I am Rudymann.  One day Peter Shutte started calling me Rudymann and eventually it became so.

For many years I have worked in technology companies.  Regardless of title, my role has often been the corporate story teller.  Through white papers, presentations, marketing brochures, and bullet pointed messaging, I help define and detail the narrative that represents my company and its products.  Everyone has a story.  Here is the music version of mine.

It all began at Ohio State when I bought a classical guitar and started formal classical guitar lessons.  A few years of training and three years as a full time guitar teacher followed.  Along the way, I also acquired and performed on a succession of bass, guitars, saxophones, pianos, and drum sets.  I was a platinum customer at the music store.  Three years of music theory and composition classes at Ohio State provided my traditional musical training. 

During this time, I also trained with Dave Wheeler in Columbus.  Dave’s Jazz Workshops introduced jazz music theory, big band playing, as well as local composers and arrangers such as Vaughn Wiester, Keith Henson, and Roger Hines.  This evolved into an invitation to spend several years performing with the Keith Henson Octet, a five horn ensemble that focused on jazz classics arranged by Wiester and Henson.  This was followed by Zontar’s Campers, an experimental group organized by Roger Hines and also featuring Pete Linzell on tenor sax.  The audiences were never large, the bandspan was short, but the music was original, often exciting, and pushed the boundaries in all directions.

Early influencers were:

• J.S. Bach, Charles Ives, Bela Bartok for classical,
• Miles Davis, Eric Dolphy, Charles Mingus, McCoy Tyner, Cannonball Adderley and Sun Ra for jazz,
• Frank Zappa, John Fahey, John McLaughlin, R&B in general, and many world artists in the “others” category.

I almost wore out a vinyl recording of Charles Ives Piano Sonata #1 by Noel Lee.  From the first hearing it made sense and inspired me.  It has always seemed wildly passionate.

Throughout all of this, I kept a focus on composing and recording in my personal studio.  This focus changed as my wife and I started a family, so I continued on at Ohio State, completed a computer science degree, and was hired by a Seattle company to start my technology career.   It was not too long after moving to Seattle that I acquired my first computer based music studio.  My business and home life was busy and erratic as it is for most people, so rehearsing and performing with others was too hard to schedule.  At the same time, with digital recording and editing, I could build a new type of song.  And thus I began compositions that more closely resembled paintings in their construction and often occur when real-time performance interacts with music technology such as arpeggiators, creating an unplanned and unrepeatable logic and sound.  A type of jamming, a structured form of improvisation.  

Biggest influences continue to be classical music architecture, jazz improvisation, hip hop beats, and world music drumming. Current influencers include Zoe Keating, Sufjan Stevens, Four Tet, Tipper, Bluetech, DJ Shadow, Radiohead, Karsh Kale, Terry Riley, John Adams, Julia Kent, and Max Richter. And always, Charles Ives. Raw, yet oddly defined.