Sometimes curiosity takes you around the world, only to show you something wonderful right down the street.
Nearly a decade ago, I had the pleasure of tuning handpans for James Hood, a musician and composer with quite the résumé. James played drums with The Pretenders, the legendary rock band fronted by Chrissie Hynde, and later formed the electronic music duo Moodswings, collaborating with artists including Hynde and guitarist Jeff Beck. His musical explorations eventually led him to the handpan and the creation of Mesmerica, an immersive experience combining handpan music, electronic soundscapes, and spectacular 360-degree visuals inside planetariums.
I didn't make James' handpans, but I had the opportunity to work on them years ago, and I've followed Mesmerica ever since.
The show toured major cities around the country, and I'd always wanted to experience it for myself.
So imagine my surprise when I discovered it was coming to Santa Rosa.
And not just Santa Rosa.
A local high school.
Wait. There's a planetarium at the high school?!
Apparently, yes. A rather impressive one, in fact.
It's called SPARQ (Science, Position, Astronomy, Research, Query), a science center complete with a planetarium, observatory, and specialized learning facilities.
Here I was, making handpans and tuning instruments for musicians like James, just down the road, completely unaware that this place even existed. And now a show featuring instruments I'd tuned nearly a decade earlier was coming to play inside it.
Naturally, I had to go.
I reached out to James, who kindly helped arrange tickets, and in January I finally got to experience Mesmerica for myself.
While I was there, I struck up a conversation with Kurt Kruger, the school's STEM Coordinator. At some point, I casually mentioned that I'd tuned the handpans featured in the show.
That got his attention.
We started talking about handpans, acoustics, metalworking, and the unusual intersection of art and engineering that has occupied so much of my life.
As it turns out, Kurt organizes a monthly STEM Café at SPARQ, inviting people from different fields to share their work with students and the community.
One conversation led to another, and a few months later, I found myself back at the very same planetarium.
Only this time, instead of sitting in the audience listening to handpans I'd tuned, I was standing in front of the audience explaining how handpans are made.
From Steel to Sound: The Science and Engineering of the Handpan.
I brought along instruments, unfinished shells, hammers, dies, and some of the specialized tools I've developed over the years. We explored acoustics, resonance, material science, manufacturing, and the strange journey of turning a sheet of steel into something musical.
And 99 people showed up!
So many, in fact, that the planetarium filled up and they opened an additional room where the presentation was streamed live. I certainly hadn't expected an overflow crowd for an evening about hammering steel into musical instruments.
There were some excellent questions and conversations, but the part that stayed with me most wasn't the attendance.
I mentioned during the presentation that I would have absolutely loved an event like this when I was in high school.
Back then, I had no idea that a career like mine was even possible. I certainly didn't know that my interests in music, science, invention, and making things would eventually converge into something I could spend my life doing.
In many ways, I felt like I was giving the presentation to a younger version of myself.
I love that programs like SPARQ create opportunities for students to encounter people pursuing unconventional paths and discover where curiosity and experimentation can lead.
And I couldn't help appreciating the wonderfully unlikely sequence of events that brought me there.
Nearly a decade ago, I tuned some instruments.
Those instruments became part of a planetarium show that traveled around the country.
The show eventually landed at a high school just down the road from my workshop.
I went to see it, met a teacher, and ended up returning to that same planetarium to share my own story.
A rather long way to travel just to end up down the street.
A big thank-you to Kurt Kruger and everyone at SPARQ STEM Café for having me, and to James Hood for unknowingly setting the whole thing in motion.
Sometimes curiosity takes you around the world, only to show you something wonderful right down the street.
