Closed Doors 2022
Codes, media compositions, and much digital applause. The second edition of the vitual peek into the Music Design program was enthusiastically received and stimulated curiosity and exchange. Under the motto CLOSED DOORS the Music Design students presented a diverse project portfolio over Zoom to close out the semester.
The two-day event was opened with a workshop concert. The students performed their own compositions live or as a feed, which were created under the main theme 'Instrument and Live Electronics.' But how, for example, does it work to compose a piece for lute and atmospheric sounds? One student, Luis Miehlich, made this question the object of his composition process and revealed: "It was important to me to work with the sound of the lute. The sounds that are played back consist exclusively of electronically processed lute recordings. I create the interaction between instrument and playback in the composition through sound gestures, which influence instrumental and digital sounds mutually. “ Genre-open and experimental at the same time, the workshop concert was an electric peek into the creative freedom with respect to the content of the program. The students were supervised and accompanied by Prof. Sonja Schmid, Prof. Ludger Brümmer und Dr. Joachim Goßmann for this project.
In another item on the agenda, the Music Design students presented their biographical careers in the Music Design program. The heterogeneity of the student body was made expressly clear. Whether directly from their Abitur or as career changers – the motivation to develop artistically free with your studies unites the students. The first-semester highlights that followed illustrate this creative freedom: Along with the results from the one-week exercises, the first semester students also presented their own designed content. One student, Peter Wehmann, demonstrated the app 'Mandoo,' which generates sounds through the digital painting of geometric, mandala-esque figures. In the app development process, he is responsible for the entire sound development, realization, and implementation.
Course leader Prof. Florian Käppler put it best in this quote: "We have fostered free concepts and individual projects since the beginning of this program. Through this, they can bring their own ideas directly into the program which sustainably increases diversity and interdisciplinarity. At the same time, the form of the projects with renowned external partners and the close connection to the creative industries is an important pillar of the Music Design program – currently, for example, spatial scenography by the music design students are being presented to a large international audience in the German Pavilion at the EXPO in Dubai.”
The German Pavilion in Dubai
In connection with the intermediate presentation of the end-of-year program, the first day was concluded with a live coding session. Four groups streamed their code-generated performances one after another in real time. Sometimes visionary, sometimes polyrhythmic, sometimes reduced, sometimes progressive: as a duo, the coders picked out the smallest music fragments in a jam session style and formed an eclectic sound journey through the changes of the programming commands and associated numerical values.]
The second day was dedicated to information about studying music design. After a hands-on workshop, more than ten prospective students observed the Music Design laboratory adn discussed "shred settings" together. With this technology, existing music videos set to new music and taken out of their original context. In this context, interesting discussions arose about the questions of which criteria make a humorously successful shred and which design options make it difficult to differentiate between the copy and the original. Further agenda items, such as an introduction round for the teachers, information about the entrance examination, and personal study advising rounded the day off.
With the traditional stream 'Bettraum-Schöpfaz' ended the Music Design Closed Doors 2022. The music designers Yannick Blohmdahl, Peter Harrer, and Malte Niehaus presented a colorful potpourri in an almost 90-minute long program. These include a large number of productions that were created parallel to everyday student life. Andreas Brand (Management and Teaching in the Music Design program) was happy about the numerous internal and external prospective students: "The consistently positive and appreciative feedback and the participatory event development with the students makes you want to see more."