About SMC

The Sound Museum Collective (SMC) of Philadelphia is an evolving nonmember collective that holds space to reconstruct our relationships to sounds. Through accessible workshops and skill shares, creative team projects and community partnerships, SMC celebrates trans, nonbinary and women sound artists and technicians. We demystify audio engineering and share in the resounding nature of sound. Our goals are right in our name. Someday, we hope to have a space that will not only operate as a workshop and free library, but will also be a place where we can curate and hold sound artists. We are always in need of people who are interested in core leadership support and want to build and experiment with sounds.

SMC started in 2018 as a group of people ready to experiment with sounds and build. However, we quickly discovered that many of the people who wanted to get involved in these projects lacked the skills and faced barriers to entry when it came to learning and participating with audio engineering. So we began conducting workshops ranging from building contact microphones, to Audio Engineering for Performers, to Electronics 101, to Synths 101 and building synths.

After receiving the Velocity Fund Grant in 2019, SMC has been able to launch this website and a Youtube channel. This channel is our virtual museum. We are establishing a platform for technicians and artists to share their explorations, experiments and skills. We recognize that the world of youtube tutorials is dominated by Cis White Men and that it is also how most of us access knowledge about gear and building. We hope that this project will provide much-needed representation in technical literature, and nurture networks of skill sharing and support.