Borrow Musical Instruments at MusicLandria.com

By Dean Haakenson
Member of the Band Be Brave Bold Robot
Contributing Writer

A few years back, Buddy Hale frequented Berkeley Public Library’s “Tool Lending Library.” Being a musician (check out his current band Separate Spines), the brain-seed had been planted to apply that successful lending model to musical instruments and other music-related resources. Buddy moved to Sacramento in ’14, met Rachel Freund and their 11^th and S St. Downtown Sacramento apartment that currently houses MusicLandria and enrolled at California State University of Sacramento, CSUS.

Sacramento Library has its “Library of Things” at the Arcade Branch (a small selection of musical instruments and will have Tools soon). Also, more conveniently located in the downtown, we have the region’s largest public library of musical instruments in Buddy Hale and Rachel Freund’s Library of MusicLandria.

“I decided to make MusicLandria my thesis and the focus of my time at school. Studying business with an emphasis in Entrepreneurship has been a fantastic way for me to apply my class projects and assignments to the growth and development of MusicLandria,” Hale says.

The MusicLandria mission contains the best of what we want our community libraries to offer: Providing instruments at your disposal (prohibitively expensive, ensuring poor and rich alike can come together to rock) and “Musical History Preservation” of non-mainstream musical technologies (analog synth instruments, folk instruments, etc.), providing things with which to musically educate and inspire. They have held several “Musical Instrument Petting Zoos” at ArtBeast and The Crocker Museum (and recent fundraisers for homeless-children-aiding Tubman House) where kids of all ages engage and are inspired by musical instruments they may have never touched otherwise.

When I stopped by the Musiclandria Library to donate an autoharp (which I can go back and check out anytime, I kept reminding myself), I noticed a new looking theremin. Individuals can go their whole lives not knowing what a theremin is (an early electronic instrument controlled without physical contact by the “thereminist,” patented in 1928).

Musiclandria is similar to what ancient Egypt’s “Library of Alexandria” once was. A building erected to house history and grow boundlessly for commoners, unheard of 2200 years ago. So bring MusicLandria your unused instruments. They will store them and you can check them back out anytime.

Luthier/instrument-repair donated services would prove valuable to anything returned broken (although local genius Drew Walker reports an amplifier he recently borrowed was clean and in perfect working order). And MusicLandria will inevitably need a non-residence shopfront, so any angel investors or donors of warehouse or storage space would be greatly appreciated.

Visit Musiclandria online at their website or contact Buddy to donate instruments today!