About
Monthly Music Hackathon NYC is a monthly all-day event for musicians and engineers to create new music-related projects from scratch, develop them throughout ~10 hours, then perform or present them in a concert in the evening.
Noon hacking begins
8 PM concert/presentation of projects
199 Lafayette St, 3rd Floor, New York, NY 10012
FREE!
But space is limited, so please RSVP
@musichackathon
Join the mailing list
FAQ
Who should go to the concert?
Everyone is welcome. Expect a crazy frenzy of experimentation.
Who should go to build a hack?
Anyone who wants to make something related to music.
Musicians with little experience with hands on technology who want to meet and collaborate with techies, and have the experience of working through new ideas quickly and practicing finishing projects.
Musicians who use technology to make their art.
Programmers, engineers, and scientists with an interest in any aspect of music.
What can I make?
Wiktionary gives one definition of hack as “To work on an intimately technical level” (http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/hack). An appropriate hack at this event would work on an intimately technical level with any subject surrounding music, such as making sound, making instruments, making compositions, analysis of a piece of music, analysis of a music collection, analysis of music listening data, making music presentation platforms, making music sharing apps, making music sales apps, etc, etc, etc…
What can’t I make?
Anything that makes a mess. Sorry, our space is not equipped for luthiering.
While the presentation of your project can and should make sounds, while you’re creating it you will be surrounded by others trying to work on their own project, so please keep the noise making quiet and/or intermittent.
How many projects are there? Do I have to collaborate?
It’s up to you whether you work on your own project, come with collaborators to work with, find collaborators beforehand via the mailing list or Twitter or Hacker League, or hope to meet collaborators in person at the hackathon. You can post a project idea and/or skills you bring to the table on Hacker League if you want.
We will, however, all collaborate at the end of the day on crafting the flow of the concert/presentations.
Do I have to present my work?
Yeah.
What can I present at the concert?
You can perform music or tell people about what you made.
What equipment will there be for the concert/presentation?
Electricity. A small PA system. A projector. A stage-ish area about 10x10 feet.
Are there prizes or a competition or voting?
Nope.
When does it happen?
We’re shooting for having a music hackathon in NYC the last Saturday of every month. The first one is Saturday, July 28th from 10 AM to 10 PM.
Where does it happen?
199 Lafayette St, 3rd Floor
New York, NY 10012
The education software company Slader (http://www.slader.com/) has very generously donated the use of their space. My employer, exfm, has an office on the same floor of the same building.
Why are you doing this?
Anyone who’s attended any of the awesome Music Hackdays (http://musichackday.org) knows they are super fun events. But the last one in NYC was February 2011. There have been other music-focused hackathons in New York since then, but they tend to be geared toward the music industry, advertising, and recruiting. There’s nothing inherently wrong with those things, but it seems like there is a desire in the NYC music tech community to have these events more often, focus more on creativity, and make artists feel welcome.
For me personally, I have a ton of music tech projects on the back burner that I don’t get a chance to work on. Blocking off an entire day once a month to focus on these projects will encourage habits of creativity and productivity.
The ideas from the tech startup world of rapid prototyping, iteration, and completion can be extremely helpful for artists. This will be a venue dedicated to practicing those techniques.
Ensemble in residence?
We’d like to have a different ensemble or group of musicians come as invited guests to each hackathon in order to collaborate with the hackers throughout the day and do informal performances of the hacks at the end of the day.
If you’re in a group that might be interested in doing this please get in touch.
If you’re interested in working with such a group, be advised we may not have an ensemble for the first hackthon on July 28th 2012.
Who are the sponsors?
We’re trying to be as free from sponsorships as possible, in order for the nature of the event to be guided as much as possible by its participants. However, the space has been very generously donated by Slader and exfm has provided some food and allowed Jonathan to spend a little time organizing.
Do you need volunteers?
Yes! Please let us know if you want to help set up, clean up, carry food in or out, stand at the door to guide people in, run the mixing board, etc.
Do you need folding tables, a PA system and food for ~50 people?
Wow, it’s amazing that you asked that because we do in fact need all of those things!
Who are you? Who can I contact for more information?
For more info, contact:
Jonathan Marmor
@jonathanmarmor
Significant guidance on the planning of this event was provided by Jessica Thompson, Trevor Knight (both of whom organized the amazing http://montrealmusi.tk/ hackathon), Ari Russo, and the staff of exfm: Dan Kantor, Marshall Jones, Lucas Hrabovsky, Kirk Love, Jessica Page, and Joe Kanakaraj.
