But it helps to have access to a cohort of creative coders and noise nerds as I did when I attended the ITP 2025 Camp at NYU.
What I found there was not mastery but permission.
To begin with, the joys of becoming a learner again and discovering a creative language like p5.js
You start with something modest - a simple polka-dot animation, a self-drawing doodle... You learn how randomness behaves, how repetition accumulates meaning. And then, suddenly, you’re studying a tape loop machine written by a fellow cohort and ITP graduate Willem Yarbrough, heavily inspired by Brian Eno’s Ambient 1: Music for Airports.
The logic is deceptively simple: loops of varying lengths, gently falling out of sync, creating accidental harmonies. It’s the practice of listening.
Toward the end of the camp, I gave a short presentation on making music with AI using Suno. The agenda was not to evangelize or dissuade but to examine. What does AI music look like right now—June 2025? What can it do? What can’t it do? Who benefits? Who disappears?
No wrong answers.
Only more questions—layered like loops slightly out of phase.

That soundtrack was my own deep dive into the noir-ish, pentatonic world of Ethiopian jazz. Like Bill Murray’s journey in the film, I found myself pulled into an exploration of Ethiopian music.

There’s already a wealth of material online about the origins of this genre, but here’s what I gathered: Ethiopian music is built on a unique system of five-note (pentatonic) scales called qenet (sometimes spelled kignit). Unlike Western music’s reliance on fixed tuning, qenet scales thrive on flexible intonation and oral tradition, producing an ancient, haunting sound that immediately draws you in.

Some of the most popular and easily recognizable qenet are Tizita, Bati, Ambassel, and Anchihoye (often included in the “big four”). You’ll also encounter variants like Yematabbelaw, but the core four are the most widely referenced.

I even made an app called FrEthio (Replit ftw!) explaining these scales specifically for the guitar. You can use this as a practice tool if you’d so like. You can change keys, and check out the derivative chords form the scales and listen to the ascending and descending scales.

Here it is (Use on desktop, the audio may not work in all phones):

https://frethio.replit.app/

Good luck on your journey.

Handmade homes shaped like spaceships
are scattered around a lake no one dares to swim in.
They say the military left heavy metal to rot beneath its surface over half a century ago.
No one's sure.
There are no signboards.

Two structures loom at either end of this fragile paradise.
One: a newly built, heat-breathing monster—
an incinerator with an endless appetite,
belching smoke into the sky.
The other: a glistening church spiraling toward the heavens,
a golden promise of something better.

Back at the square, tourists drift and gawk,
snapping photos of locals smoking cannabis
like they were zoo exhibits.
The plants grow defiantly,
pregnant with glistening buds,
yet a sign politely insists:
Don't buy hash.

Our friend Jack lives in an old VW van.
His living room blends into the tall grass,
just a few steps from the nude beach.

Each morning, he collects garbage.
Each night, he writes songs about sexy snails

But when he pays for his drink with a card,
he pauses.
Because every swipe
is another quiet surrender—
another slice of freedom handed over
without a sound.

Audio track made using a rough audio prompt in Suno
Tags: soviet synthpop, dubstep, ambient noise, guitars

This matters because:
a) They grow and smoke opium, storing it by soaking tiny strips of cloth.
b) They have bamboo.

Step 1: The Extraction
Take the opium-soaked cloth strips and dip them in water. Heat the mix in a brass spatula if possible. Squeeze each strip dry — don’t waste a drop. Keep boiling until all the water evaporates and you’re left with a thick, tar-like residue of pure opium. Take your time. This is ritual.

Step 2: The Hay
Find a clump of dried banana hay — or ask your ever-generous neighbour. Roast it slowly over a flame, turning it again and again until each strand is crisp and dry. No rushing. Patience is flavour.

Step 3: The Binding
With bamboo tweezers, dip the roasted hay into the spatula of opium. Twirl gently, letting the sticky resin soak in. Then transfer the clump to a plate and keep kneading it with the tweezers. Work it in thoroughly. This part is meditative — so chat, sip tea, let the moment linger.

Step 4: The Pipe
Fetch your bamboo pipe (or borrow the neighbour’s again). Add a bit of water to filter the smoke. Pinch off a bit of that sticky hay and place it in the bowl. Light it — match, ember, or lighter — and inhale slowly. Sip tea. Pass it around. Savor.

Lie down.

She was waiting on the porch—a star of yesteryear. Thirsty, haggard, but still a head-turner. The keys were in the fusebox. The weed, in the glove box. She roared to life—a V8 engine with enough power to pull all the baggage we’d been carrying for days, months, years.

We drove past the great ocean, through breathing rainforests and a lake so blue, you’d write a song. And then, into a fiery desert where the tarmac dissolved to dust.

Dead kangaroos lined the road—rotting like bad decisions. Now and then, a young wallaby would dart from the scrub, a flicker of reason you almost followed. A solitary bar, a lone bakery, a one-horse town built around a 500-year-old gum tree. The only open door - an op-shop with an earnest keeper, disappointed she couldn’t find us a guitar.

Lizards with stump tails. Lizards with frills. Lizards that played dead, pretending to be roadkill. In the beating sun, we arrived at the wedding— a row of goat carcasses crucified over burning coals, smoke rising like an offering to the gods. A feast being readied for 400 souls gathered to celebrate a marriage twenty years in the making.

The signs were there. Always there. One read: Watch Out for Snakes. But we chose the other: Good things come to those who wait.