June 18, 2020
Stone/Water/Time/Breath
Anyone, anywhere, is invited to perform in Make Music Day’s presentation of Stones/Water/Time/Breath by Dean Rosenthal. These experimental music performances, where music is performed with stones at a body of water, will take place outside, in the world. Performances can be done following local and regional guidelines of safe social distancing, either solo or in small groups. All are welcome to perform, wherever they choose, and performances may take place at any point during the hours of June 21st to participate in Make Music Day. Sign-up here!
Note from the Composer:
This year at Make Music Day, I think Stones/Water/Time/Breath plays a special role, considering that it is piece that will always need to be performed outside. In the time of COVID, as we are slowing getting ourselves back into the world safely, we can join in an open, creative experience at any body of water, in small groups or solo performances to reconnect with performance and nature on our own or with a small group of fellow performers. Stones/Water/Time/Breath is very simple music, performed at any body of water with played with stones. Anyone can play and we hope you join us across the country to perform live again in the world and outside our spaces indoors. This year, we will see performances in Los Angeles, Chicago, Martha’s Vineyard, Woodstock and many other locales and we invite you to join us wherever you are!
The score to the performance is as follows:
Site-specific: outside, by the water, any body of water, like: a pond, the ocean, a lake, a stream, a river
Materials: stones. As many or as few as desired. Maybe they are already there.
Performance:
Arrive, set a start time, start.
Use the stones as elements or implements to make percussive sounds on the water.
Play the water with the stones.
Play singly, together, rhythmically, with solos, tuplets, common rhythms, irregular rhythms, cycles, patterns, with no rhythms.
There can be pauses.
No speaking.
When you feel the piece has ended, end the performance.
For any number of performers.
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For a download of the printed score, more information about the piece’s history, and a list of performances and several available videos, please go to www.stonespiece.com
Audio examples of the music can be found on the recording available on Edition Wandelweiser Records and streamed and/or purchased on Bandcamp or through international distributors.
June 13, 2020
Make Music City of the Week: Philadelphia
The Make Music Alliance raises our voice in support of justice for the African American community. This year, we will amplify Make Music Day events and artists who are part of the historic Black Lives Matter movement.
Make Music Philly, returning after a year of hiatus, will dedicate their Make Music Day events in 2020 to this extremely important cause. They encourage all Make Music Philly participants to tag their performances with #BlackLivesMatter and #NotesOfSolidarity, along with links for fans to donate to racial justice causes.
What are you doing to help Black Lives Matter on Make Music Day? Let us know.
June 13, 2020
Bucket Drumming with Vic Firth
The Vic Firth Company, setting the standard for percussion since its inception in 1963, is generously supporting bucket drumming workshops across dozens of cities for Make Music Day 2020.
Vic Firth will provide drumsticks for Bucket Drumming events. The events will range from structured classes to free-flowing bucket drumming circles, according to the concept of each local organizer.
The goal is to spread the message that to make music, all you need is a beat in your heart… and a pair of sticks.
Click here to find a bucket drumming workshop near you!
June 13, 2020
Make Music Artist of the Week: Elliot Cole
Composer Elliot Cole's music has gone everywhere. It has been performed by Grammy winners Roomful of Teeth, by incarcerated men at New York's Sing Sing Correctional Facility (where he runs a music school), and by over 250 percussion ensembles around the world.
This year for Make Music Day, his music will sing out from an unlikely but beautiful percussion instrument – the flowerpot! In Flowerpot Music, bell-like tones pass from performer to performer in improvised gestures called “blooms” that sweep through the group, made up of non-musicians and musicians alike.
In a special online version of the piece, performances by over two dozen groups will be live-streamed continuously for over 8 hours on June 21. Several performance slots led by Elliot and percussionist Peter Ferry are open to participants anywhere.
Click here for more details on how to join!
June 13, 2020
25×12: Hundreds of Live Online Lessons
Make Music Day is the perfect opportunity to shake the dust off your instrument and start playing again, or to pick up an instrument for the first time.
Need a hand? On June 21, over 160 teachers and master musicians will offer free, online group lessons for 25 different instruments over the course of 12 hours (hence the name, 25×12).
You can take a beginning ukulele lesson, apply your piano skills to the pipe organ, improve your musicality on the viola, work on your percussion groove and feel, or explore hundreds of other options, from beginning to advanced, all brilliantly curated by Maggie Gould. Jump around to sample a range of instruments, or binge on your favorite.
Click here to see them all!
June 4, 2020
Create your own Make Music Day poster!
Now you can create your very own Make Music Day poster for Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, and let everyone know your June 21 plans!
Share your posters on social media using the hashtag #MakeMusicDay and don’t forget to tag @makemusicday so we can repost!
Poster Creator: bit.ly/MMDCreatePoster
June 4, 2020
Make Music Artist of the Week: Judit Vincze
In 2018 and 2019, Hungarian music producer and pianist Judit Vincze joined a select roster of DJs and producers appearing in open-air “Street Studios” around the world on Make Music Day, presented by Found Sound Nation and Harman.
Using only the audio she recorded on a plaza in Budapest, Judit created two atmospheric tracks reflecting both her cinematic sensibilities, and the musical contributions of whoever wandered by.
This year, while people around the world are staying safer at home, Judit and other producers will continue the Street Studio tradition with Bedroom Studios – live-streaming their production process from home, while creating a collaborative track with short audio clips sent in live by viewers.
Check out the full Bedroom Studios lineup here!
June 4, 2020
Sweetwater and Make Music Day
We’d like to take a moment to thank Sweetwater Sound for its multi-year Make Music Day sponsorship.
Since 2016, Sweetwater has spread the word about Make Music Day to thousands of customers, who have eagerly joined Make Music celebrations around the country. Sweetwater even organized Make Music Fort Wayne for several years, bringing bands, play-alongs, and family fun to their Indiana hometown on June 21.
These days, Sweetwater’s dance card in June is filled with GearFest, taking place online June 26-27 with live music, huge deals on gear, dozens of exciting giveaways, and pro tips from your favorite brands.
But Sweetwater continues to join its customers in celebrating Make Music Day, and stands by to ship any last-minute gear that may be needed for June 21.
June 4, 2020
Make Music Country of the Week: UK
Make Music Day UK encompassed nearly 1,200 live performances in over 400 venues last year – over 8x larger than their first one in 2017!
After coordinating 132 digital performances last year, this year’s transition online was met with open arms. This June 21, Make Music Day UK will host several digital participatory projects including Bring Me Sunshine, Lockdown Sound Challenge, and the Auld Lang Syne project, which invites everyone to join a performance of one of Scotland’s most popular and enduring folk songs.
Finally, they will join five other European countries to produce Rebels With a Cause, an international music video project created by musicians ages 12 to 25. The video will premiere on June 21st at 3pm CET (9am EDT).
Check out the Make Music Day UK website for more exciting details!
May 20, 2020
World’s Smallest Marching Band
Over the past decade, dozens of Make Music Day celebrations around the country have featured the “Sousapalooza” – an invitation for hundreds of brass, wind, and percussion players to come together and sightread the music of The March King, John Philip Sousa.
In 2020, in lieu of these massive gatherings, Make Music Day will explore the other end of the scale with The World’s Smallest Marching Band. Individual brass and wind players will parade through cities on June 21, by themselves, playing band repertoire to people listening from their homes or workplaces. These Pied Pipers (without rats or children) can bring musical joy in a year when parades are far and few between.
Anyone can start their own tiny marching band! Contact Jonah Udall at jonah@makemusicday.org to get started.