Pioneer women of electronica

This highly practical workshop will initiate us into the world of electronic music in its most primal and experimental form, stripped of aesthetics. 

We’ll take a four-day journey led by four female pioneers of electronic music. From them, we’ll learn ways of composing and interpreting music, and new ways of approaching listening. We’ll make our own electronic instruments and play around with sound manipulation and recording. 

The workshop will give participants various techniques and tools that will enable them to delve deeper into concepts such as listening, synthesis, randomisation and sound manipulation. Participants will also find out about tools for creating a collective work where play and error are part of the process. No prior knowledge is required for attending the workshops, just the desire to have a good time, experiment and find out more about the history and techniques of electronic music. 

The workshop will be structured based on the lives and achievements of four women who changed how we understand music and introduced new aspects in the history of electronic music. 

Day 1. Pauline Oliveros: Listening as sonic co-creation. 
During the first day we’ll look at the concept of listening and the different ways of approaching it. Through different active listening exercises, we’ll make ourselves more conscious of space, time, timbre and other sound parameters.

Day 2. Wendy Carlos: synthesisers and the music tour.
None other than Wendy Carlos will introduce us to the simple creation of analogue sound instruments. In this workshop we’ll learn to solder a simple sound device.

Day 3. Bebe Barron: D.I.Y. sound art. 
Bebe and Louis Barron will take us through the creation of electronic sounds from a very different perspective. Together with John Cage, the pair experienced the revolution that approached randomness, indeterminacy and cybernetics as methods of creating music. We’ll follow in their footsteps and look at various devices for generating unexpected sounds.

Day 4. Delia Derbyshire: The sound manipulation laboratory. 
Using the devices created during the previous workshop days — coupled with a determination to enjoy ourselves as much as possible — we’ll set out on an adventure to create our first collective electronic music composition. We’ll let our imaginations run wild and work together with sound.

Note: the workshop will last four days, and it is strongly recommended to attend everyday in order to take advantage of the contents tackled. If you cannot come one of the days, please write here: ubik@tabakalera.eu