Workshop Offerings

If your organization or group is interested in being introduced to computing through Black Music Making, contact me here to chat about the  workshops or set of topics that will best serve your organization or group.

Each workshop provides an opportunity to develop skills that are taught in introductory Python Programming courses at the college level, and can be customized to reach attendees who are as young as 9 years old.

Programmable drum machines like the MPC have been used as a Black music making tool since their invention in the 1970’s. Students will learn about the tool’s importance in Black music making, and we will program a few basic functions of the Akai MPC drum machine with code in Python. Attendees of the first workshop can use samples of their remix in this workshop. Once students have programmed the drum machine they will use it to remix a current song, or make a new song with samples. Each student’s performance will be recorded and made available to them.

If you attend an event where a DJ has been hired to play music, you may see them using a piece of equipment called a DJ Mixer to play those sounds. I will walk students through how to build a DJ mixer and talk about the Hip Hop DJ's and their role in creating and advancing this technnology. Attendees will also use their mixer to transition between two songs that they choose! Click HERE to see an example of the process and what you'll build.

Attendees will be provided with images of street art and music from local artists, and will be guided in the process of making a live art installation with these elements. Each team of  participants will choose which songs will be paired with images, and will decide how their  movement through the space will transform the sounds and sights. After the session we will talk about the decision making processes of each team, along the leadership styles employed in each group. The attendees will also receive a link with a video of the experience they’ve created.

Attendees will learn about the foundations of Hip Hop and discuss how techniques in Black music making are used to solve problems in Computer Science. All participants will remix an Afro Beats or Hip Hop song  using the Python programming language. After the completion of the workshop attendees will get a digital copy of the remix they’ve created, and instructions on how they can continue to make remixes with code at home.

Smartphones are a powerful tool that we can wield as a device to control and manipulate music. Phones give us information about whether they are moving around, where a user is touching the screen and how hard you may be pressing it. Students will use this data to trigger samples, control how loudly they are played and adjust the speed of a sample’s playback, in the service of creating new sounds. Attendees will get a list of apps to continue using their phones to manipulate their sounds after the end of the workshop.

Jimi Hendrix, Pops Staples and Bo Diddley...what do they have in common? They were pivotal in popularizing using electronics to change the sound of their electric guitars. We will build the guitar circuits that they used to make their music, and talk about the role of Black musicians in pushing the creative boundaries of electronic music. Attendees will also understand how to read circuit plans called schematics, so that they can make their own effects in the future.