Women in Music Tech

05 Apr Women in Music Tech

Music production is an essential skill for the modern musician and yet the male-dominated field leaves many aspiring musicians feeling overwhelmed and intimidated. If you have been going back and forth in wanting to venture into music production but have been lacking the final boost of motivation, you are at the right place. Our roundup of four formidable South Asian women making marks in the world of music is bound to leave you inspired. By embracing technological innovation, these women are shattering glass ceilings and enhancing their creative expression.

Krithi Rao

Krithi Rao is a music producer, sound designer, mix engineer, singer-songwriter, and educator. Her music is a confluence of Indian music, specifically Carnatic music, with electronic, pop, and jazz idioms. Krithi released her debut, a self-titled EP in 2015 and went on to study interdisciplinary music studies at Berklee Online. Alongside her artistic endeavours, Krithi is a dedicated educator. She is the Workshop Leader and Youth Program Coordinator for Building Beats, and the NYC Chapter Development and Management Director for Beats by Girlz– both social enterprise organisations striving to empower underserved youth, and women and gender-expansive people with essential leadership and entrepreneurial skills through their music production and DJ programs. “My advice for women and anyone from marginalised communities interested in pursuing music production is to find collectives and education initiatives in your area. The more of us there are in the industry, the better. We end up becoming decision makers and thus making the industry more inclusive and equitable.”

Xylo Aria

Singer, music producer, and entrepreneur, Xylo Aria is a woman with a vision. Dabbling in creating her own songs from the young age of twelve, she released her debut EP ‘Arrow’ in 2015, receiving significant coverage on several renowned Australian publications like Tonedeaf, and Australian Music Scene. She began producing her own tracks in 2017, after realising it was the only way to authentically capture the breadth of her creative imagination.  Reflecting on the challenges of learning to produce music in a field dominated by men, she founded the online education platform ‘Music Production for Women’ (MPW) in 2019. Through MPW, Aria has been leading the conversation about under-representation of women in music production, and her initiative has received the support of Ableton Live.

Gnarly

Gnarly is a British-Sri Lankar finger drummer, DJ, sound engineer, music producer, and educator. Learning the piano from the age of six, she developed a natural love for music and sound, and completed her undergraduate studies in Sound Arts and Design at the University of Arts, London. Her music is influenced by a variety of genres from jazz, soul, and funk, to hip-hop, UK bass, and neo-soul. She built an impactful online presence by posting regular videos of her finger drumming, and her creative career took off from there. Gnarly is also the lead mix and mastering engineer for the UK Beatbox Championships post-production team. Speaking to Stereofox for an interview she said, “I’ve realised that by being a woman of colour in the beat scene, it makes me a role model for other women of colour as there’s not that many of us and I hope my visibility inspires others to pursue careers in music.”

Arushi Jain

Arushi Jain is a singer, pianist, and modular synthesist. Having spent the first eighteen years of her life living in India and subsequently moving to the US for her tertiary education, the sound of her music is informed by a continuing feeling of in-betweenness. Growing up in Delhi, she developed a loving affiliation with Indian Classical Music that would go on to shape her music further down the line. Moving to the US to study Computer Science at Stanford University, Arushi found the perfect overlap between her background in engineering and love for building her own technological infrastructure with her lifelong dedication to music in modular synthesis. In 2021, she released her debut album ‘Under the Lilac Sky’.

Curated by Jasmine Kok & Written by Senjuti Maitra