01 — the course

Decolonize Electronic Music

Rethink how music is made.
Build a sound that isn't predefined by Western systems.

A seminar by Seba Kayan: Musicproducer & Lecturer at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna

This seminar examines colonial power structures in the history, aesthetics, and technologies of music theory and electronic music. From an interdisciplinary perspective that brings together music history, sound studies, critical theory, and artistic practice, it analyses Eurocentrically shaped narratives of music theory and electronic music production.

In doing so, it critically interrogates dominant listening habits and modes of perception, while exploring alternative forms of production, distribution, and listening. A particular focus is placed on diasporic, Indigenous, and non-Western electronic music practices that challenge Eurocentric perspectives, destabilize normative listening frameworks, and render marginalized histories and knowledge systems audible.

proposition 01
Locus of Enunciation
Knowledge always speaks from somewhere. Decolonial work shifts attention from what is said to from where it is said — and this applies directly to the music we make and the tools we use to make it.
proposition 02
Tuning as a fundamental, often invisible foundation of music
Tuning is a fundamental yet often invisible foundation of music: the dominance of 12-tone equal temperament was not acoustically inevitable, but historically consolidated through institutions such as conservatories, missionary education, and the recording industry, which marginalized other tonal systems. As such, tuning provides a critical entry point for examining structural conditions within electronic music — shaping how music is defined, produced, and perceived, while simultaneously rendering these underlying assumptions largely invisible.
proposition 03
The DAW is Not Neutral
Programming standards — 4/4 defaults, quantization, MIDI pitch mapping, preset logic — are historically produced and aesthetically normalizing. The DAW is not a transparent window onto sound. It is a site of epistemic governance.
what you'll learn
05 modules
  • 01 /
    Sonic Identity & Cultural Lineage
    Mapping your own sonic references — outside Western canon — as a compositional foundation.
  • 02 /
    Non-Western Rhythm Systems
    Additive meter, polyrhythm, microtiming — working with rhythmic logics your DAW doesn't assume.
  • 03 /
    Decolonizing Your Ears
    Critical listening practice to surface inherited aesthetic biases and expand your reference palette.
  • 04 /
    Software as a Colonial Tool
    Navigating DAW defaults — scales, tuning, plugin libraries — and bending them to your needs.
  • 05 /
    Building Your Own Tuning System
    Designing and implementing your own scales using Leimma and Apotome — composing from a reference point you have consciously chosen.
why it matters

This seminar challenges the foundations of electronic music production. Most software we use today — from DAWs to MIDI — was built on Western musical assumptions:

  • — fixed tempo grids
  • — equal temperament
  • — linear composition

These systems are powerful — but they are not neutral. They shape how we produce, how we listen, and ultimately how music sounds worldwide.

This course opens up those systems — and shows you how to move beyond them.

