Practicing and Teaching Creative Music Technology

Me in CB1 Internet Cafe demonstrating work with brainwaves.

Application

After arriving in the U.K. in April 2005, I worked as a catering assistant, kitchen porter, waiter, and cleaner, usually at various units of the big Cambridge University spread across the city. I had full-time contracts and worked for agencies as well. The agency work helped on two levels. I got to know the city fast – as agencies offer work at various places sometimes even an hour before the shift starts – and new people. Natives and migrants, old and young, many working part-time while studying full-time. I was frustrated with my hospitality work. So I skimmed the ARU course catalogue and went to an open day to see the audio technology department. There, I told John that I wanted to make drum and bass music, to which he said that I should see Julio at the ‘other’ music department. OK. I went to see Julio and explained what I wanted, but that my English might not be good enough. He asked me to relax, if possible, replace my Windows PC with a Mac, and apply for a place on his CMT course. ¹

My cover letter for the application:

My name is Krisztián Hofstädter, I was born in 1981 in Hungary. Whist primary and secondary school I was member of a Junior Orchestra where I had been playing percussions. That was my first stage where I familiarized myself with music. I did not really like it, because none of my closest friends took part in this kind of course; they had more time for playing. [I guess I meant playing computer games.] As a matter of course now I see that part of my life as a preparation for being what I always wanted to be: Somebody who can affect others, not with words but with a higher vibration, with music. I always dreamt about an opportunity to work with this form of expression. One year ago I tried to express myself with painting. The people were aroused by my works they were thinking about them, I succeed. I have been using computer for a long time, I am familiar with a couple of music and graphic programs. Usually I just mix other artists’ songs, although I am trying to make my one sound as well. I have realized it is not as easy as I thought; I need professional help, which this course could provide me. I always try to wake up and dream again. I always try wake people and let them dream again. I could do this with images; I hope I can achieve movements in our minds again.

Sunday, 4 June 2006, Cambridge

I guess teachers felt my urge to get in so they offered me a place. Or was it because universities in the UK are not free and it is tuition fees that make ends meet? Let’s say I got in because of my enthusiastic application and impressive open day visit. (I will write up how you can improve your language skills faster than I did in case you decide to work or study in another country. But for now, let’s dive into the course.)

BA and MA Overview (2006–2013)

The three-year course was more practical than theoretical, with most assignments asking for a portfolio of creative work accompanied by short reports or video documentations. No lengthy essays were required, at least not for a while, which I appreciated. But the occasional presentations we had to do, I simply dreaded and as a mature student, this bothered me even more. I often questioned my own ability to study at a university in Cambridge given my limited English skills, but then remembered the students I was serving food to who couldn’t even pronounce ‘potato’ or say ‘Thank you’. So I thought if they can be here, I can be here too. And you know what? My teachers were totally cool with my English – although I didn’t see their faces when they were marking my work, and it wasn’t only my grammar they had to deal with. I was also trying to be funny, look:

Set ‘B’ [referring to a graph] represents a mental task that is absolutely not necessary in the achievement of our aim, crossing the street for instance [or] thinking idly about indulging in sexual intercourse.

What was I thinking?

Anyway. The three main teachers who had to suffer through my portfolios on the course were Julio, Tom, and Richard. They taught different modules, each with their unique teaching styles. All of them were added to my heroes list, the list of people who taught me something important in life. I will show you this list later and explain why you should start writing one too.

The three main software we were asked to work with were Logic Pro, MaxMSP, and SuperCollider. Most of us had played with digital audio workstations (DAWs) before, so Logic wasn’t alien but the others, well… I think we weren’t really sure why programming was on the menu. (I guess I didn’t pay much attention to the course description.) Textual programming was frustrating, but some of us still use SuperCollider today or have transferred coding skills to non-music related programming languages, for instance web development or stock trading. You see, coding is really cool! It gives you control. You can even decide when a composition should be random and hell yeah… even how random!

