Ben Butler's musical training began at the age of seven with the cello; his musical journeys had begun far earlier with his fascination with musical instruments. Frustrated with the rigidity of these studies, Butler left the cello for the piano, which he quickly dropped once he discovered the guitar at age 13. After his classical study, Butler saw the guitar as a chance to reevaluate his relationship with music. He avoided his teachers and chose his ear to to be his teacher. As a result, he began to look at the guitar more as an instrument of sound with infinite sonic possibilities than a conventional instrument with its strict outline of half and whole steps. During his last two years in high school Butler played with "Murphy's Product", an acoustic based quartet, which produced collaborations with the poet/MC Reggie Hodges, aka 'Soothsayer', from the Brooklyn based "TruMystic Soundsystem". During this period, the group traveled around the New York and New England area, playing at colleges, universities, and clubs.

Butler continued on to study music at Vassar College, where he could continue to play with this group. However, early in his sophomore year, he heard the music of the the New York electronic experimentalist composers Ben Neill and Paul Miller, which he still remembers vividly: "It was like a collage of sound; as if reinventing the notion of pitch and harmony. It made me realize that the rules of music and art are there to be broken". He chose to major in composition and electronic synthesis, studying with Annea Lockwood, Richard Wilson, and Dana McCurdy. During this period Butler focused on honing his skills and delved deep into the music of the New York electronic experimentalists, known as "illbient" music. He became fascinated with its sense of fragmentation and detachment; a reaction that he himself had felt growing up in New York City. From this music Butler realized that music is everywhere; rhythm, melody and harmony exist in the most ordinary of sounds: footsteps, a car revving its engine, a bus screeching to a halt as another bus speeds on by. He found the New York City subway stations to be like performance spaces for this music with its ability to resonate all these active sounds and highlight them, as well as blend them together into a coherent collage. Thus he began recording these "performances", traveling subways with his DAT recorder until he found the music he was looking for.

This mindset led to Butler's collaboration with D. Namgyal khorko, Tibetan instrumentalist. For his thesis project, Butler was looking for an instrumentalist to work with within the studio, and Cannon Hersey had known of Namgyal's musical talents through his work on Phillip Glass' soundtrack to Scorcese's Kundun. Once Ben heard the sheer power of the dzogzen (Long Horn) and it's ability to suggest numerous pitches within one pitch, he saw endless potential for collaboration. The two collaborated on a studio piece and appropriately named it "Namgyal", as the inspiration for it was the sound of the horn and the man himself. The two have been performing the work at performance spaces around the New York area since June. The live performance also features Zeb Schorr on Double Bass and Jesse Stiles on mixing and effects.

Butler's experience with Tibetan music has spawned his interest with its potentialities and history. Armed with his DAT recorder, he leaves for the subcontinent of India to explore and discover more.

Bi-Weekly sound clips from India will be posted starting November 10

mp3 samples from Jazz Tribe:

Namgyal (1:02)
Ben Butler: Electronics
D. Namgyal Khorko: Tibetan Long Horn
Zeb Schorr: Double Bass

Namgyal2 (0:27)
Remix by Stiles 3000

Sidewinder (0:19)
Ben Butler: Guitar and Electronics
Sample taken from: Higher Intellegence Agency's "Colourform"

You will need an mp3 player to listen to these samples.