Music Tech Fest

So, I was busy this weekend, spending my time at something descriptively named Music Tech Fest. It's a three-day event now in it's second year at Ravensbourne university (practically in the shadow of the Millennium Dome).

It was a meetup with some fantastic musicians, music hackers (in this case, programmers) and journalists, as well as people from the music and app development business. Talks from many of the same, and somewhere amongst it all, yours truly.

Actually, music tech fest is the source of what has to be my favourite picture of myself from a conference EVER!

The fact that this picture exists hints to the fact that this free event was also streamed live across the web, meaning that even if you couldn't get there, you could have tuned in and taken in some of the sounds and ideas that were flying around on stage there.

The talks included topics such as Music for Social Change, various music, social and video apps, and a cocktail making robot, along with music from acts as diverse as Meta-Ex, Shlomo and Ezra of the Bionic Orchestra. Plus the results of a two-day music hackathon which had been happening at the same  time (where clearly a lot of creative ideas were being bandied about).

There was also some brilliant sound installations, including my personal favourite, the musical typewriter by Xiaofei Dyson...

I'll let you guess what happened here.

It had all the classic hallmarks of a fantastic conference and/or festival (I'm genuinely not sure which it was), namely that I'm still tired two days later and have a lot of ideas floating around in my mind, just waiting to get out.

Nice job, Music Tech Fest!