Workshop on Mixed Music - November-December 2025

[James O'Callaghan]

Hi everyone, I've been really enjoying teaching my workshop on spectral mixing this year, and so appreciative that I've had so many interested and engaged participants! I polled some past participants if there are other topics that they'd be interested in, and based on this and what I've been approached for by individual students in the past, I'm starting a brand-new Crash-Course Workshop on Mixed Music, starting November 16th. Feel free to share with your students or those who might be interested. Here's a brief video presentation of the course https://youtu.be/GMIIDGvIItw?si=dxxZ7uvlZf87PXUx

And the form to enrol!:

https://forms.gle/Ba2N54F95ubQLrFW8

Details: This workshop is designed as a crash course on composing music for instruments and electronics.

It is intended for composers who already have some experience writing both instrumental and electroacoustic music, but have less experience combining the two idioms, or want to refine their practice. It has both compositional and technical components:

The course will cover different compositional strategies and approaches to the idiom, and provide two models of ways of working:

1. An 'instruments-first' approach where instrumental sound sources are the basis for the electronic part, influenced by improvisatory electroacoustic studio practices.

2. An 'electronics first' approach where non-instrumental sound sources are foregrounded, using techniques to derive musical values for instrumental notation through spectral analysis.

We will examine the issues of balance and blend in mixed music, looking at strategies for mixing and orchestration, as well as different considerations for physical setups. We'll provide a few examples of strategies for integration of sounds, considering different roles for interaction between instruments and electronics.

The course will survey different configurations of electronics, including fixed media, click tracks, and performer-controlled electronics, but will focus on cue-based triggered electronics using Max/MSP. A Max/MSP license is not required for the course, but highly recommended. 2 of the 5 sessions of the course will focus on building and adapting a max patch to run live electronics for a mixed piece.

The patch will accommodate:

- Triggering sound files

- Accepting MIDI control input

- Amplifying instruments

- 3 kinds of live processing: reverb, transposition, and delay.

This patch will be offered to students as a blueprint for their own patches, and by the end of the course, participants should feel comfortable adapting it to the needs of their own pieces. No prior programming experience is required, but a basic understanding will certainly help!

Finally, the course will cover the practical concerns of:

- Notating the electronics in the score

- Equipment needs and creating a technical rider

- Performance setup options (who is triggering the electronics and how? from where?)

- Operating electronics - live mixing and triggering following an ensemble

Participants will have the opportunity to share their work in the course for feedback and discussion.

The cost for the course is $400 CAD, 250€ or $280 USD, and I will offer a sliding scale for motivated participants in economic precariousness.

If you have previously taken my Spectral Mixing workshop, I'm happy to reduce the fee by 50%! ($200 CAD)

The language of instruction will be in English, but participants are welcome to pose questions and receive feedback in French.

5 weekly 1.5 hr sessions, November-December 2025

Meetings on Sundays at 2PM EST (11AM PST, 7PM GMT, 8PM CET, etc.)

16 November, 23 November, 30 November, 7 November, 14 November

Maximum 10 participants

Virtual meeting (Zoom)