Sonic Worldbuilding I & II with Slowfoam [8-Week Course]

✧ Sonic Worldbuilding I: Subversive Creative Practice 

This course combines intuition, queer theory, and music production to explore sonic fictional worlds and energize the creative process. We investigate ways to hack flow, while challenging and critiquing dominant production standards to engage in playful and imaginative sound exploration.

Using sound as a queer and feminist autoethnographic device, we learn to draw on our bodies and environments to reimagine and reclaim an authentic and playful creative practice. We also discuss the barriers faced by gender-diverse artists, collaboratively imagining and creating queer/feminist alternatives in a supportive atmosphere. The course highlights works by pioneering and contemporary theorists and musicians for inspiration. 

✦ Sonic Worldbuilding II: Methodology in Practice 

Sonic Worldbuilding II: Methodology in Practice continues an exploration of sound and its possibilities. Creativity and sound can be more than just a balm for precarious and difficult times. We integrate embodiment, intuition, critical theory, and music production to develop a meaningful and transformative creative practice. Together, we co-explore sound as an apparatus of interconnectedness, a sensitivity to what is, and a space to dare toward the sonic vistas of what if.

As a continuation of Subversive Creative Practice & Sonic Worldbuilding, we continue to balance a playful and critical lens in how we approach sound as a tool for healing and sensing beyond our present reality. We will emphasize the production and development of an idea from start to finish, with a strong focus on practice and technical skill-sharing. Each step of the process is informed by the methodology developed in Pt. I: Connection, Deconstruction, Reconstruction, and Collaboration. With these in mind, we navigate each step of the creative process together:

    ✣ Ideation and conceptual development
    ✣ Sourcing and creating sonic material
    ✣ Arrangement and composition
    ✣ Mixing, releasing, and sharing music


This is a BIPOC and FLINTA-focused course, prioritizing marginalized voices and perspectives. Allies are welcome, but please come with an open mind and a commitment to support these voices.

Originally hosted online with the care and support of soundial.org