Previous articles in the series:
Part 1 : Life In The Grey
I wanted to share this post to give insight into what it’s like to be creating ideas that don’t fit into a tidy box.
To be creating and thinking outside of current models and expectations comes with the endless challenge of explaining yourself to an audience saddled with preconceptions. It is without a doubt hard to break free of what we know, that goes for me too, I constantly feel myself being pulled back to the safety of things I already understand, formats I’m familiar with and approaches that have examples and frameworks that are easy to understand and explain. It makes sense that in a society where you need financial support that communicating in set simple ways is the default. We follow what has worked. It’s our natural position, but it can be a ball and chain that slows us down and stifles our thinking. Openness to something new is challenging for all of us, and the and on the other side of that is people trying to communicate something that has a radically different goal (especially in terms of where revenue is generated and for who), which is incredibly challenging as the audience constantly tries to fit your ideas into shapes that they already have formed in their mind.
The strengths of this process are of course learning how to talk about your ideas to people in ways they understand. Having a clearer picture of the assumptions you will need to navigate, the preconceptions that are coming and how you will have to navigate them in a way that demonstrates the value of your idea rather than causing your audience to shut down and switch off.
The key here is to keep an open mind. We don’t know what works, it’s impossible. You won’t lose face by accepting that. Cultivating an environment where we never settle too soon, or cut corners just to feel the safety of ‘knowing’ is empowering. It’s an experiment and moving forward in any other way pulls us back to the safety which is to recreate what we already have… and at least that is one thing we can now all agree on in music: it isn’t working for independent artists.
Projects like mine (Scenes) are experiments that set out to find answers when we don’t even know what the questions are. They are exploratory, they are heading out into the unknown, by their nature they need to sit in the grey area. It's exciting and important but often exhausting and lonely experience.. but at the other end we might find new concepts, new products, new approaches or new markets… or just have fun on the way and enjoy the journey.
Part 2: Questions and Answers
Firstly I want to thank those who responded to me with thoughtful questions about the Sound of Fractures Token, its aims and the first project (Scenes) it aims to make possible. My initial roll out has been one that I kept short, straight to the point and largely focused on the value of the key concepts so as to keep things simple, but I can't wait to share more about Scenes with you all. Because of this approach naturally the focus has been on the funding method, the token, and the concepts that underpin why I took that approach and why it's important, not the creative idea itself. Here are some excerpts from the conversations I have been having alongside building and trying to raise funds for Scenes, the first Project that will be funded by Sound of Fractures Token. I wanted to share this to document the journey of both the fundraise and the personal journey of what it's like to be a creator that wants to walk down untrodden paths often going against the current narratives. The questions and responses are unedited. And just to reiterate, I want to thank the people I quote here for their thoughtful responses, it has been invaluable.
Conversation 1:
• what you do get for contributing that much?
Credit for your contribution immutably on chain. Access to the Executive Producer Chat group, allowing you to take part in, offer input and learn from all the decision making and discussion that form the project operations and coordination. Rather than collecting an end product you are taking it forward. Your name is on the platform in the main credits, it brings you cultural capital, network value and visibility. You are platformed as a funder of new music models throughout the 4 month project campaign. You receive a non transferable project badge to further represent this onchian.
• I get you a token but is that freely tradable later?
yes
• Are revs tied to the token?
They will be tied to the token on a project by project basis. Each project has a funding, development and execution cycle. At the end of each project cycle a percentage of on-chain profits will be divided between the treasury and token holders who collected during the specific project cycle.
Conversation 2:
• So world building sounds amazing, and we think it could be a sustainable path for artists moving forward if the right incentives are put in place. That being said, your written thoughts (we went through your website as well) feel somewhat incomplete, and here are some of the questions and comments we were left with that you could develop in future writings:
• You wrote: "Tokens can be used to create, communicate and monetise in ways that could not be done before" and "and there is better ways for those who contribute to be seen and feel valued" - which ways?
They provide us with decentralised tools to use for raising funds, and allow for representing that process and participation immutably on a chain.
