In Thesis Paradoxos, aka the 2025 “Senior class”, we visit topics throughout our EMA curriculum, and weave these ideas together into a distilled practicum. Much like an advanced university course, the outputs of this practice-based compositional research will be defined by your own efforts and outputs, with my providing structure and resources.

Thesis Paradoxos: What becomes of Chaos when syphoned into Order? What happens when the expected meets the unexpected? What can be wholly itself while simultaneously embodying the opposite? These philosophical inquiries will be applied across sound design, composition, and mixing strategies. 

While in past Thesis projects, there has been a cohesion around a singular genre study, this project will borrow techniques I used to produce ZEE genre fusions, borrowing conventions from different genres to construct a vibe-journey through sound. Within this framework, we will create cohesion in musical paradoxes. Think of a musical paradox as a sonic riddle on the timeline: where do we place the question mark, where do we reveal the punchline? How can we visualize and resolve tensions between opposites?

We will adopt an explorative workflow that embraces the emergent side effects of deep modulation using various synths, effects, and samplers as part of the compositional and sound design discovery process. We will utilize new Live 12 MIDI tools to help us “write” and re-imagine much of the source music. We will use Live 12 native devices, generative patching, max devices, live modular synthesis, and third party plugins, to immerse ourselves into a workflow where we create MANY MORE sounds and ideas than we need. This will result in a palette of tools and sounds you’ll be making that will help grow and expand your sonic vision as an artist.

Our production schedule is designed to facilitate your production of at least two tracks in parallel: one (1) original collaboration between you and at least one other person in the class; and one (1) independently produced piece of music made on your own over the 60-day period.

This parallel track production will be achieved through a series of structured assignments. The purpose of prescribing this procedure is to encourage the compartmentalization of your creative tasks and asset management, to familiarize you with professional artist collaboration conventions, and to practice a structured approach that can be replicated outside of the class.

While the other classes have been 90-120 minutes, these classes are more likely to extend into longer sessions. We will be building a track together from scratch, and thus might spend more time behind the DAW than with classes that follow a set lesson plan. (And as always, as before, everything will be recorded, so no worries if your schedule permits extended sessions, you will not miss a thing.)

These next two months are going to be an absolute odyssey in exploring your potential not just as a music producer, but as an artist. The ultimate vision is to create a momentum that will carry you through the rest of the year and onward!