Kids can participate in a drum circle, use technology to record and mix sounds, and suspend their bodies from aerial silks when Heights Kids’ Day of Music returns to Love Park this weekend.

The eighth annual event will have a larger footprint after a two-year hiatus due to the pandemic.

Run by volunteers, the family-focused fest is designed to inspire kids to become interested in music both as a performer and as a patron, says Christi Gell, president of the organization that stages the free event.

Not every child has an interest in singing or playing an instrument, but the interactive festival might spark interest in enjoying the arts as an audience member or in participating in the arts in another way, Gell says.

Just Add Beats, the local organization that teaches sound design and podcasting to adolescents through day camps and school programming, will host an interactive booth. Kids will be lent recording equipment to walk around the festival to record sounds — be it the rustle of wind, the sound of birds, or musical acts from the stage.

Back at the booth, they’ll use headphones and laptops to learn how to manipulate and mix the sounds to make a track.

“So much of music these days is all about production and the technology side of things… this is another avenue,” for kids who want to be engaged with music without learning an instrument, Gell says.

At the Instrument Experience Zone, previously dubbed the Instrument Petting Zoo, musicians from Heights High School, Memorial High School and other organizations will invite kids to get up close to their instruments to learn how they work.

孩子们可以观看方法演奏乐器uch as violins, saxophones, trumpets, clarinets, flutes and trombones, sometimes helping to press the keys.

“They’re so great with showcasing what they do and being interactive with younger kids,” Gell says. “It’s awesome to watch.”

“They have a lot of pride in being a musician and want to share…. how they started learning,” she continues.

Adult volunteers on hand will help facilitate questions, asking children if they recognize the musical sounds from television shows or from a concert they’ve attended, “trying to make a real world connection.”

Nearby, the Joy of Drumming tent offers hands-on tutorials from the group Joy of Djembe Drumming, which will also perform sets.

Other local arts groups will have child-friendly set-ups, including Houston Grand Opera and Opera in The Heights. Each of the 30 arts groups on hand have offerings and avenues for kids, which may surprise some of their parents, Girl says.

“You don’t just have to listen to Barney the dinosaur to have your child involved in music,” she says with a laugh.

Families can stroll to food trucks including Hugs & Donuts, Tacos A Go Go and Awesome Bites Co. before heading to the stage, where kids can watch other kids perform.

Youth performers will represent Bach to Rock, Ahiri Indian Music Academy, Houston Youth String Orchestra, Open Dance Project, HITS Theatre — a children’s musical theater — and The ARTZ ariel dancing.

The aerial dancing troupe will have a rig at the fest from which kids can learn to hang from fabrics, an art form that requires fitness and balance.

The four headlining adult acts include children’s musician Uncle Jumbo and Blaggards, an Irish rock band.

When kids see their peers on stage, it begins to click that performing is not just for adults, Gell says, and “it starts snowballing.”

“The more exposure they have, the more they are inclined to want to do something arts-related,” the benefits of which are numerous, she says.

Those in a band, choir, theater or dance group have to learn to work as a team, “how to take critiques without totally freaking out” and will absorb that the more you work at something, the better you get, she says.

After seeing performers from young to old on stage, parents too might be inclined to go home and dust off an old instrument.

“Our mission is a life-long engagement with music and the arts… I want families to say, ‘Look at these people who are 70 years old and they’re still making music together’.”

Allison Bagley is a Houston-based writer.