this seminar helps you

  • — Find your own sonic identity
  • — Challenge creative limitations
  • — Engage with music beyond dominant frameworks
02 — from festival curators
"'Decolonize Electronic Music: The Search of Repressed Possibilities' by Seba Kayan was for me — in the context of Civa – |indeterminate⟩⟨apparatus| 2025 — not only centrally important content-wise, but also personally a great enrichment: it made exemplarily visible how deeply colonial structures are inscribed in digital production tools, and how urgent it is to critically question and expand them. For Civa, it is crucial to open spaces in which artistic practice not only produces new aesthetics, but also reflects and actively renders transformable the technological and cultural conditions of its creation. All the more do I thank Seba for her openness, her powerful energy, and the generosity with which she shared her knowledge and experiences — she not only shifted perspectives, but also showed how much potential lies in a truly open sonic practice."
Eva Fischer
Civa · sound:frame
"Decolonize Electronic Music challenges how electronic music is shaped by dominant histories and listening habits. The format makes these questions tangible — connecting critical reflection with collective listening and lived sonic experience. For us, it's an essential contribution that expands how music can be understood, heard, and contextualized today."
Mimie Maggale
Sonic Territories
03 — from participants
"Coming from an indie rock background, I was already familiar with alternative guitar tunings outside of the 12-tone equal temperament, but this workshop gave me a new perspective. It was interesting to explore how these ideas can be translated into electronic music. Working with external tuning systems in Ableton became much more approachable through the hands-on examples. It gave me some fresh ideas to experiment with in my own work."
pfizerpizza artist
"As an artist combining archival audio with electronics, the sounds most readily produced by my DAW sharply contrasted with my archival samples. Seba Kayan taught me a softer approach — she taught how to access techniques within the DAW so that the electronic sounds could be molded gently around the traditional music I sample."
Chaia artist
04 — session structure
01
Theoretical Foundations
This session introduces the conceptual framework of the seminar. We examine how electronic music technologies are shaped by historical, cultural, and economic contexts, with a focus on Western-centric assumptions embedded in production tools. A central premise is that DAWs are not neutral — they encode specific musical logics such as fixed grids, equal temperament, and linear time, which influence both creative decisions and aesthetic outcomes. Drawing on Achim Szepanski, we discuss how software environments pre-structure musical possibilities. In parallel, we revisit Wendy Carlos and her pioneering work with alternative tuning systems.
Coloniality in music & technology Non-neutrality of DAWs Standardization of rhythm & pitch Szepanski Wendy Carlos
Session 1
02
Rethinking Rhythm and Structure
We explore alternatives to fixed grids and linear timelines, drawing from diverse musical traditions and experimental practices. Participants develop rhythmic sketches that challenge standard temporal frameworks.
Polyrhythm & polymeter Cyclical & non-linear time Limits of quantization
Session 2
03
Tuning Systems and Sonic Organization
Moving beyond equal temperament, participants engage with tuning systems that offer different ways of organizing sound. We experiment with retuning digital instruments and creating microtonal material.
Microtonality & just intonation Maqam & raga Consonance across cultures Leimma
Session 3
04
Building Your Own Tuning Systems
This session shifts from analysis to construction. Participants design and implement their own tuning systems, exploring how musical logic can be redefined at the structural level. The focus is on developing reproducible and intentional sonic systems.
Custom scales & frequency relationships Mapping tuning to MIDI Apotome Ableton Live
Session 4
05
Tools, Systems, and Final Application
The final session expands from tuning to broader tool-making and workflow design. Participants explore how to modify or rethink their production environments to support alternative musical approaches — integrating tuning, rhythm, and structure into a cohesive practice.
DAW limitations & alternatives Designing alternative workflows Cohesive practice
Session 5
learning approach
Critical theory
Reading, discussion, and theoretical grounding
Listening & discussion
Guided listening from outside Western defaults
Hands-on production
Working directly in Ableton, Leimma & Apotome
System design
Not only questioning frameworks — building new ones
05 — theoretical frameworks
Walter Mignolo
Local Histories / Global Designs
Locus of enunciation — local histories as sites of knowledge the universalizing narrative of modernity renders invisible.
Frantz Fanon
Black Skin, White Masks
Colonial power operates at the level of self-perception and aesthetic judgment. The colonized subject internalizes aesthetic hierarchies as natural rather than constructed.
Fanny Gribenski
Tuning the World, 1859–1955
A=440 Hz was not a neutral acoustic decision — it was a political settlement between nation-states, military bands, broadcasting corporations, and music industries.
Achim Szepanski
Mille Plateaux Manifesto
Programming standards are neither neutral nor naturally given. They are historically grown, economically framed, and aesthetically normalizing.
Jonathan Sterne
The Audible Past
Listening is a historically and technologically situated process. Hearing itself is shaped by the apparatus and institutions through which it passes.
Eve Tuck & K.W. Yang
Decolonization is Not a Metaphor
Decolonization is not diversity work or curriculum reform — it requires material and epistemic restitution, not just expanded representation.
06 — tools and software

The seminar combines a standard production environment with specialised tools for alternative tuning and sonic exploration.

participants will work with

  • — Ableton Live 12
  • — Apotome
  • — Leimma

Together, these tools support both critical reflection and hands-on experimentation beyond standardised music production workflows.

Ableton Live 12
The primary production framework. Participants critically engage with its grids, MIDI, and equal temperament — turning the industry-standard tool into a site of productive friction.
Apotome — isartum.net/apotome
A browser-based generative music environment for working with alternative and non-Western tuning systems. Extends Ableton by enabling tuning systems that equal temperament cannot express.
Leimma — isartum.net/leimma
A browser-based tool for exploring, hearing, and building tuning systems. No specialist knowledge required — participants begin by choosing their own reference pitch rather than inheriting A=440.
Seba Kayan working one-on-one with a participant at a Roland MIDI keyboard and laptop
Two participants with headphones working on Apotome in Ableton Live
Workshop room with six participants working individually on laptops with headphones
Wide shot of participants across the workshop room, each working at a laptop
© Mario Nägele
07 — workshop formats
previously booked at
Sonic Territories Festival
previously booked at
CIVA Festival
currently lecturing at
Academy of Fine Arts Vienna
format a
Guest Workshop
A single intensive session introducing the core framework — locus of enunciation, tuning as colonial structure, DAW defaults as ideology — followed by a guided Apotome production exercise. Adaptable to any cohort size. Can be taught in English or German.
Duration: Half-day (3–4h) or Full-day (6h)
Format: In-person or hybrid
Language: EN / DE
format b
Curriculum Module
A 4–6 session arc integrated into an existing programme. Each session builds on the last, moving from theory through practice to student-led presentations. Includes reading list, slide materials, and workshop guides. Can be co-taught with existing faculty.
Duration: 4–6 sessions × 2h
Format: Seminar series
Language: EN / DE
08 — about
Seba Kayan

Seba Kayan

Musician · Lecturer · Researcher · Vienna

Seba Kayan is a Vienna-based musician, DJ, and researcher whose practice spans electronic music performance, critical pedagogy, and decolonial theory. Growing up between European and Kurdish musical worlds, her work consistently asks what it means to compose from one's own locus — rather than from inherited defaults.

She teaches Decolonize Electronic Music at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna (AKBILD) and has performed at Donaufestival, Wiener Festwochen, Jupiter Disco NYC, and the Austrian Cultural Forum New York. Her releases — Tencere, Zurna Rave, and The Impossible Halay — enact in sound the theoretical framework she teaches.

Austrian Music Award Nominee AKBILD Vienna Donaufestival Wiener Festwochen Jupiter Disco NYC
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