The Musical Bet
Musicians of all levels and walks of life share a secret. Whatever instrument you play or genre of music you like, music opens up a world of marvel, a total experience of the senses and of the soul.
Music is invisible, has no smell nor taste and cannot be touched. Music is in fact (as in factually) impossible to describe to someone who hasn't experienced it (try explaining Beethoven's 5th symphony to your dog). Its effect on the human brain, body and mind is universal, and still mostly undiscovered.
Music lives in a space of pure abstraction that humans have organized, theorized and studied endlessly, and from which they have extracted incredible beauty. No other human artistic medium can raise your consciousness of the world through an invisible veil of harmony and beauty like music does. Studying, practicing, or playing music is to shift into a paradigm of infinite possibilities. The mind, the body and the soul fuse to create something, out of nothing. A sound followed by another starts a vast potential of logics, yet a sound played simultaneously with another opens up infinity. All this for the sake of beauty.
Is this not, perhaps, the secret? Music is a passport to a place that cannot be described if you haven't showed up at the gate. And like master saxophonist Wayne Shorter says, "Life is the only time you have for an eternal adventure."
For the sake of the argument, let's say that music has been created by humans in basically two ways: individually or in small groups. Bach wrote his music alone for many to play and experience, while The Beatles shared their ideas together and finalized their songs and albums through the band collaborative process. The genius was inside of them of course, while also between them. What if the "between" was taken to the next level?
We are exploring a third way.
A space for musicians, producers, arrangers, poets, artists and music fans to create collectively. But there is a catch. A game actually. Like the old game of "cadavres exquis" where a sentence is offered to be continued by the next player, we start with one musical idea from which musicians and producers can build. We push the creative concept to its simplistic pure sense. With everwave, music is made collaboratively between people who, in most cases, don't know each other. We create what we call Waves—a succession of musical versions, where producers and musicians add to each other's work. The musical piece grows in length and density until the contributors collectively decide to end it.
The music we wish to create has the form of a growing organism that is nourished and shaped by musicians and producers, in real time, for all to listen and contribute to. This creative game is being played out on a scale and format that is utterly different from what we are used to as music makers or listeners, and your decision to contribute is mostly based on what you are hearing, not on an "outside of music" consideration. You trust your fellow contributors and producers of the wave to be inspired by your musical ideas and use your contribution creatively. You share your inspiration to create inspiration that inspires you. You gift your art to a greater purpose and join a community of creators willing to be part of this global musical object.
The final result is unknown. There is no map to our serendipitous voyage. Our bet is to discover new musical territories throughout the process. What if a balafon player from Burkina Faso records over a flamenco guitar from Madrid, while a Los Angeles producer mixes it with drum and bass? As expansions of the original idea come to life, directions in music can change radically. The same balafon might become a background melody in an Indian meditative raga, the drum and bass version can turn into a Cuban rumba and so on. All of this, under the same roof, where a community of creators invent together in a global and decentralized paradigm. It might unveil incredible music and a new sense of collective achievement.
We hope you will join us in this exciting adventure.
