Uploaded June 2026 | Updated September 2026, 1 week ago
One of my favorite questions to bring into group coaching calls in my online program Learning Sound & Synthesis is: "what is an instrument?"
And to be more precise... "What is YOUR instrument?"
You may think that the answer to this question is simple or obvious… & upon first consideration, perhaps it is: my instrument is the thing I play that helps me make music, right?
But when we consider this on a deeper level, it quickly becomes so much more thought-provoking. What role does your instrument play in your practice? What is your ideal relationship with your instrument?
Every single time we open this up for discussion in LSS, the responses I hear from people are *incredible* (& so inspiring). It turns out, like in so many aspects of art-making, there are as many ways of considering what an instrument is as there are ways of making sound...
And something I have found particularly inspiring in my own creative practice is realizing that I get to redefine that relationship whenever I want to. Especially if we are working with electronics, modular synths, & are building our own instruments, we get to play with & explore what makes our instruments "tick" on such a deep level...
How do we interact with them?
How do we listen to them?
How do they listen to us?
What is their identity / role? (& what is mine?)
...And on and on.
There's a quote from electronic music pioneer David Tudor that I come back to frequently on his approach to designing and interacting with musical instruments:
"I try to find out what's there—not to make it do what I want, but to release what's already there. The object should teach you what it wants to hear."
I love this. I love the idea of learning from our instrument rather than always controlling them, and I find the idea of the object always having music within it that we collaborate on releasing to be a particularly beautiful thought.
Curious what your thoughts are / how they are shifting as you are exploring new instruments, ways of making music, performance practice? Folks who are in LSS (or not), how has this come into focus or changed for you?
#modularsynth #vcvrack #experimentalmusic #electroacoustic #synth #synthesizer #synthesis #modularsynthesizer #synthesiser #musicproduction #sounddesign #musictech
One of my favorite questions to bring into group coaching calls in my online program Learning Sound & Synthesis is: "what is an instrument?"
And to be more precise... "What is YOUR instrument?"
You may think that the answer to this question is simple or obvious… & upon first consideration, perhaps it is: my instrument is the thing I play that helps me make music, right?
But when we consider this on a deeper level, it quickly becomes so much more thought-provoking. What role does your instrument play in your practice? What is your ideal relationship with your instrument?
Every single time we open this up for discussion in LSS, the responses I hear from people are *incredible* (& so inspiring). It turns out, like in so many aspects of art-making, there are as many ways of considering what an instrument is as there are ways of making sound...
And something I have found particularly inspiring in my own creative practice is realizing that I get to redefine that relationship whenever I want to. Especially if we are working with electronics, modular synths, & are building our own instruments, we get to play with & explore what makes our instruments "tick" on such a deep level...
How do we interact with them?
How do we listen to them?
How do they listen to us?
What is their identity / role? (& what is mine?)
...And on and on.
There's a quote from electronic music pioneer David Tudor that I come back to frequently on his approach to designing and interacting with musical instruments:
"I try to find out what's there—not to make it do what I want, but to release what's already there. The object should teach you what it wants to hear."
I love this. I love the idea of learning from our instrument rather than always controlling them, and I find the idea of the object always having music within it that we collaborate on releasing to be a particularly beautiful thought.
Curious what your thoughts are / how they are shifting as you are exploring new instruments, ways of making music, performance practice? Folks who are in LSS (or not), how has this come into focus or changed for you?
#modularsynth #vcvrack #experimentalmusic #electroacoustic #synth #synthesizer #synthesis #modularsynthesizer #synthesiser #musicproduction #sounddesign #musictech
