What can you do with a button? What circuits can you bend? What software and hardware can you construct? Want to meet up with myself and fellow makers from the DIY music and visualist communities? I’m touring and looking for new works, we have one call for one-button objects that (if you can ship it) can come from anywhere in the world, plus upcoming events in New York, San Francisco, and — this month, Amsterdam at the planetary music tech hub that is STEIM.

STEIM + Handmade Music Amsterdam (Netherlands, February)

Handmade Music is beginning in Amsterdam. To kick things off, I’ll be visiting the legendary STEIM research center. The event will be open to anyone with inventions and self-built hardware and software you’d like to share. We’ll plug in and make a raucous noise. I’m really quite looking forward to meeting folks from this area.

When: Wednesday, February 17, 8p – ?
Where: Utrechtsedwarsstraat 134, Amsterdam
Cost: FREE
STEIM Hotspot Lab Event Page

I’ll also do a short presentation of some work TBD; more on this next week.

If you’re attending and want to share what you’re bringing in advance or make sure you see me, use the CDM contact form.

Wherever you live, you can enjoy the DIY and open hardware inventions coming out of Texas. Or, as the famous song goes: “That’s right, you’re not from Texas / Texas wants you anyway.”

Austin, Texas may be associated with the strum of guitars. But it’s also populated by some of our favorite electronic music hardware inventors on the planet, led by the likes of Bleep Labs, 4ms, Eric Archer, and more. They’ve taken the idea of a “Handmade Music” and come up with the best formula for building a community around DIY hardware I’ve seen yet:

1. Get beginners – even if they’ve never soldered before – making noises with a beginning kit workshop.
2. Do an advanced workshop that pushes the envelope with new hardware.
3. Turn that noise into a performance/party: i.e., “After all the kits were built, we plugged in to the PA and partied until the amp overheated.”
4. Provide your specs and software freely.
5. Make a kit available for people to buy.

Notice that it’s possible to make “free hardware” (open sourcing part or all of the code, publishing specs and circuits) and still sell a product. And it’s possible to act locally (workshops in Austin), and sell globally (sharing documentation online, and shipping kits everywhere else).

And notice that it’s possible to make events beginner-friendly. In fact, this isn’t just to teach experienced musicians how to solder. I find that many people who are too shy to make music via traditional means find there’s a freedom to a glitchy, blippy electronic thing that makes noise. After all, through the ages music was never intended to be exclusively the domain of professional specialists.

Here’s the latest on their activities – and a chance to meet the hardware that has come out of their series.

For more, stay glued to handmademusic@noisepages.

First, let’s meet the devices:

Handmade Music is spreading. Toronto’s InterAccess has been a hub of terrific DIY activity in sound and other fields, otherwise known as a General Gravity Well of Awesomeness, and they’re now doing their own Handmade Music, kicking off this month.

Full call below, but as with other events, there is an open call for work (and some nice thoughts on why now is a wonderful time for DIY).

Even if you’re not in Toronto, it’s nice to read their take on why this stuff matters. I’m gratified they’ve found this inspiring. I’ve certainly been inspired by … well, all of you!

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Strings of tour dates and electronic music often mean crowd-friendly dance music, but there’s a growing, impassioned audience for more contemplative concert sounds, too. Composer-musicians Lesley Flanigan and Tristan Perich are pulling into the last stop on an extended tour of their work, here in New York Friday at Galapagos Art Space. For many, electronic music, in particular that made with computers, becomes about abstraction. For this duo, electronics become a chance to grow even closer to the tangible, acoustic sound – techniques they share in workshops as well as performances.

And would you believe… antique harpsichord?

Andromeda MK-1 and MK-2 from Eric Archer on Vimeo.

Thanks to the miracles of express shipping, there’s still time to give the gift of music technology for various holidays. (And I do mean the holiday season, not just Christmas – for me, it extends neatly to my birthday on January 13, which in turn falls before the music tech holiday NAMM.)

Geeky goodness

There are really wonderful sound makers out there to give to beginners and enthusiasts alike. MAKE:Magazine has done a fantastic job of covering terrific, affordable kits that anyone can use. I haven’t seen anyone – muscially inclined or otherwise – resist the charm of the Drawdio, a noisemaker mounted on a pen, or the more-sophisticated SX-150 synth. Our friend Collin Cunningham at MAKE has done a nice round-up of their various sound-making toys. Anyone who reads this site I’m sure would love to get one, but even people who’ve never messed around with electronics might find some of the basic kits fun, too.

And new this year are some of the wonderful creations of Eric Archer and company, which we’ve seen shown off at Handmade Music Austin.

Make: Holiday Gift Guide 2009: Music Machines [Make:Blog]

Synthtopia did a nice line-up of instruments under US$100, too, from the mighty Game Boy to delicious noise instruments and Stylophone remakes. I couldn’t agree more (this is one of those stories I wish I had written, but – hey, nice, I didn’t actually have to write it this time)!

10 Cool Electronic Music Instruments Under $100 [Synthtopia]

One kit that I believe was left off these lists is the Loud Objects productions. They’re simple, elegant, but capable of making some fascinating sounds. Having tested them with attendees at Handmade Music events, I can say with confidence that they’re a great way for people to get started making electronics – and you can even have a couple of beers while doing it and pull it off. That could make them a nice way to hook someone you know who isn’t a dedicated electronic musician.

Loud Objects Kit [Loud Objects]

There’s so much goodness on all these lists, in fact, that we may just need:

1.) An ongoing guide to gifts, to help spread the electronic sound addiction to everyone we know, year-round, and…

2.) Some ideas post-holiday for all of us in the Northern Hemisphere to enjoy our winter hours inside, tinkering with strange sonic toys

Thoughts?

In the meantime, since I (cough) did a poor job this year putting together holiday shopping lists, any other blog lists you’d like to showcase? I’ll collect them all. Rush shipping is worth it, right?