Building Beats with Strudel

Beat Making with Strudel is a beginner-friendly, hands-on workshop exploring how live coding can be used as a tool for making music. Participants will learn the basics of Strudel, a browser-based live coding environment, while building an amapiano-inspired beat from scratch.

Over the course of an hour, participants will experiment with drums, percussion, bass, log drum patterns, chords and rhythm, learning how simple lines of code can be used to create, manipulate and perform music in real time. The workshop will encourage experimentation rather than requiring previous coding or music production experience.

The session is part of Melanated Coalition’s wider exploration of the relationship between creative technology and the celebration of cultural music. Using amapiano as a starting point, we will explore how musical ideas can be translated into code and how coding can become another way of engaging with, remixing and reimagining musical traditions.

Workshop requirements: Laptop with browser, headphones are recommended. No previous coding or music production experience required.

About Shaan Rehsi:
Shaan Rehsi (shapesandjapes) is a creative technologist, live coder and artist working across music, code and interactive media. Her practice explores how technology can be used as a tool for creative expression, cultural memory and collaboration. She works primarily with Strudel, Hydra and other creative coding tools, creating audiovisual performances.
She is one half of the duo Melanated Coalition, a new and upcoming collective exploring the intersection of music, live coding, technology and cultural identity. Their practice brings together live-coded music, DJing, sound, poetry and performance, with a particular focus on raising awareness of musical cultures and sounds from Global Majority and diasporic communities. They use creative technology as a way to explore, preserve and reimagine cultural and musical traditions, while creating space for experimentation and new interpretations.