Participatory Multimedia Assignment

Project Proposal

1. CONTENT

I was born guaranteed to like music, given that my parents were musicians. (My father still is).  I was fortunate enough to grow up with the Internet, which turned my passion for music into a fervor for finding new music.  Searching for music on the Internet, (especially on Wikipedia), has led me to completely change my musical identity, and yet it has had a downfall. Now I literally become upset when I hear the majority of popular music. Because I've shifted my entire viewpoint on music, exposing myself to the depths of music, the sounds of the radio are ear-sores, so to speak. Something I yearn for every day is for more people to explore the world of music out there, aviliable to us now through the Internet.  Getting people to stop listening to pop music, and start listening to underground/experimental music is too challenging a task for one to accomplish with a blog.  I simply want to expose interested people to the wonders I have exposed myself to, which leads me to what my purpose is...

2. PURPOSE

I want to be persuasive. I will introduce new, interesting music to people who already indulge in music, and I will explain why they might like it.  Mainly though, I will persuade musical people to listen to and search for music that I have personally discovered. Ultimately, I want people to stop turning on the radio, but I don't think a blog will do that. I will persuade radio listeners in my personal life, but on this blog I will show people already interested in music what I have found, and I will create a place for "musicheads" to discuss the music we love. I want people to discover their true musical identities, and to become better people for it.  I think I have done enough research into largely unheard music to influence people in finding their musical identity.  "The unconditional acceptance of all forms of organized noise is required when finding one's true musical identity." (Quote by me, from a poem written in 2003 called "Muse-ic")

On 4/28 I received an email from an administrator at Muhead, another underground music promotion blog.  Part of it read: "I really like the concept for your site- Its hard to find new music sometimes so any help people can get is great. So Kudos for you man."  Getting this response reinforced and reassured me that my purpose is meaningful.

   a) I will persuade people already into music to listen to and like the music I have personally been exposed to.  Identifying with music means not only enjoying the sound you hear, but feeling joy, or any other strong emotion, from listening.  When you identify with a song, it moves you.  Some might explain it as "feeling like the singer is talking to me."  I hope that by creating a blog for musicheads to widen their listening boundaries, that people who become involved with the blog will spread the music outward by exposing it to their friends and/or family. 

   b) The purpose of this project will ultimately be to persuade active music listeners to listen to what I have found, and share music that have discovered or identify with.  I want to inform people of what they might be missing musically, and I want to discover some new stuff while I'm at it.

   c) I want people to discover their true musical identities, and to become better people for it.  I strongly believe in the power of music, and I want everyone to listen to exactly what they want, when they want, so as to benefit spiritually from the sounds they identify with.  The psychologist Maslow developed a hierarchy of basic human needs, and right above basic physiological survival is love and acceptance.  Music can provide acceptance, both when listening alone and with groups.  (Concerts!)

3. AUDIENCE

There is a very wide range of how interested people are in music, but in my experience, there isn't anyone who doesn't like music at all.  It is universal, and it could take eons to explain how this is so.  It is even said that both plants and household animals react well to classical music.  What this means for me, though, is that my target audience is nearly everyone.  So what I'll do is attract an audience of people whose taste in music is limitless.  It's simple.  I will find other open-ended music blogs, subscribe to them, and tell them about my blog and its purpose.  Once connected with other musicheads, we will share ideas and artists, ultimately exposing them to our own friends/family.  I will inevitably expose more people to music I have found and love through the bloggers.  [I must note here that I have a drastically wide range of musical acceptance, and I have found only a few songs I do not enjoy, compared to the thousands and thousands I love.]  Once fellow musicheads gather in my blog and discuss/share the best music out there, (according to us who have done research), the music will be shared with a more general audience through the music lover's natural tendency to share good music.  Basically, we musicheads will force music upon you until you either love it or say you hate it.

4. FORMAT

I'm going to create a blog, because there is no other medium nearly as applicable to the spreading of music. A web-site with embedded clips and links only promotes what I want to promote, whereas an open blog allows for blogger-to-blogger exchange of music. If I created a film, it would have to be three days long in order to cover just the music I've discovered! A wiki would work to promote music, but the following quote from a wikipedia article on blogs and wikis explains perfectly why I am choosing a blog over a wiki. "A wiki becomes a continually modifiable easy-access web page, while a blog's journalistic style catalogs and dates content so readers can see the interchange of ideas related to the blog topic in question." Finally, a pod-cast would be insufficient because like a web-site, it would only promote the music of my choice.

