Writing
Electronic Music From Scratch
A Beginner’s Guide to Homemade Audio Gizmos
A 360-page, fully illustrated crash course in the joys of musical circuitry that teaches makers to become musicians, and musicians to become makers. Written for total beginners, this approachable guide uses more than 40 hands-on experiments and projects to build whimsical, wild, and just plain weird gizmos.
Make: Electronic Music From Scratch is a fun, humorous introduction to music for even the biggest electrophobes that teaches how to build real, usable instruments. With more than 400 full-color images by Maisy Byerly and step-by-step instructions, this is the music book you've always wanted but didn’t know how to describe.
Available as both a book and a book/kit bundle from Dogbotic Labs.
Make Magazine
I have contributed technical features to Make: Magazine, my favorite childhood magazine, but perhaps more importantly the cornerstone publication of the global Maker Movement. For two decades, Make: has served as the primary authority for a community that now spans 40 countries and reaches millions of innovators through its annual Maker Faires.
Vol. 91 / 2025
Why Electronic Music? An editorial where I get on my soapbox about the cultural and creative importance of DIY electronic music, both for it’s trove of accessible, educational possibilities, but also as a medium for modern storytelling and community building.
Vol. 85 / 2023
Pitch Perfect (written with Sean Hallowell) A comprehensive guide to building a DIY analog sub-harmonic synthesizer using about $10 in parts (and… a very satisfying explanation on how it works!)
WFMU LCD
Never get lost in the radio spectrum again! The greatest radio station in the world, WFMU, wanted listeners to realize there were a whole bunch of other waves out there in the radio ether. My collage-cartoon, “A Freeform Listener’s Guide to the Radio Spectrum” puts things in a bit of (semi-accurate) context, showing WFMU’s little bit of bandwidth alongside those of lightning strikes, submarine spy communication, and leaky microwave ovens.
I Care If You Listen
During my time as a Thomas J. Watson Fellow, I documented a number of contemporarily musical instrument inventors. Four of these articles were published through I Care If You Listen.
Dec 14, 2017 Luigi Russolo’s Futurist Manifesto: The Art of Noises, Revisited
A re-examination of the 1913 manifesto and how the Industrial Revolution fundamentally shifted our definition of "noise" versus "music."
Dec 28, 2017 The 21st Century Orchestra: José Duarte, Decomposer
A profile of Costa Rican artist José Duarte and his "un-pleasurable" instruments—from chainsaw-armed robots to amplified tables of dried beans.
Mar 15, 2018 The 21st Century Orchestra: David Marín’s Upcycled World
An exploration of Marín’s work in Colombia, where he breathes new life into discarded materials to create complex, multi-functional musical sculptures.
Apr 11, 2018 The 21st Century Orchestra: Garikayi Tirikoti’s Telephone to God
A visit to Zimbabwe to meet a master of the Shona mbira, exploring how ancient traditions and handcrafted steel wire connect the earthly and the divine.