My primary activity is composing for the Long String Instrument, which has been compared to the experience of standing inside an enormous grand piano.

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 including: DAAD Artists-in-Berlin Program residency, Japan/U.S. Friendship Commission/NEA Fellowship for Japan, Meet the Composer, Reader's Digest Consortium Commission, Artist Trust/Washington State Arts Commission Fellowship, and artist-in-residence at Headlands Center for the Arts. Her music was represented in The American Century; Art and Culture, 1950-2000 at The Whitney Museum, and she has performed in venues and festivals in Europe, Japan, and the Americas including: Instal, Lincoln Center Out-of-Doors, Other Minds, the Walker Art Center and Donaueschinger Musiktage. Her release ?Ort?, with Berlin-based collaborator Jörg Hiller, was selected in the top 50 recordings of 2004 by The Wire (London) and ?Fluctuations? with trombonist Monique Buzzarté on Deep Listening was included in the Wire top 50 of 2008.

Most recently I have become more attuned to strategies for manipulating the resultant artifacts in my sound. Strings vibrate in mathematical subdivisions of the total string length. When passing over the harmonic nodes of each string, bowing with rosin-coated fingertips, overtones associated with that location emerge. By taking into consideration these divisions or nodal points, (where pronounced overtones emerge) musical events can be aligned to coincide with specific overtone combinations. By examining the waveform produced by the Long String Instrument through a spectrum analyzer I have observed that every harmonic overtone of the fundamental being played is represented nearly equally. Just Intonation, a tuning system based on pure intervals, lends itself to a consideration of not only the tuning of the fundamental frequencies, but also the resultant relationships among overtones. Through accurate tuning of the fundamental tones, combinations of extended overtones can also be distinguished as having harmonic relationships. Variations in overtone production can transform a single chord position through multiple tone colors.
My music explores this multi-dimensional matrix where threads of resultant melodic fragments emerge and intertwine, unfolding with a natural logic. Through sympathetic resonances, the acoustics of the entire room become my instrument, receptive, even vulnerable to what is put into the room.

Fluctuations, CD, collaboration with Monique Buzzarté, Deep Listening Institute, 2007; funded by a Recording Program Grant, Aaron Copeland Fund for Music; selected as one of the top 50 recordings of 2007, The Wire

Ort, CD, collaboration with Jörg Hiller, Choose Records, 2004; selected as one of the top 50 recordings of 2004, The Wire