Activities
July 13, 2018
Santa Cruz Guitar Company
Founded in 1976, the Santa Cruz Guitar Company brought boutique guitar making to the forefront of the steel string guitar business. Richard Hoover and his team at the Santa Cruz Guitar Company build guitars with world class care and precision. Their instruments define quality, with each guitar individually voiced and tuned by a skilled luthier.
July 16, 2018
Boomeria
Started by The Boom in 1953. Completed by students from San Lorenzo Valley High School over a period of many years. This is a Baroque-style tracker action organ containing 40 ranks of pipes numbering about 2500.
July 17, 2018
Rick Turner Guitars
Ever wonder about that strange looking guitar Lindsey Buckingham of Fleetwood Mac has been playing all these years? The same one John Mayer has occasionally been spotted with as well! It's the Rick Turner Model 1, and if you want the straight dope on this instrument, you've come to the right place.
July 18, 2018
Ruben's Tube
If you’ve never seen a Rubens’ Tube before, you’re in for a treat. In a nutshell, this crazy contraption is basically a waveform visualizer that uses fire to display the shape of sound — and it’s surprisingly simple to build. The whole apparatus is basically just a closed tube with a few holes drilled in it and some propane pumped through it. Light the jets, put a speaker on one end, and the flames will magically start to pulse along with the music.
July 19, 2018
Chladni Plates
The German scientist Ernst Chladni was one of the pioneers of experimental acoustics. His research on different kinds of vibrations served as the basis for the scientific understanding of sound that later emerged in the 19th century. One of Chladni’s inventions was a technique to study the motions of vibrating plates. Starting with a metal plate whose surface had been lightly sprinkled with sand, he found that bowing it produced characteristic patterns that could be related to the physical dimensions of the plate. “Chladni’s Plates”, as they came to be called, provided an early way to visualize the effects of vibrations on mechanical surfaces.
July 20 & 27, 2018
365producer (formerly Indigital)
365producer teaches you how to record your music in professional studios using the latest production techniques. As you learn how to create the best music of your life, they help define, create, and market your musical brand. What will you create?
July 24, 2018
Beyond the Trees
Fred Carlson, co-founder of Beyond the Trees, has been hand-building original and traditional guitars and other stringed instruments for over 40 years. If you like beautiful, unusual instruments and you're not familiar with Fred's work, you're in for a treat. A unique combination of discipline, skill, whimsy and innovation, along with an intuition finely honed by years of experimenting, makes Fred's work stand apart from that of other luthiers.
July 11, 2018
Guest Speaker: Dr. John Ryan of MBARI
For centuries, poets and writers have imagined the depths of the ocean as eerily quiet. But scientists now know that the oceans, and especially coastal areas, are full of sound from both natural and human activities. The sounds on this stream come from an underwater microphone (hydrophone) that the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute placed on the seafloor in 2015. For over two years MBARI researchers have been fascinated by the variety of sounds captured by this hydrophone. “When we first listened to these recordings we thought they were wonderful,” said lead scientist John Ryan, “and we wanted to share them with the public. I’m excited that we’ll finally have a chance to do this.”
July 31, 2018
Thomas Spearance, Musical Saw Champion
If you’ve spent much time on the Pacific Garden Mall, you’ve probably run across a derby-clad street performer who plays the musical saw under the statue of Tom Scribner. That would be Thomas Spearance, a Santa Cruz icon.
August 2, 2018
Musical Vegetables
Vegetables have some qualities that make them ideal for instruments. They’re readily available and root vegetables like carrots can be easily carved and whittled. Additionally, you don’t need a lot of money or training. You just need a little creativity. Not to mention, someone blowing into a vegetable and playing Moonlight Sonata will never not be fun.