Portfolio
A Curious Doubling of Terms
Released by Audiobulb Records UK. Available on 9/6/2025 all major streaming platforms.Pietro Da Sacco, Igloo Magazine (Best of 2025) “On a curious doubling of terms, Seth Thorn weaves a serene tapestry of ambient electronics and modular textures. Combining bowed strings, granular synthesis, and hushed rhythms, he crafts nine intimate pieces where silence, shimmer, and circuitry intertwine in delicate motion and mood.”Colin Lang, Musqiue Machine: Seth Thorn is a violinist and coder – not necessarily two things that traditionally jibe – though today is certainly not traditional, by any stretch of the imagination. Thorn is a live improviser, and his first album, a curious doubling of terms, parades all of his talents, of which there are many...Thorn is adept, as are the best improvisers, at smoothing his transitions, making sure that nothing gets in the way of the durational experience of listening.
NSF AISL EAGER Award, $296K.Seth Thorn, Principal InvestigatorGlitch’n is a youth-led, community-driven informal learning initiative that introduces neurodivergent youth and underserved communities to electronics through circuit bending.
Modular Hardware Prototyping
Check out my Instagram page to see my work programming the Daisy Seed SOC for sandbox modular hardware.
I explore real-time signal processing in improvised performance, a practice built around an augmented violin. By trial and error, I designate the salient features of my instrument, which I construct through an abductive process symmetrizing action and perception. The choices in the mathematical analysis of the feature vectors construct a sound, a new one, that has never been heard.
Matter² aspires to grow K-12 strings education in the U.S. by offering technology-enhanced versions of common string instrument accessories—shoulder rests and end-pins—I developed and have licensed from Arizona State University. With the help of an ASU award and a committed research team, we intensively beta-tested for 18 months and discovered the joy we can bring to young musicians. With a recent startup award, we’re now pushing towards commercialization.
I use Cycling 74’s RNBO and Gen patching environments to craft generative instruments and effects, bridging digital innovation with the tactile world of embedded hardware. The Bela Pepper module serves as my playground for exploring RNBO within the Eurorack ecosystem. Similarly, the versatility of Noise Engineering’s Versio platform allows me to deploy Gen code on Electrosmith’s Daisy submodule to explore digital texture and detritus.
My teaching spans a rich spectrum of interdisciplinary work, merging technology, music, and interactive design. It includes creating movement-responsive instruments through wearable technology, foundational media computing with sensor-embedded boards, augmented musical instruments design, and custom music software and hardware development. I emphasize hands-on learning across digital fabrication, circuitry, sonic interaction design, and modular synthesis. Additionally, courses cover electronics basics through circuit bending and advanced composition techniques in generative and procedural composition.
By suggesting playful interactions rather than mastery, the experiential poetics of “wearable music” offers a body-centric motivation alternative to normatively gendered and combative tropes that historically shape electronic music discourses. This page highlights projects I’ve led that explore collectively playable instruments in the context of performance practice (especially dance) and neurodiverse movement.