Teaching
Since 2018, I have led workshops in creative sound design, with a focus on the possible connections between sound design and the process of musical composition. I like to encourage my students to challenge the view that sound design is a separate process that happens before or after the act of creating music. Music is created when a music-maker interacts with their tools over time, and the creative decisions made while designing sounds and instruments have more and more influence over the processes of composition and performance.
In my approach, language is an important element, and I like to encourage students to observe what they are already doing and try to describe the processes they use to achieve their goals. This language can range from the technical to the metaphorical. They may find that they have already unconsciously been inventing extremely creative solutions, and describing and naming these processes helps put them in context. Building up a shared vocabulary to talk about sound is really important. In workshops we often create collections of techniques and strategies to apply to digital music.
I love working with students who come from a variety of sonic and musical backgrounds, from electro-acoustic music to popular songwriting, and making sure the exercises we do together are relevant to their own work. After my last workshop in Aarhus, the students were so excited about what they had created together that they are now trying to press their final project on vinyl!
Institutions I have worked with:
Rytmisk Musikkonservatorium, Copenhagen DK
Kunsthochschule Kassel, Kassel DE
Det Jyske Musikkonservatorium, Aarhus DK
I’ve also given talks on my process at Ableton Loop conference in Berlin, ZKM Karlsruhe and Radio Nopal in Mexico City.
About Me
I am an artist, producer and sound designer with over twenty years of experience in electronic music.
Under the name M.E.S.H., I have released critically acclaimed albums through the label PAN and have toured four continents with audiovisual performances. The critical reception of my work often highlights the role of sound design and a style of sonic world-building where creative techniques of audio manipulation, instrument design and experimental composition create a “lucid unreality” [Pitchfork].
I especially enjoy working with other artists and students to explore that realm between the technical and the imaginary, where great music is born.
Teaching creative sound design and composition to aspiring music-makers gives me the opportunity to see how software music-making tools influence the creative process. I was also involved in a consulting project commissioned by Ableton, contributing research on the ways users approach software and hardware instruments, especially where it relates to music education and beginner music-makers. This experience has been invaluable, because it has allowed me to see how people with diverse backgrounds and music-making goals interact with various music-making tools, and whether their creativity is encouraged or left behind.
I have also created sample packs including library music for film trailers as well as dance music producers, and composed for independent film (Metahaven’s Information Skies) and podcasts (Art Basel’s Intersections).