DISCOGRAPHY
PRESS
RECORDINGS
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UPCOMING EVENTS
SELECTED PERFORMANCES
A GIFT
A Free SoundscapeA spacious, open container to practice within—whether you enter through active listening, vocal exploration, or an instrument. Yours to download and keep.
COMMISSION
Bespoke SoundImagine your sonic world. Bespoke auditory environments and compositions for practitioners, creators, and spaces whose work demands the same level of mastery in its sound as its craft.
"He gave both my podcast and my membership a sonic world that people actually remember." — Maia Benaim
DEVELOP
Music LessonsDevelop your musical craft. Music Lessons are a 1:1 space for people who want to grow their musicianship while staying connected to intuition, integrity, and expression. Lessons begin with the songs and sounds that already inspire you, using them as the doorway into embodied craft.
"I felt way more confident about my playing after we worked together." — Sam B.
SUBSCRIBE
Being Sound on SubstackSubscribe to Being Sound on Substack for free writing, resources and inspiration on sound, music and creativity.
BESPOKE SOUND
Imagine your sonic world.
You've poured depth into every detail of your work — the words, the visuals, the physical space. But an immersive experience is instantly broken by the wrong music.
I create bespoke soundscapes for people whose work demands the same level of mastery in its audio as they bring to their craft. Sound that doesn't just accompany your work, but holds it.
Every piece begins with listening: to your work, to its resonance, and to what's being communicated beyond the words. The music is created from an immersion into this world.
WHAT THIS CAN SUPPORT
Each project is shaped to fit its specific use, audience, and context.
HOW WE WORK TOGETHER
Every project begins with a conversation about your work, your audience, and the kind of attention the sound needs to hold.
From there, projects take different shapes:
WHAT YOU RECEIVE
Every collaboration is tailored, but may include:
PRICING
What a project costs depends on the kind of sound it asks for.
Environmental & Atmospheric ($400+)
This is functional sound design. Drones, tones, field recordings, and ambient textures meant to act as auditory architecture. Like a wash of color on a wall, these soundscapes create a physical space or state of mind without demanding the listener's direct attention. Ideal for meditations, treatment rooms, or deep-focus practices.
Composed & Structural ($1,500 – $4,000)
This is narrative sound. Melody, arrangement, and structure that develop into a clear, recognizable sonic signature. This work guides the listener through a journey and defines your auditory brand identity. Ideal for podcast themes, course identities, and cohesive brand worlds.
Larger commissions — retreats, platforms, or systems of pieces working together — are scoped on their own.
The discovery call is where we find what your work is actually asking for. It's free, with no expectation beyond seeing if the work fits.
IS THIS FOR YOU?
This work is most aligned with people who:
LISTEN
WHAT PEOPLE SAY
NEXT STEP
If this resonates, you're invited to schedule a discovery call.
APPS
WEB APP · BETA
A living, interactive music textbook for the guitar. Every note of a key lights up across the whole neck, each scale degree in its own color, and re-lights the moment the key changes. Scales, harmony and ear training, seen as constellations of possibility across the fretboard. So you can just play.
WEB APP · BETA
Sing over a living soundscape, and keep both tracks. Field recordings of birds, crickets, rivers and sea, a shruti box and the Soundscape in 12 Keys play in your headphones, all in the key you choose, while any mic records your voice: your phone's, your laptop's, or a studio mic. Voice and soundscape stay as two tracks, so you can balance them afterwards and share the mix.
BESPOKE DESIGN
Build the thing your practice needs.
The same attention I bring to sound, applied to the things people use. I design and build websites, tools, and instruments for practitioners, teachers, and small studios — working end to end, so what you get is finished and yours to keep.
WHAT THIS CAN SUPPORT
SELECTED WORK
NEXT STEP
MUSIC LESSONS
Develop your musical craft.
Music Lessons are a 1:1 space for people who want to grow their musicianship while staying connected to intuition, integrity, and expression. Lessons begin with the songs and sounds that already inspire you, using them as the doorway into embodied craft.
AREAS OF FOCUS
BETWEEN SESSIONS
Fretboard Constellations carries the theory and technique between lessons: every note of a key lit across the neck, re-lit the moment the key changes, with notation and TAB. It's free in your browser, so lesson time can go to playing, listening, and your own sound.
Soundscape is for practising with your ear and your voice: play or sing over a drone or a field recording in the key of your piece, record yourself on your phone, and bring the takes to your next lesson. It keeps your playing and the backing on separate tracks, so you can hear exactly what you played.
WHO THIS IS FOR
Students of all ages and skill levels, from complete beginners to working musicians refining their craft. My primary instrument is the guitar. I also teach ukulele, voice, and music technology.
PRICING
$100 per hour. Packages, sliding scale, and alternate payment options available upon request.
WHAT PEOPLE SAY
NEXT STEP
If this resonates, you're invited to book a free 15-minute clarity call, or go straight to a first lesson.
ABOUT STU PENDER
Stu Pender, Chicago-born musician and sonic artist, weaves elements of improvisation, songwriting, and electronics into orchestrations for the guitar, voice, and laptop. His work explores how sound and creative expression can help reconnect us—with ourselves, with one another, and with the world around us.
A founding member of the hip-hop collective Poetic Thrust, Stu has also worked in various roles in the studio with artists Yoh, Cartoons, Topaz Jones, Carlos Niño and Laraaji. Sharing the stage with artists August Ponthier, Photay, Elijah Wolf, and Maggie Rogers, he’s showcased his talents as an internationally touring guitarist at The MoMA PS1, United Nations, The Beacon Theatre, and many more. His work since has been that of a more reflective self-inquiry: his solo records Stillness In Motion (2021) and Being With (2025), a certificate training for sound in the healing arts with the New York Open Center’s Sound & Integrative Music Institute (2022), a deepening study of North Indian raga and vocal meditation with Silvia Nakkach, and ongoing practice in the Zen and Tibetan Bön traditions.
Through Being Sound, Stu crafts bespoke sound for practitioners, creators, and spaces, and teaches sound & music as an embodied, relational practice.
A GIFT
An architecture for deep listening.
A spacious, open container to practice within—whether you enter through active listening, vocal exploration, or an instrument. An invitation to shift from performing to sounding with, offering a slower, more embodied way to listen and create.
YOU'RE IN
Here is your soundscape.
It runs a full hour, unmetered. Listen to an excerpt below, then take the whole piece with you — there's no right way in and no tempo to keep.
STAY IN THE LOOP
Good to meet you.
[PLACEHOLDER — one warm sentence for someone who just met you at a show, workshop, or event. Edit freely; the wiring stays the same.]
![4.5 [with Stu Pender]](https://f4.bcbits.com/img/a2255686736_10.jpg)
