events

Exploring Sound Waves

Waves are an important part of the school curriculum and can be difficult to grasp for some. We’ll use some very unique instruments to demonstrate waves. This gets the students interested and helps them understand some key concepts about waves. I demonstrate some my favorite experimental instruments and discuss the process of taking an instrument from concept to construction. Kids will assemble pipes of different lengths to create their own instrument, watch as the waveform generator makes sand dance and waves in a tray of water, and play a trash can standup bass guitar. We keep an oscilloscope running through the whole performance so kids can see the waveform for all the different instruments we test. This workshop will be hands on for the students and is best kept to a single class size. Allow 45 minutes.

book reading and live loop music

Most of the instruments i’ve built are recycled from something else….usually that something else would be considered junk. So yes, I build instruments out of junk. Some of that junk makes beautiful sounds and even some fun music. There are some similarities between my junk instruments and the story in a book called Ada’s Violin. This book was suggested to me by my son’s second grade teacher because she saw those similarities as well. Now I get to share that book with elementary students and show off some of my homemade recycled junk instruments. I bring recording equipment with me and record layers of live loops, playing the instruments i’ve built to create a fun song that will pique the kids’ interest in music and recycling. This workshop will be hands on with some of the instruments and is best kept to a single class size. Allow 45 minutes.



circle time

This event is a hit with all elementary grades. Students will sit in a circle and will play and pass around different instruments. This workshop seems less scientific, but still creates curiosity in the kids and is lots of fun. Along the way kids will ask questions about how an instrument was built, and what inspired it’s creation. We’ll talk about big low pitched and small high pitched instruments. We even do some call and response percussion playing. This workshop will be hands on for the students and is best kept to a single class size. Allow 45 minutes.

Optional - We can build a simple shaker instrument together that the younger kids will enjoy building and decorating.