I'm Leading a Band of Arduino Music Boxes?

Department of Shiny Things · Marching Orders No. 1

A few decades ago, I was an eighth-grade drum major who marched an entire band into a brick wall.

Today, I’m leading a band again. This time, it’s ten Arduino-powered music boxes, ten makers, and one live performance.

I’m the project lead for one of two teams in an Industrial Product Design course at Santa Monica College’s Interaction Design program. We’ll each be building our own instruments, then bringing them together to perform as one band during finals week.

What’s an Arduino music box? A little bit of code, a little bit of circuitry, and a handmade object that makes noise. Ideally, the musical kind.

Each of ours will have its own personality, and together, they’ll become an ensemble.

I’m ridiculously excited about this project, and a little amused that life has somehow brought me back to leading a band, albeit one with considerably more electronics and considerably fewer brass instruments.

If you’d told me a year ago that I’d be exploring creative technology and helping bring an Arduino-powered music-box band to life, I probably would have asked what on earth you were talking about.

Actually, I still kind of am.

But before we get to the music boxes, let me explain about the wall.

A band nerd with a baton

In middle school, I was peak band nerd. Permed hair, glasses, braces. The full package. I played flute and eventually became drum major.

I wore a white uniform with a skirt and a tall white shako that made me look like a very serious Q-tip. A whistle hung around my neck, and I carried a baton wrapped in red and black cord for our school colors. I loved that baton. I still miss it.

I practiced for months, marching up and down our cul-de-sac with the whistle going. My brother, my sister, and the neighborhood kids fell in line behind me.

In retrospect, a very funny parade. At the time, serious business.

The cue disappeared

On my first real day leading the band, I wasn’t entirely confident in my new role. Our band director walked beside me throughout the morning, and I watched him for every move. When to turn, when to halt, when to start again.

He was the cue, and I was very good at following it.

We were coming back from our first march through the streets of Fontana, California. The band room was just ahead. I’d made it!

Then my band director jogged around the corner to open the door for us, leaving me to lead the entire marching band on my own.

We were approaching a brick wall, and I looked to my director for his cue, but he wasn’t there. I panicked. Eeek! What was I supposed to do?

Well, I kept marching. And because the band follows the drum major, so did the band.

Splat.

A middle school band knows an opportunity when it sees one.

As we got close, the trumpet players broke ranks and charged. Everyone else followed. One by one, a whole band of kids threw themselves joyfully at the bricks.

My band director came back around the corner to find his entire band pressed against the wall, and his brand-new drum major standing in front of them, baton raised, waiting for instructions.

I will never forget the look on his face. Pure confusion.

Everyone thought it was hilarious, and I laughed too, while quietly wanting to disappear into the bricks.

A lesson in leading

Looking back, I think that wall taught me something useful: you can’t always wait for someone else to tell you what to do. Sometimes the person you’re watching has gone to open a door. You have to trust your own read of the situation and make the call yourself.

I got better. By the end of that year, I’d won a trophy for my drum-major performance. That spring, I also conducted a concert piece on a big stage.

I learned that being a drum major and being a conductor are two different things. A drum major keeps time and sets direction for everyone at once. A conductor listens, follows the score, and cues each section at exactly the right moment.

One is about momentum; the other is about listening.

I didn’t know it then, but I’d come back to both ideas in ways I couldn’t possibly have predicted.

Plot twist: I’m an interaction designer now

My path since then has been anything but linear. I studied English literature at UCLA, earned an MBA, worked in business, explored fashion design, and spent years raising my family. Along the way, I kept making things, discovered photography, and eventually found myself drawn back toward a more creative life.

Returning to school and moving into interaction design was a big pivot. Suddenly, I was exploring physical computing, experimenting with electronics, and thinking about how people interact with objects, spaces, and each other.

It’s a field that brings together so many things I love: art, technology, storytelling, and the possibility of creating experiences that bring people together in unexpected ways.

A year ago, I was still figuring out what this next chapter might look like.

Now I’m leading a band of Arduino music boxes.

Seriously, what is this life?

Back in front of a band

There’s something wonderfully full-circle about this project. I’m back in a leadership role, but the baton looks a little different this time.

My job is part project lead, part conductor, and part creative collaborator. I’ll help keep us organized and moving forward, while working with the team to shape the musical direction and bring our individual creations together into one performance.

I’m especially excited about the balance between individual expression and a shared experience. Each person will have their own instrument, ideas, and creative decisions to bring to the table. The fun will be figuring out how all those pieces can work together to make something none of us could create alone.

I have a lot to learn, and I’m curious to see how it unfolds. What will we make? What will it sound like? What will it take to get ten individual instruments playing together?

I don’t know yet, and that’s the fun part.

The Department is now open

I never expected that the kid with the baton would find her way back to leading a band through a completely different door. Or that a career pivot into interaction design would bring me here, working with physical computing, sound, and a team of people making something together.

I’m going to document the process here: the experiments, the prototypes, the unexpected discoveries, the people, and the occasional lesson learned along the way.

Think of it as a little field journal from my corner of the creative-technology universe. With perhaps the occasional incident report.

Kickoff is today. The baton is metaphorical this time. Mostly.

Wish us luck.

Next up: Marching Orders No. 2. Let the music-box making begin.