Amplified palette designed and constructed by Hal Rammel.
Amplified palette designed and built by Hal Rammel.
The Amplified Palette: A History in Pictures (Penumbra Music, 2016) celebrates the 25th anniversary of the invention and exploration of this unique musical instrument first designed and built by Hal Rammel in 1991. The amplified palette is a thin wooden board fashioned in the shape of an artist’s palette and outfitted with a contact mic and numerous vertically-mounted wood and metal rods and played with a variety of uniquely designed bows and mallets. The amplified palette produces an astonishing array of sounds as noted in Christopher Burns introductory essay: “Onomatopoeia can’t do the palettes justice: grunting, crying, keening, chiming, pealing, clanging, sawing, sizzling, and scraping barely begin to suggest the range of timbres, or to express their depth and intricacy.”
Amplified palette modeled after the shape of a palette built by Georges Braque in the early 1930s.
Violin constructed from wood and paper, 6” x 4” x 18.” Donated to the permanent collection of the National Music Museum (Vermillion, SD) in 2014.
Percussion instrument from wood & metal, 14” x 10” x 17.” Donated to the permanent collection of the National Music Museum (Vermillion, SD) in 2014.
Percussion instrument from wood & metal, 13” x 3” x 30.” Donated to the permanent collection of the National Music Museum (Vermillion, SD) in 2014.