Saffron, in collaboration with Black Artist Database (B.A.D.) are delighted to announce a three-month series of online music production workshops for women, trans, non-binary and gender non-conforming people worldwide.
Tech Dissect is a regular workshop series that sits as part of Saffron’s digital member’s club, with different guest hosts taking the reins each month to share their production insights. For the B.A.D. residency taking place this January, February and March, sessions are hosted by creators in the B.A.D. network, including Nairobi-based artists Coco Em (31 Jan) and [M] (29 Feb), and B.A.D. co-founder NIKS (28 Mar)
Workshops are designed to support individuals of all experience levels to build confidence, community and technical understanding of music creation using Ableton Live. Workshops will take place on Zoom and will last 90 minutes. No previous experience using Ableton Live is required. Attendees can download a free version of the software in the sessions here.
WORKSHOP SCHEDULE
31 Jan – An Intro To Ableton Live – w/ Coco Em – 7.30pm GMT
Want to kickstart your new year with music-making? Dive into the world of production with Coco Em’s “Introduction to Ableton Live”, based on her Sim Sima program. This online session is designed for absolute beginners eager to explore their musical potential using the powerful and intuitive Ableton Live software, which you can download an Intro version of for free.
29 Feb – Software Synergy: Sonic Pi & Ableton – w/ [M] – 7.30pm GMT
Join [M] as they usher you into the world of music coding using Sonic Pi, a free and open-source live-coding music synthesizer and performance software. In this workshop [M] will give you an introduction to Sonic Pi and explore how it can communicate with Ableton Live.
28 Mar – Structuring Your Tracks – w/ NIKS – 7.30pm GMT
In the third and final workshop of the series, B.A.D. founder NIKS will share simple techniques to build a structure for your track from beginning to end. She will talk about why compartmentalising aspects of the production process can be useful and show you how to maximise each section of your track within this format.
Black Artist Database is a community-based platform, hosting a wealth of international Black-owned record labels, artists, producers and bands. This crowd-sourced database provides an easy way to search, filter and directly support the creative output of Black artists globally, via their online profiles. The database was started as a community effort on 4th June 2020, as Black Bandcamp. On 5th May 2021, the project relaunched as Black Artist Database, a move which we hope will expand the project’s scale and scope, and bring cultural and material support to Black artists.
ACCESS
Access to these sessions is free for members of Saffron’s online community, Saffron Members Club. Saffron Membership starts at just £5.50 per month and provides access to regular online workshops, an online community space, video masterclasses, free music tech tools, discounts and much more.
We never want money to be a barrier to people accessing music tech, so if you are unable to afford a ticket but believe you would benefit from attending these workshops, please email us on members@saffronmusic.co.uk.
Workshops are open to people worldwide, but will be running at 7.30 pm GMT so please bear differences in time zone in mind. If you purchase a ticket but are unable to attend live, you will automatically be emailed a recording of the workshop(s) after the event.
GENDER POLICY
The gender imbalance in the music technology industry is well-recognised. While we are absolutely not ‘anti-men’, we see that a shorter-term solution is to provide fellowship and learning environments that are not dominated by the cisgender male perspective. Therefore, these workshops are intended for women, non-binary, trans and gender non-conforming people to attend. While we do not ban cisgender men from attending, we hope that they will respect that this event is not intended for them.