David Neevel Riffs on Maker Faire

Craft & Design Music Technology
David Neevel Riffs on Maker Faire
Neevel
David Neevel at Maker Faire Bay Area shredding his guitar and typing an email at the same time.

If you missed David Neevel at Maker Faire Bay Area, you missed out. David, who created one of the funniest videos of 2013, showed off his “email guitar” at Maker Faire. The notes he plays on his flying V guitar type out words on an attached computer. The fret board becomes a keyboard. Read (and listen) about it here.the_plan-590x246

And here a couple of David’s thoughts about his Maker Faire experience:

My Maker Faire started with a long line for the Friday night paella dinner. I started shooting the shizzle with the guy in front of me in line, Wayne Losey. He was there talking about his line of toys. It sounded like that is something he’s done in a lot of places. He told me that what he liked about Maker Faire versus other places he’s shown his stuff is that “here, people ask you a question and are interested in the answer.”

A day later, having wandered around and talked to a bunch of different people about their projects and my projects and having given a presentation, I think I’d figured out what he was talking about. People wanted to hear about things you’d done, and not just so they could tell you how you should have done it. It’s one thing to talk to smart, knowledgable people, and another to talk to smart, knowledgeable people who are interested. People I talked to liked hearing about what I’d done wrong, how I’d do it differently or whatever. People would have suggestions, but they could also see how doing something the hard way can sometimes be better. Or more fun. Or at least worth doing. That goes a long way in a conversation with someone like me who has recently spent a considerable amount of time working on a guitar that sends emails.

It’s a rare group of people to be smart enough to make all the insane stuff there is at Maker Faire, yet can still enjoy something as dumb as a car covered in singing fish and lobsters or a tractor sized hand designed to break things. I mean that in the best way possible.

Rock on, David!

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Stett Holbrook is editor of the Bohemian, an alternative weekly in Santa Rosa, California. He is a former senior editor at Maker Media.

He is also the co-creator of Food Forward, a documentary TV series for PBS about the innovators and pioneers changing our food system.

View more articles by Stett Holbrook

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