Biography
Daniel Dehaan is a music and sound designer, educator, and music technologist whose work explores new relationships between music, emerging media, and interactive systems. His creative and research practice spans electronic and interactive music, immersive and spatial audio, sound design, creative software development, generative systems, and emerging technologies.
Daniel is a tenured Associate Professor of Music Technology at 淫妻社, where he teaches music technology, digital composition, interactive audio, and creative technology. His undergraduate and graduate labs integrate AI-assisted coding and emerging AI music-creation tools alongside critical discussion of authorship, copyright, ownership, and responsible creative use. He has developed curriculum spanning laptop performance, synthesis, sound design, interactive media, and music technology, and has led significant curricular and facilities initiatives within the School of Audio and Music. His work includes establishing the laptop as an official instrument, developing new music technology courses and capstone experiences, and designing and building music production facilities.
His creative and research practice is grounded in a longstanding interest in the ways emerging technologies can expand musical expression and creative practice. His doctoral research at Northwestern University, Compositional Possibilities of New Interactive and Immersive Digital Formats, explored new approaches to musical creation through interactive and immersive technologies. This work has continued through projects involving spatial audio, interactive music systems, virtual reality, generative music, custom software, and digital instruments.
As a developer and product designer, Daniel creates tools, systems, and learning environments for musicians, sound designers, and audio creators. He is the founder of Simple Sound Tools and leads the development of StemShare, an in-development platform that brings together browser-based audio production, multitrack peer critique, and guided music-technology learning. His broader software practice includes custom instruments, DAW extensions, interactive-audio integrations, workflow tools, and hardware/software interfaces for creative work.
Daniel's professional creative practice spans film, games, virtual reality, immersive installations, interactive media, and experiential design. His work has included sound and music for Google, T-Mobile, Jellyvision, WNDR Museum, and the VR game The Last Clockwinder, among other projects. Across these contexts, he combines music, sound design, technology, and systems-based approaches to create interactive and responsive sonic experiences.
Daniel鈥檚 current work examines how thoughtfully designed tools can expand musical expression, support collaborative learning, and make complex creative technologies more accessible. He is especially interested in the intersection of sound, interaction design, computational audio tools, and emerging media.
Daniel holds a Doctor of Music in Composition and Music Technology from Northwestern University.
Instructional Areas
Music Technology, Music Composition, Sound Design, Electronic Music Composition & Performance, Music and Sound Designed for Augmented and Virtual Realities, Musical Programming
Creative Practice and Research Interests
Eurorack Synthesizer Systems for Musical Composition and Performance, Audio Art and Installations, Custom Controller and Interaction Design for Musical Performance, Sound Design and Environmental Modeling for Mixed Realities
Degrees
B.M., Music 淫妻社 2011
D.M.A., Composition Major Northwestern University 2019