucent, made up of perforated, nested triangle structures and circles constructed with handmade paper, paint, and Christmas lights. The mirrored floor creates the sensation of floating in space in a transformational environment, a sort of analog VR. As I sat in the pyramid, I had a series of revelations. The idea for the Mutantrumpet completely took shape during the experience, along with the realization that the classical performance career I was pursuing did not adequately fulfill my most fundamental connections to music. Thinking about my recent experiments with the removable bell trumpet, I began to envision a multi-belled, electronically equipped instrument that would be the focus of a composer/performer project, an expanded version of the acoustic trumpet with electronics and audio-visual interactivity as integral components. From that day forward, my focus as a musician shifted toward discovering a path that would integrate my performance capabilities with creative musical projects.
Ben, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?
Composer/performer Ben Neill is the inventor of the Mutantrumpet, a hybrid electro-acoustic instrument, and is recognized as a musical innovator who “uses a schizophrenic trumpet to create art music for the people” (Wired Magazine). Neill generates immersive musical experiences that merge ambient music, electronic grooves, and interactive video, all controlled live by his instrument.
Thirteen albums of Neill’s music have been released on labels including Universal/Verve, Thirsty Ear, Astralwerks, and his own Blue Math label distributed by AWAL/Sony. His most recent recording, Prana Cantos, was released on Six Degrees Records in 2023 as part of their Soundbalm series of music and meditation albums. Based in New York since the early 1980’s, his performances include BAM Next Wave Festival, Big Ears Festival, Lincoln Center, Whitney Museum of American Art, The Broad Museum, Bing Concert Hall at Stanford, Getty Museum, Cite de la Musique, Moogfest, Spoleto Festival, Umbria Jazz, Bang On A Can Festival, ICA London, Istanbul Jazz Festival, Vienna Jazz Festival, and the Edinburgh Festival, among many others.
Neill’s first book, Diffusing Music: Trajectories of Sonic Democratization, was published by Bloomsbury Press in December 2024. The book explores how technology is reshaping music, enabling unprecedented levels of creativity and transforming how we share and experience sound. From digital tools that let anyone become a music maker to AI systems that write, mix, and master songs, Neill breaks down how these advancements empower creators and reshape the relationship between artists and audiences. Part history, part personal story, and part look at what’s next; Diffusing Music is a must-read for anyone curious about the future of music.
Neill is a longtime close associate of minimalist pioneer La Monte Young, and leads international performances of Young’s music. The list of creative innovators with whom Neill has worked includes David Wojnarowicz, John Cage, David Berhman, Nicolas Collins, John Cale, Petr Kotik, Pauline Oliveros, Rhys Chatham, DJ Spooky, Mimi Goese, and King Britt. In addition to his many collaborations, Neill was the Music Curator at The Kitchen from 1992-98, and also curated music at the World Financial Center Winter Garden where he organized large scale concerts for the River to River Festival and WNYC New Sounds Live.
Neill began developing the Mutantrumpet in the early 1980s. Initially an acoustic instrument combining 3 trumpets and a trombone into one, he collaborated with synthesizer pioneer Robert Moog to integrate electronics. In 1992, while in residency at the STEIM research and development lab for new instruments in Amsterdam, Neill made the Mutantrumpet fully computer interactive. In 2008 he created a new version of his instrument at STEIM, and in 2019 Version 4 debuted in the premiere of Fantini Futuro, which was presented by the Interpretations Series.
Recent projects include Trove, a 104 track ambient collection that was created during the Covid pandemic. A live version of Trove utilizing a wireless outdoor sound system that projects sound up to two miles was premiered in 2022 at Manitoga/The Russel Wright Design Center in Garrison, NY, and repeated in 2023. Neill’s electronic chamber opera Fantini Futuro (2019), based on the life and music of early Baroque composer/performer Girolamo Fantini blends early music, minimalism, and immersive visual media using an array of interactive technologies.
A native of North Carolina, Neill holds a Doctorate of Musical Arts degree from Manhattan School of Music. Since 2008 he has been a music professor at Ramapo College of New Jersey, where he recently founded an MFA program in Creative Music Technology. His first book, Diffusing Music, was released by Bloomsbury Press in December 2024.
Neill has also composed extensively for television and film, see his portfolio of Music for Media at mutantrumpet.com.
PRESS QUOTES
“Ben Neill is using a schizophrenic trumpet to create art music for the people.”
Wired Magazine
“Ben Neill performs the Mutantrumpet, a super-instrument of his own design that he also uses to control lights and other elements in the show. The music is a dense, continously-shifting tapestry of electronic beats.”
