C4DM Seminar: Tuning Towards Listening: Decolonize Electronic Music
QMUL, School of Electronic Engineering and Computer Science
Centre for Digital Music Seminar Series
Seminar by: Seba Kayan
Date/time: Wednesday, 25th November 2026, 14:00 - 15:00
Location: GC601, Graduate Center, Mile End Campus, Queen Mary University of London
Teams link: https://teams.microsoft.com/meet/327412770496677?p=pnhDHpN1CnAPZaKj1Y
Title: Tuning Towards Listening: Decolonize Electronic Music
Abstract: Through the lens of tuning and questions of listening, this lecture explores the cultural assumptions embedded in electronic music and its technologies. Drawing on sound studies, decolonial research and her own artistic practice, Seba Kayan examines how colonial structures and Eurocentric narratives shape listening habits and perceptions of what sounds “in tune.” She approaches instruments and electronic music devices as systems that organise musical attention, asking which relationships they support, what their representations leave out, and how culturally specific ways of hearing can inform their design.
Using examples from her research at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna, her productions and collaborative projects such as Hadra Rave, she considers how maqam-led improvisation can guide electronic composition. Maqam-based modal traditions are found in Arabic, Anatolian and Kurdish music, combining characteristic pitch relationships with melodic pathways and practices of improvisation. These traditions include pitches and intonational relationships that are not adequately represented by twelve-tone equal temperament. Listening examples and a practical demonstration make these relationships audible and open up new compositional possibilities. The talk also discusses how mapping pitch estimates onto fixed, equal-tempered note categories can obscure intonation that depends on the maqam, melodic context and performance style.
Approaching listening as a culturally, historically and technologically situated practice, the talk invites participants to question what is treated as musically universal and move beyond the default settings of electronic music production.
Bio: Seba Kayan is a Kurdish-Austrian electronic music composer, producer and lecturer. Her work brings Kurdish, Anatolian and Arabic musical practices into electronic composition, focusing on microtonal tuning, maqam-led improvisation and the politics of listening. She has taught Decolonize Electronic Music at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna. Her work has been presented internationally, including at Ars Electronica, Wiener Festwochen, Biennale Matter of Art (Prague), Visa for Music (Rabat) and the Austrian Cultural Forum (New York). In 2026, she was nominated for an Amadeus Austrian Music Award in the Electronic/Dance category.
Acknowledgement: This talk is supported by the Austrian Cultural Forum London.