June Meetup: Exploring tuning systems

Join us on the 2nd of June at our monthly Audio Developer Meetup where we will be hosting a panel of speakers exploring different approaches to tuning when developing tools for musicians. See below for details!

As always, there will be a chance to network over drinks and pizza. Anyone interested in Audio development is welcome!

Doors open at 18:00, talks start at 18:15.

Please note: Attendance is strictly limited to people who have RSVP'd

Tuning Panel details:

Many digital music-making tools are built from the ground up with the assumption that all music is based on a 12-note scale with pitches tuned like a piano. This can force musicians who draw from other backgrounds to adapt to this Western-classical ideal or exclude them from exploring certain creative avenues, with political, social and artistic consequences. This panel includes guest speakers with different musical and engineering backgrounds who will share the barriers they have encountered with existing tools and what doors the next generation of tools could open.

Speakers:

John Kameel Farah is a Palestinian-Canadian composer who combines elements of Baroque and Arabic music, improvisation and electronic soundscapes, to create music he calls "Arabic-Baroque-Futurism". In his concerts, Farah draws on themes of resistance, history and identity. Surrounding the piano with synthesizers and electronics, he weaves unfolding sonic tapestries in which looping drones morph into Baroque-style fugues and driving Arabic percussion.

Morgan Sully (US/DE) is a Berlin-based experimental musician descended from the great American portrait painter Thomas Sully and itinerant roots from Southeast Asia and the Pacific Ocean. Morgan’s current practice moves between live electronics, curation, and the thoughtful resynthesis of sonic heritage.

Uygur Vural is a Berlin-based multidisciplinary artist, cellist, sound artist, and storyteller from Թուրքիyե. His work moves between free improvisation, contemporary music, Middle Eastern musical traditions, and acoustic ecology, exploring the relationships between sound, memory, migration, and urban space. Drawing from both Anatolian musical cultures and experimental practices, he develops performances and listening experiences that challenge fixed ideas of tuning, musical systems, and cultural boundaries.

Peter Kirn is a Lebanese-American composer and music technologist who, for over twenty years, has written daily at CDM.link (create digital music) about music and music tech. He studied composition and musicology at the CUNY Graduate Center and has hosted workshops and interactive performance laboratories in various formats across the Americas, West and East Asia, and Europe, while generally confusing people by making techno, experimental, or ambient sounds on alternating days.

Laurel Pardue is a violinist and music technologist. She studied both engineering and music at MIT, leading to a PhD in music instrument design and learning at the UK's QMUL. She has designed and built several novel instruments, including the award winning Svampolin (Guthman, NIME), a hybrid acoustic and digital violin, and the Tabla Touch for Keda Instruments. She’s performed with various musicians including Sam Lee, Bang On A Can, Gamelan Galak Tika, and Mishaped Pearls with live appearances on UK BBC Radio, and German television. She currently writes software at Ableton AG and performs with percussionist Bex Burch and Gamelan Saptarvana.