Wired Magazine
“The avant-garde and EDM come together in music by Ben Neill & his mutantrumpet.”
WNYC New Sounds/John Schaefer
“A creative composer, genius performer, and inventor of the mutantrumpet.” Time Out NY
“Ben Neill is a musical powerhouse, a serious and individual talent.”
Time Out London
“9 out of 10 rating…Ben Neill is a mad scientist, and he has discovered the formula that breaks musical barriers.” Mixmag
“Masterfully blurs the lines between electronic dance music and jazz sounds”
Billboard
A great sonic alchemist…luscious, seductive and quite addictive.
All About Jazz
“Neill’s astonishing mutantrumpet blends brass and computer with wit, beauty and solid musicianship.” Village Voice
“The opera offers hints of the era through sounds of protests and musical allusions to 1960s psychedelia and West Coast jazz. But the heavy beats are more reminiscent of Electronic Dance Music, transplanting ‘The Demo’ to the present day.” London Daily Mail
“Night Science is certainly as nocturnal as its title, but this isn’t background music. It’s forward-sounding and wildly beat-conscious; it’s a creation that looks at rhythm, jazz, African funk, grime, and dubstep with fresh ears and a bold compositional sensibility that extends both soundworld science and electronic music to a horizon that extends as far as the ear — and the imagination — can hear.”
All Music Guide
“Ben Neill plays an instrument he designed called the mutantrumpet, a three-belled trumpet that allows him to shift sonorities instantaneously, from muted to open, clear to froggy.” New York Times
“Neill works with harmonies based on numerical relationships that produce spiritually powerful resonances. The result is trippy, otherworldly and seamlessly groovy.” Interview Magazine
“Ben Neill is the mad scientist of dancefloor jazz…an inventive and stimulating voyage.” CMJ Monthly
“Calling Ben Neill a trumpeter is like calling Mr. Spock a frequent flyer…as vibrant as the galaxies beyond, both adventurous and artful.” Boston Phoenix
“If he were around today, Miles would unequivocally be picking up on what Ben Neill’s is laying down.”
All About Jazz
Any resources you can share with us that might be helpful to other creatives?
The field of music cognition is a fascinating and powerful way of looking at music that I became aware of in the early 2000’s after attending a lecture by the British scientist Philip Ball. His book The Music Instinct introduced me to the ideas of Leonard Meyer’s Music, the Arts, and Ideas, from the 1960’s, and other writers such as Daniel Levitin who wrote the book This is Your Brain on Music. David Huron, and Elizabeth Margulis have also written important works on this topic. Derek Thompson’s book Hit Makers also explores similar ideas in a range of different creative fields, not just music.
Music cognition blends musicology with psychology and neuroscience to analyze how music creates emotional responses in listeners. The thing that is so interesting about it is that it is a form of analysis that is not limited to any style of music; it can be applied to anything, from country to avant-garde. One of the most fundamental ideas in the field is that every musical piece sets up expectations in the listener from the first sound that is produced. We subconsciously are predicting what will come next based on what we just heard. Musical emotion is generated when the listener’s expectations are challenged or thwarted in some way. There are many different musical techniques that can generate these responses, and the musical context defines how far the composer or improviser can go in terms of how much surprise can be introduced.
Derek Thompson discusses the idea of MAYA, or Most Advanced Yet Acceptable, a term coined by twentieth century designer Raymond Loewy. People like things that are familiar, but they also crave something new. It is the skillful introduction of unexpected elements within a given stylistic context that creates an emotional response, and makes listeners want to return to a piece over and over again.
In your view, what can society to do to best support artists, creatives and a thriving creative ecosystem?
Creativity is something that is becoming more and more ubiquitous as traditional labor is replaced by machines. As art becomes more and more participatory, the role of curation becomes more and more important. The best way to support the arts for the general public is to make conscious choices about what matters, and to advocate for those people and products. Without an audience there is no meaningful art, and we are in a world where audiences are becoming more and more fragmented and artistic production is interchangeable or meaningless. Choose something and convince others to experience it too rather than just letting the algorithms dictate your consumption!
Contact Info:
- Website: https://benneill.com
- Instagram: https://instagram.com/mutantrumpet
- Facebook: https://facebook.com/mutantrumpet
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ben-neill-a223342/
- Twitter: I don’t use it
- Youtube: https://youtube.com/@mutantrumpet
- Other: Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/2nmJMMb4OCayxFbtM2yYxe?si=o47o3Ib1Qh2Td6_5QFNJ1w
