by Claire Marie Porter (full story can be found here)Scott Keeley began playing didgeridoos to treat his sleep apnea. “Didgeridoo players don’t snore,” he was told by his doctor.
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by Claire Marie Porter (full story can be read here)Michele Judge, a percussionist and jewelry-maker, began making her own drums after playing a friend’s steel tongue drum in southern Mexico. To her, the sound and feel of the instrument was intoxicating.
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by Claire Marie Porter(full story can be found here)While Tom Rudnitsky doesn’t make instruments from scratch, he restores them—or as he might describe it, he saves their souls.
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by Claire Marie Porter(full story can be found here)Ryan Hyde makes guitars and basses from scratch at NextFab. Over the course of six months, blocks of raw wood become customized, high-quality instruments. He is a luthier, a word derived from the French word “luth,” meaning lyre, that has evolved to describe someone who builds stringed
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by Claire Marie Porter(full story can be found here)For some, making and customizing instruments is the practical solution to unsustainable artistic ventures. For Matt Garfield, modifying instruments is a marriage between art and technology.
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by Claire Marie Porter(full story can be found here)Ethan Feinstein, a drummer of 17 years, wanted a very specific size and sound from his drums—something he couldn’t find in stores. He collaborated with a friend on his first project, a single drum, using resources from NextFab’s North Philadelphia location. After that, a friend asked him
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By Claire Marie PorterTinkering away in community workspaces throughout the city, a renaissance of artists are making both music and the instruments that create it.
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by Bernard BrownImagine you’re a pipevine swallowtail butterfly flying around the rowhouses of southwest Philadelphia. You look like a swatch of velvet. On top, your wings are black toward the front and an iridescent electric blue towards the back; underneath, they flash an array of bright orange spots as a warning to predators. You hatched at
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by Constance Garcia-BarrioSouth Philly homegirl Marian Anderson (1897–1993) put on a concert at Washington D.C.’s Lincoln Memorial that called the world’s attention to black talent and domestic racism. That 1939 performance led some historians to call Anderson the mother of the civil rights movement.
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by Alexandra W. JonesVisible from the sidewalk, 12 shiny black solar panels accessorize the roof of Marion Storey Biddle’s purple home in Mount Airy. She smiles at the sight—her own independent power source.
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