• What does the SoF world look like? where do fans / collectors access this world, how do they experience it? right now it's hard to understand
Working this out is part of the experiment. We as independent artists do not have a holistic single place for this, the tools and frameworks simply do not exist yet. Artist worlds are formed by a network of outputs, and if done correctly it is the synergy of these outputs and weaving of the artists identity throughout them that forms a world. My gut reaction is that there are tech industry expectations that this happens in a single meta-verse style environment that you can walk around in, but this is in opposition to the independence we need, as it limits us to the goals and expectations again of singular platforms and the tools they offer. Another interpretation is that of literary worlds of lore building. I don't think we have a clear and simple framework for music yet but it's exciting to explore that without simply planting an artist or music into an existing interpretation as we have been doing.
At the moment the audience experience it by participating and connecting with their memories, others and the music through the participation, as the project progresses they will experience it though being offered the opportunity to explore their own memories and identity and how they relate to music, technology and images.
• what role does the token play in it beyond holders getting access to early stuff? the projects you have listed (e.g. scenes) seem cool, but they feel like isolated projects, not really part of a world
This again relates to expectations of world building. Independent artists cannot yet build singular worlds as it is often the expectation of technology markets. The single projects form a web/network, which is essential in approach as by conforming to one approach is to presume you have the answer, and that technology won’t change this. Building on a project by project basis allows for continuous experimentation and exploration while still having achievable and impactful outputs.
A revenue share model is also being explored on a project by project basis
• "Scenes aims to redefine what an album is and how it works in web3 and web2" - how?
By moving beyond traditional formats and understanding of audience and artist relationships. Music as a singular audio format does not and will not capture value in the same way it used to, so recreating it as a model by representing that onchain is also not a future that gives us sustainable answers. A music project or output needs to be reframed as a one element of a creative entity that forms that artist network value, and positioning it as something that caterers specifically to web2 or web3 is not a useful approach in my mind.
• "as we are moving into a new phase of the blockchain" - which phase? this is vague and hard to understand, who is your audience here?
Ok yea this relates to the stagnation of Music NFT’s as a format, and moving beyond that simple use of the blockchain as a way to represent existing formats.
• there appears to be an opportunity to expand the role of the token beyond funding for access, and tying that to your vision for the SoF world - perhaps bringing in aspects of gamification to the world you're building.
Gamification is something I would love to explore, but the key here is not to tender to a crypto audience with expectations of an NFT project. It is to explore the emotional value of music to audiences and how to create that value and capture it in a more effective way than traditional models can. The tooling we have will offer many opportunities to experiment and they shouldn't all be attempted at once, this is not the way to open up the tools to new audiences.
Conversation 3
• I would actually get more out of understanding the exact parameters of the token more so than why it is important in the way its currently presented. This currently reads as somewhat of a sales pitch (which is a great resource to have). I go more towards tokenomics and wondering:
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Total Supply
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% Circulating
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Relationship to a treasury
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Current FDV of the token
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Relationship between token holdings and onchain earnings
Ok so to the first 2 points it’s not a liquid asset, so I work with an overall treasury that takes income from all my music activities and feeds it back into new projects. The last point is interesting and I’ve been discussing this with other holders. Some kind of fractional revenue share of profits I am considering .. is this really the thing that makes it click for you? My focus is on taking music forward right now and not putting money in my pocket for clothes and rent .. I guess the cyclic nature of the funds being reinvested to build new things has been the focus of what’s got me here.
• Yeah 110% this is what demonstrates clear value capture to me and makes it a compelling thing to buy.
Reinvesting to build new things gets tricky as a collector because I want the aritst to win but its unclear if they do blow up if any of the things that i've collected will actually capture and accrue value
It was born out of collectors like you I guess who felt like buying single songs over a long time didn’t really show how much they were contributing to an artist career - it was “I love supporting this thing but I want to be able to show I made this happen more clearly”. Hence the executive producer credit like in the movie culture
• Right and I definitely see a lot of merit in more distinctly highlighting the backers and their involvement! I would personally be most interested in a system that allows me to receive a % of future earnings so that I'm basically betting on your future in a way that's passively capturing value