In the 1980's I was doing a lot experimentation with altered tunings. I had gotten to the point where I used a new tuning for just about every piece I wrote, and was having so much fun I wanted to take what I felt was the next step -- changing tunings within a piece. That's how "Music for Armchair Funambulists" came about. I turned the tuning keys on my old MusicMan bass while I was playing, memorizing the various positions and counting turns of the keys. Eventually this piece came together enough for me to perform it several times, but I still wanted to do more with the concept.

My dream was to have a bass with hardware designed for instant, accurate and relatively complex retuning, and when I met luthier Joe Zon I had a chance to make that dream a reality. What came to be called the Zon Michael Manring Hyperbass was finished around 1992 and I set about composing lots of new music for it. I also revisited this composition, expanding some of the sections to take advantage of the capabilities of the new bass. When Bass Player magazine decided to release a CD in honor of their fifth anniversary in 1995 I offered to record "Music for Armchair Funambulists" for them to include on the compilation.

After that, I was so focussed on coming up with new music I put this piece aside and stopped performing it, but over the years, folks have continued to ask me about it, so I thought it might be nice to make it available again. I did a little re-mastering, but otherwise this is the original Hyperbass recording from the early 90's.