While there were compositions I made using a combination of these software, Logic was mainly used to make acousmatic music, music for films and games; Max/MSP and SuperCollider were used to manipulate prerecorded or synthesized sounds with algorithms, and later with sensors connected to Arduino microcontrollers or other interfaces. These sensor technology experiments eventually led me to explore brain-computer music interfacing (BCMI) with the Interactive Brainwave Visual Analyzer (IBVA) in my final project. My highly ambitious goal was to control music with my mind like Fallom did, a modified human in Asimov’s last Foundation book. But did I? No, and I don’t think anyone could then or today.

Graduating with a first-class degree with honours made me feel pretty good, but I had the same issue as after high school. What the hell was I supposed to do now? I didn’t think I could find a job that needed my new CMT skills, so I enrolled in the master course to buy some time. The start was exciting. Tom and Richard invited me to demonstrate my work as part of their Digital Performance Lab at the HCI2009 Conference at the Microsoft Research Centre. It felt awesome to be there, but I was surprised and slightly embarrassed when a journalist published a picture of me with my machine and his summary of our conversation in Cambridge News.

Me with my machine in Cambridge News.

My grandma carried the print around the village to show her friends, and they probably didn’t understand a word in English. Maybe they thought Britney Spears was my new girlfriend.

I had a few interesting projects linked to my assignments, for example making sound and music with SuperCollider for a game, further experiments with sensor technology, however, it soon became clear that I wanted to work more with brainwaves. So, my final project developed a new BCMI system, but this time with a NeuroSky headset. See a quick video demo below.

I finished the MA course, but it took longer than expected. Why? Was I getting busy with something else apart from applying for PhD scholarships and being madly in love with my future wife who is hanging upside down in the video above? Yes, with hourly-paid associate lecturing.

Teaching

During the MA course, Richard asked me whether I would teach his Sensor Technology module while he went on a sabbatical. I thought this might be the way in, the chance for me to finally have an intellectual job. So, despite my fears, I accepted the challenge of teaching students who speak better English than I ever would. I overcame my fear by running before every class along the river and guess what, it helped. Since then, I have taught several modules at ARU and other universities as well as run regularly. I got to know brilliant people whom I only wish I had stayed more in touch with. You see, whether a student or teacher, at school, relationships built are some of the best takeaways and definitely not what you get paid as an associate lecturer. Compared to my later contracts with the University of Essex, the salary at ARU never covered the hours needed for preparing, teaching and marking. But I don’t regret it. There were several other insights I gained while teaching: for instance, it is somewhat true that ‘people who can’t do it teach it’, that ‘teaching is the best way to learn’, and that the relationships students assume teachers have with each other can be far from the truth – well, that’s another story. I will soon share more insights on my teaching experience at this and other universities, but now, let’s highlight a few creative outcomes from these years.

Selected Outputs

Releases

My first music releases were often simple collections of pieces I was working on around the same time. The Acousmatic Programming (2009) release has first and second year assignments exploring the fundamentals of electronic music. Some pieces were programmed using algorithms, first on paper with drawings and later using software, while others were arranged more traditionally in Logic. You can listen to three of my favorite tracks below – they are all short – and to the whole release here.

Experiments fusing genres are on Violin Exp (2010) and, with more minimal narratives inspired by Steve Reich, on Digitones (2010). Deeper (2010) features soundtracks for a video game project and a remix for a duo called Victoria and Jacob graduating from the same CMT course a year before my class. Play (2011) has two tracks developed for a game project and reworks of my older music. Here an example that doesn’t sound too weird.

Before mapping sounds to brainwaves, I experimented with mapping synthesized and prerecorded sounds to signals from piezo disks, webcams, motion detectors, and light sensors. None of these works are remarkable, especially when considering what some of my students came up with later, so let’s switch to their work for a bit.

Students

My classrooms were always a mixed bag of students bringing different skillsets. Some played traditional instruments very well, some didn’t play any instruments. Some had programming skills, some didn’t. Some spoke English well, some didn’t. This was somewhat challenging for the students and for me too, but it was tenfold compensated by their enthusiasm, especially with my first few groups. These were big classes, often with more than 20 students. And these were not only names on the register but actually people turning up in the classroom. I loved these groups. Check out my first Sensor Technology class’ showreel below.

