Changes Festival has been a fantastic addition to Melbourne’s musical landscape over the last two years. The focus is on getting a snapshot at what the music industry currently looks like, and is all about having a conversation about where to next… In terms of technology, inclusivity, the environment and basically a big ‘where to?’ for the music industry.
I was lucky enough to be able to check out a bunch of talks, as well as run two Ableton Live workshops with Memphis LK and The Push.
I am always keen to share my knowledge and passion for creative workflows and music making, so I was super stoked to be able to put on an event the amazing Bargoonga Nganjin community space to run a workshop focusing on Teenage Engineering x Ableton Live workflows called Electronic Music Processes.
This event was supported by Teenage Engineering’s #EMS program and had some serious giveaway courtesy of Ableton and Innovative Music.
It was great to be able to talk in about the workflows of Teenage Engineering’s Pocket Operators, OP-Z and OP-1, and how you can integrate them into Ableton Live.
Photos via @callummis
Throughout May and June, I ran a series of free Audio Manipulation Workshops at some of the City of Yarra Libraries.
The focus was on techniques that you can use within Ableton Live to work with and manipulate audio.
Well, to round off a pretty crazy year, I recently became an Ableton Certified Trainer. I’ve been using Live since 2004, and this has been a pretty big milestone for me to achieve as a music and music tech educator. There are just shy of 300 Ableton Certified Trainers in the world, and it’s an exciting international community to be a part of.
Hi all, Recently I was asked to contribute some Chord Sets to the wonderful Scaler Plugin. It’s a remarkable plugin, which allows you to create harmonic material easily.
I sat down at the piano and played a bunch of chord progressions that I regularly gravitate towards, and then provided them to Davide Carbone who is one of the brains behind it.
A week or so later with Scaler’s 1.5 release, there I am, listed next to a bunch of amazing artists.
The idea of a plugin that provides you with chord progressions of various artists may seem a bit like *borrowing* someone else’s ideas. But once you get the hang of what it can offer, it’s actually not like that at all.
I’m finding that using my own presets as a starting point, and then using the variations feature allows me to discover chords that I may not have normally gone for, but adds those occasional harmonic variations that keep things interesting.
You should check it out!
I have recently been working some material up for the Melodics App, which is an app that aims to make learning how to play finger drum pads and piano fun and engaging.
The aim of my course was to get users to understand some of the techniques used in creating cinematic-styled music.
There are six compositions you can play along with; Space Between that helps you explore the idea of less is often more, and to listen to the space between notes. Character & Theme works on the idea that a simple musical theme can be synonymous with a character in a film. Drama & Rhythm builds tension through the use of dramatic deep strings and tense percussive elements. Tension & Dissonance works with closely clustered notes to create something melancholic and tense. Deep Melody puts everything together to create a deep cinematic world, and Chords Uplifting resolves the whole course as an epic uplifting grand finale!
