Come to Maker Music Festival May 15, 2022

May 06, 2022

Maker Music Festival is just one week away! There will be new exhibits and live sessions May 14th and 15th!

What is it?

The Maker Music Festival celebrates the makers of innovative, experimental and just plain unusual musical instruments.

In 2018 the first Maker Music Festival took place in Sebastopol, California. It showcased the projects and talents of a select group of music makers from the San Francisco Bay area. The event had exhibit booths, live performances, demonstrations and hands-on activities. It was produced as a fundraiser for our local maker space, Chimera Arts.

It was a wonderful event and we looked forward to doing it again -- but on a larger scale.

Of course, the pandemic happened and many people in the events business looked to alternatives to physical events. The creators of the festival found themselves immersed in this world.

Joe Szuecs, software developer, maker and musician, built the frameworks for a couple of virtual experiences. Decameron Row is a collection of videos created by noted artists, writers, musicians, and dancers. The videos are presented as views into apartments in a row of buildings. The design represents the confinement to home that we are all experiencing now. Modulation, part of the Prototype festival is a virtual opera festival.

Sherry Huss, co-founder of Maker Faire, is working with Freeman Events to help them map the future of the event business.

Taking what they’ve learned in the past year, they decided to produce a virtual version of the Maker Music Festival. Expanding on the Decameron Row experience, Joe has created a campus of buildings that house the work of makers from around the world. The goal is to emulate the live experience as closely as possible.

On May 14th and 15th, the festival will introduce the 2022 exhibits. These DIY music and instrument makers will join our existing group of projects. Along with the collection of projects, there will be exhibits, lectures, demonstrations, interactive activities and performances that showcase the creativity and ingenuity of the maker music community. For a visitor to the site, the experience is akin to a real world ‘open studios’ tour. They can navigate from building to building and ‘visit’ the inhabitants therein. Each maker has provided video, images and text that describes themselves and their work. There are also links to social media, additional videos and maker websites. Visitors can also ‘tip’ a maker via the maker’s chosen payment method.

Schedule

The SCHEDULE for LIVE sessions over the weekend is now posted.

Educator Focused Sessions

"A Music Educator's Tour of Maker Music Festival" with OKGo Sandbox and Ann Marie Thomas

Sunday 5/15 : 10:00AM PST (noon CT/1pm ET):

Join music teachers and Dr. AnnMarie Thomas, the director of the University of St. Thomas Playful Learning Lab, for a guided tour of the MMF where they will be highlighting a few projects that have great potential for use in PK-12 music classrooms.

We will have an interactive chat about ways to bring more Making to Music! Music Educators and Instructors are encouraged to join this session.

Materials: Bring anything you would like to share.

"Deep Constructionist Pracitices: Maker Music Educational Opportunities" with Daniel Schnitman

Sunday at 1pm PT (3pm CT/4pm ET):

The Maker Musical field, albeit on a continuous rise, has already attracted a large number of highly talented people aggregating an assortment of epistemologies.

A deep pedagogical outlook may contribute profoundly to our practices and expand its relevance in society. With this in mind, investigating together and applying Constructionism, Seymour Papert's learning theory, to Music Maker Practices can generate new approaches.

Materials: Your thoughts and insights.

How do I sign up?

TICKETS are free and available on Eventbrite. We have a Zoom link for Saturday and one for Sunday sessions and you can access these links by registering.

There will be at least TEN hours of programming with 20 MAKERS leading sessions - all FREE!

Get your FREE ticket!

What's New this Year?

There will be NINE new buildings with 100+ Makers (taking the MMF Campus up to 30 buildings -- all available all year long). SEARCH has been added (so you can search by maker, category, project, etc.) It is available now, on the top navigation bar, and on May 14th all of the new MAKERS and their PROJECTS will be accessible too.