I carried on teaching sensor technology and was also asked to teach other modules for instance Julio’s Music For the Moving Image (M4MI). By this time, I started my PhD and had a showreel to (try to) impress students with, although many students turned out to have better compositional skills than I had.

My experience teaching previous modules made me realize that the best way to run a module inherited from another teacher is by personalizing it. It needs to align with your experiences and what you think is best for your students and yourself. Is there a new method or software you want to explore, and think students might like too? Integrate it into the syllabus. Are there creators you’d like to work with? Invite them as collaborators to provide assets or guest speakers to inspire students and your colleagues. (Make these guest talks available to all staff and students.) Also, as I will explain soon in my heroes list, it was Richard who helped me really understand that the best way to learn is by working on a project that somehow aligns with your personal interests. While it was relatively straightforward to apply this approach to the programming, sonic art, and sensor technology modules, the M4MI module needed a bit more attention. You see, M4MI students often have to all use the same assets, meaning that everyone designs sounds and composes music for the same film scene or gameplay footage. First, students might not like these assets, second, these assets, unless in public domain, often cannot be part of students’ public showreels.

So, my lucky students had a good variety of assets to choose from and also a higher incentive to submit good work than if it was just something for me to mark. The way I did this was by inviting indie filmmakers and game designers to provide assets, the visual materials, and job descriptions (AKA briefs), to ensure students’ works are in line with what was actually needed. (Of course, students could also select other visual assets, for example, if they were already working on a film project.) Organizing all of this required a lot of time but it was an excellent investment. I didn’t have to write assignment briefs, students didn’t submit work outside the scope of what was acceptable, and we ended up with exciting submissions. I fondly remember the public screening of my first M4MI class’ works in a cinema setting.

Poster with intro and the names of all students.

As a reward by the department, I even got money for a wine reception where I was told how cool it is to have a lecturer drinking with his students. Well, we all deserved to celebrate and I simply followed the holistic methods of my philosophy teacher in Hungary (2000-2004) with whom we even danced around bonfires on our end-of-year trips. Below is our M4MI 2016 showreel featuring snippets from what was screened at the cinema.

Events

Have I mentioned that my first degree from Hungary in 2004 was in cultural development? So, it’s no surprise that I got involved in organizing many events. Besides the normal administrative duties of an organizer, I often got involved as an audio technician or photographer in conferences, symposia, concerts, and lecture series in the department and at research institutes where I started working in 2015; CODE and later StoryLab. Still linked to ARU, I also got involved as a photographer and conceptual artist in the first Cambridge Sustainable Residency, and as a photographer and audio person for some of David Ryan’s performances.

In addition to my teaching roles, I have also led workshops for groups of children in Hungary and neurodiverse teenagers in Cambridge. But let us not forget about the place where I organized a lot of stuff: the CB1 Internet Cafe on Mill Road, where I was a mini boss for a few years. This cafe was a hub, where I could organize art exhibitions, music events, and vegan potlucks, set up my sole-trading business, Tedör’s Vegan Food and Tedor Tea and most importantly, got to know a lot of people. I really ought to write this experience up separately, as there are tons of digital files linked to this place in my archives.

Games and Theatre Work

While the video games I was asked to design sound or compose music for were prototypes never officially published, one deserves to be mentioned here. Stormbrothers, the game winning 2nd place at Brains Eden in 2013. We worked on the game prototype over a period of 48 hours of which the last 12 hours were spent drinking tea in my CB1 Cafe. Here one track from the playlist for which SuperCollider was used to generate most of the melodic and rhythmic patterns.

