Description
MAKE MUSIC WITH:
Sound tells story. A 3-day journey, from tools to identity.
SOUND → STORY → ARTIST
Nadia Struiwigh — Dutch composer, electronic music producer, live performer, sound designer and certified sound therapist based in Berlin — guides you across three connected days: first shaping sound with creative tools, then composing with feeling and telling a story, and finally building a clear and sustainable identity as an artist.
This is not about one “correct” way to make music. It’s about learning the language of sound, using it with intention, finishing ideas, recognising your own artistic voice and building a world around the work.
CURRICULUM
Day 1 — Sound
Sound Design & Creative Tools
Learning the language of sound — understanding what your tools can do, how sound behaves, and how to make technical choices that actually serve expression.
- Ableton Live as a creative environment, not just a DAW
- Synthesis and sound design with MiniFreak and software instruments
- ADSR as an emotional envelope: attack, decay, sustain, release
- Modulation, movement and evolving sounds
- Frequency as placement: where does a sound live?
- Time as composition: rhythm, repetition, silence, density
- Stereo space, depth, reverb and delay
- Sampling, resampling and transforming existing material
- Effects as creative tools rather than correction
- Subtractive creativity: removing what the idea does not need
- Building an efficient and intuitive workflow
- Creative exercise: build a short piece from a deliberately limited set of tools
Composing With Feeling
Using the tools to say something — turning a feeling, image or idea into music, and shaping it into a piece with emotional movement and meaning.
- Arrival, listening and creative intention
- Finding the emotional starting point of a track
- Translating emotions and references into musical choices
- Melody, harmony, rhythm, texture and atmosphere as storytelling tools
- Choosing a limited sound palette and committing to an idea
- Arrangement as emotional movement: tension, release, expectation, surprise
- Moving from loop to composition
- Using limitation to escape endless options
- Listening critically without losing intuition
- Creative exercise: start from a feeling and develop it into a short composition
Building Yourself as an Artist
What happens around the music — recognising your identity, communicating it, releasing your work, creating opportunities and building a career that can actually last.
- Recognising your personal musical identity and artistic direction
- Turning your sound into a clear artistic world without forcing a “brand”
- Finishing music and deciding what is ready to release
- Labels vs. self-release: understanding what each path can offer
- How to approach labels and present your music
- Bookings, live shows and building relationships with promoters
- Building community and using social media without becoming a content machine
- Collaborations, brand partnerships and recognising the right opportunities
- Money, boundaries and creating a sustainable career around the music
- Career longevity: choosing a path that still feels like you
- Standing out in an AI-saturated world: taste, point of view, curation, intention
- Using AI and new technology as tools — without outsourcing your identity or decisions
- Artist clinic + Q&A: bring real questions about your music, releases or next steps
KEY TAKEAWAYS
What you leave with
- A clearer understanding of synthesis, ADSR, sound design, frequency, time and space
- A more intentional relationship with Ableton, hardware and creative tools
- A repeatable way to turn feeling, intention or story into musical choices
- Practical composition and arrangement tools for finishing a piece
- Strategies for escaping overproduction and option paralysis
- A stronger understanding of your own personal artistic identity
- Practical insight into releases, labels, bookings, visibility and career building
- A finished or substantially developed piece created during the workshop
WHO IT’S FOR
Electronic musicians, producers and composers who want to understand their tools more deeply, make more personal work and build a stronger artistic identity around their music. Suitable for emerging and more experienced artists — basic familiarity with a DAW is helpful, but this is not about technical gatekeeping.
SCHEDULE & LOCATION
€549
3 full days · Early bird €449