5. PRODUCTION

Context: By participating in a few pre-existing music blogs, I will tell people about my blog, and it's purpose to promote, and I will see what styles of music are already being discussed. People from other blogs might have music they made themselves to promote, or might just want another place to promote the music they have found and love. 

This is a quote from lefsetz.com/wordpress:   "It’s the era of personalities.  The music is secondary to the CLUB!  Make me feel like I belong, in the era of social networking isn’t it hilarious that terrestrial radio has abdicated its power!  We’re not in a heyday of music innovation.  The music shouldn’t come first, the deejay should.  He should guide and inform.  With useful information.  He should show his rough edges and his smooth ones."

As far as a site that shows what I basically want to do... http://obscuresound.com/ really does stand out.  It has pictures, audio and video of artists that it chooses to promote.  It is not the blog I chose as the best, but it is indeed a site that I have bookmarked, and offers an array of music not popularized. 

Contribution: I will engage in the conversations, being an equal to all in the blog. I will promote and share music I love, and will listen to music that is shared. My contributions will be based on others. When I embed new music, I will take an "if you like this, you'll like this," sort of approach. Also, if a conversation is going downhill, I have enough music to spark entirely new conversations.

This site: http://www.livemusicblog.com/  is very much what I want to do.  Oddly enough, there isn't much at all that I would do differently, other than the actual groups listed.  I do like a few of the groups at this site, especially Explosions in the Sky, but my blog will have even further underground music, and will not just be a place to learn about music, but will be a place to share music, and have an influence on your fellow music lover.

Conversation / Connectivity: I will engage in conversations with bloggers via email and commenting on their posts.  I plan on allowing bloggers to insert links, and I also plan on embedding my own links. By allowing others to embed, I may indeed create a place for people to get free exposure of their own music. 

I will provide audio links and video links to artists I deem worthy of exposure.  I will advertise my blog in other music blogs, such as those listed above, and I will also advertise my blog to my friends, and no my friend Ton'y blog, www.onliance.com.  RSS feeds will hopefully be something I can place in the blog through an option when creating my site.  I have not yet indulged in actual production, so this is subject to change. 

I will advertise my blog by becoming a member of several other music blogs, and having their hosts and/or members include my blog in their links, ultimately returning the favor.  The RSS feeds I have been trying to link to are not working for some reason, and so I have RSS'd a few other sources of information I deem important, e.g. NPR.

Content: I am going to expose people to music that I feel is in dire need of exposition. Some of it will be music popular only in other countries, some of it will be music old and forgotten, some of it will be music unpopular due to chaotic nature, but all of it will be music that has never seen a lick of popularity in our majority culture. I hope to create an environment the promotes the unheard music of the world. I want to raise an awareness of how much music exists, and how conformed music on American radio is. My message is humanitarian by nature. I want to make people's lives better by promoting a desire to actively seek what music is best for them. I am 100% confident that every music listener would benefit from actively seeking music of their choice.

Complexity: The majority of the media I embed will be sound-only, because the majority of the artists I now listen to aren't popular enough to have video footage available on the Internet. However, some groups, such as 65daysofstatic and Boards of Canada are popular in the so-called "underground," and therefore have videos which I will share. Also, pictures will be embedded when necessary, because some groups' members require seeing them before one can fully understand the message, most notably The Residents. Audio, video and visual media are the three necessary for music listening enhancement, however if a need for any other form of media arises, I will see to it that it gets utilized.

6. PUBLICATION & PUBLICITY

I am going to create my blog using Wordpress, an extremely popular online company that allows members to create blogs for free. To ensure that the right people get concerned and participate, I will do two things. I will invite bloggers from other music blogs, having them advertise my blog on theirs, and I will also tell my friends about it, since most of my friends have a deep interest in music as it is. Hopefully, through self-promotion, people will tell people, and I will eventually run a wholesome blog.

In general, this is very well considered, Garrett.  I'd just like to see you fine tune the audience/purpose connection a bit and develop some specific plans, accordingly. --Dr. Sarver