While I collaborated on a handful of productions directed by the local theatre company, Menagerie, two stand out. Swimming and Picture of You. For Swimming, I was asked to compose the theme song in grime but ended up with a drum and bass track. (Sorry Paul!) For Picture of You, I drew inspiration from the jazz percussion elements in the film Birdman (2014). Although I had a similar ‘time for money’ challenge as with my hourly-paid short-term teaching contracts, I still loved working with Menagerie and learned a lot about theatre work. So, I always encouraged my students to find these opportunities and not worry about the money. So when I wasn’t around Cambridge anymore to work with the company, I recommended to the theatre two of my best students, both of whom were praised for their contributions later.

Here’s the trailer I made for Pictures of Me, my last work with the Menagerie.

EDM

Before I finish, let’s go back to my initial motivation for enrolling in the CMT course. Do you remember it? I wanted to make drum and bass. While many of my experiments did incorporate elements of EDM, I only put a release together in 2013 that I thought was not going to be too experimental. As with many of my previous works, the theme for this release was also linked to my search for the ‘secret place’, an altered state of consciousness (ASC) I discovered around 2004 with a psychedelic substance. My attempt to re-induce the feeling of the ‘unusual oneness’ felt in this state without substance – a still ongoing project – resulted in five stylistically distinct compositions: house, drum and bass, trance, psydub, and psychedelic downbeat on the Secret Place (2013). This was the first time I worked with a singer, Theresa, and the first time I paid for mastering. I also asked friends, Karl, Matt, and Chris to remix the house track featuring Theresa’s voice for bonus material. Both my work and the remixes are great and I still listen to them at least once a year as some kind of nostalgic pilgrimage. More often than I do, my wife and kid love these tracks and would play them at home and on car journeys.

But, deep inside, I was never satisfied with the end result. Why? Because the music didn’t get much attention? Was it still too experimental or did I not mix the tracks well enough before the final mastering? It’s likely the latter, which is why I still fantasize about revisiting the tracks to mix them better, and to document the process – which could then help others streamline their work. Will I ever find time to do this?

You see, the issue here is that I never learned how to produce EDM professionally. Even though the Secret Place release still feels a bit experimental (which really shouldn’t be an issue, check music by Warp Records), I think the instruments and how they converse with each other in the narratives are good, but how the final sound is mixed isn’t – it is not clear nor dynamic enough. Well, it’s not as easy to make a great EDM track as some think. While earlier it bothered me how some (including teachers) look down on EDM while not even knowing the genre, after a while, I’ve been ignoring or even challenging these biases because it’s clear that they never experienced a good EDM party. Also, there are pop music course in higher education, so EDM should be a part of it.

With friends at the 2012 Ozora Festival.

Conclusion

After seeing the CMT course at ARU decline and eventually being cancelled – there were fewer and fewer students and teachers left gradually too – I often thought about setting up a new course that keeps what was good and adds what was missing – an EDM pathway embedded in the course. Adding a few optional modules each year would do the trick, ones that explore production via sampling and synthesis, composition, mixing, mastering, and marketing skills, perhaps even deejaying. The high-art (e.g., history of electronic music, sonic art) and the programming and human-computer interfacing (HCI) modules would of course stay as these are the ones that sharpen critical thinking and to help create novel work. Even though students dread essays, it is the time-consuming literature reviews that open our eyes. They help realize that what we often think are our novel ideas have many times been addressed by others before. This can be depressing but we need to stick to smart – not hard – work which helps find gaps in knowledge or areas where established knowledge hasn’t made the necessary impact yet.

Without the high-art and programming modules asking me to read and write in English and to dive into alien domains like BCMI, I wouldn’t have ended up with a PhD in Music, a postdoctoral research position, and this website pushing me further in developing my professional digital identity by trying to become a better communicator. But for me, to get where I am was a struggle, because I often didn’t know what career options I could choose to explore from where I was standing. Maybe a necessary struggle but my feeling is that education on all levels – not only higher education – needs to be better at clarifying what skills the market needs and how this need can be aligned with our personal aspirations. Teachers often don’t exactly know how you can use what you learn from them to find a job. They can help you develop a specific skill, but it is entirely your responsibility to integrate that skill into your own personal knowledge management system – not only to find a job but also to find one you’re happy with or even better, to create a job for yourself: that’s art.

Footnotes