Brian Smith’s musical journey began with studying the piano (from age five) and trumpet (from age nine). He received a Bachelor's degree in music from the University of California, Santa Cruz, where he began composing at the electronic music studio. In the mid-1980s he co-founded the experimental industrial band Language Lab in San Francisco, then moved to Paris and immersed himself in the contemporary music scene there, working at IRCAM for several months before going on to create sound installations and compositions independently.
Brian Smith
- Berlin Germany
Brian has been teaching music and music technology for over 25 years and gives workshops, master classes and lectures throughout Europe.
He now lives in Berlin and is the founder and owner of big brain audio — a small, boutique-style audio school specializing in intensive, hands-on courses. He is also a co-creator and sound designer of Ambinator, a functional music app.
In addition to teaching and coaching performance artists, composers, music producers and DJs, he has taught sound synthesis, sound design, and the aesthetics of music technology at the Humboldt University in Berlin, the Berlin School of Applied Arts (hdpk), and the Film University Babelsberg.
Brian’s artistic activity includes making soundscape compositions from his own field recordings using complex audio processing and arrangement techniques. His recent work explores room acoustics with feedback loops controlled both by his trumpet and a complex array of processors, operated with Ableton Push.
Since 2003, Brian has been using Ableton Live for teaching, composition and performance.
Brian teaches courses that range from the fundamentals of Ableton Live to more advanced production techniques, and from sound design to musical composition. He provides specialized artist consulting and one-on-one courses as well as intensive, hands-on workshops and master classes for groups. These courses take place both in-person and online. Brian teaches in English (native), French (fluent) and German (fluent).
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