Beam — Open Music Initiative

This article was originally published on Medium, as part of the Open Music Initiative.

We live in a multilayered and complex world, simultaneously processing faces, colors, interesting smells, facial expressions, accents all of which embed themselves into the essence of our definition of a moment.

Objectives.

Beam aims to connect the user with one of our world’s secret layers. Hiding in plain sight, the music curation world organically re-invents itself by the second, ever-changing through the listening habits of the millions of people inhabiting the planet.

Today’s technology brought a sea of music into our pockets, amidst this availability it becomes hard to choose what to listen to at a given time. Remember staring at your phone blankly trying to chose a song, playlist or artist that complements your morning commute, your running path or a night drive trough the city. Sound familiar?

Beam is a venture aimed at providing people with a musical environment that perfectly complements their surroundings. Environments influence how we experience music, likewise, environments have the power to enhance music.

The Beam app works by identifying your location and allowing you to connect to “Beams” around you. These beams essentially are a live feed of songs people believe fit the mood of the location the beam is at. Users can easily upload songs with a simple vertical swipe, users can also rate songs in the feed with an up vote or a down vote based in their opinion on wether the song fits or not. The order in which these songs are displayed is determined by the songs’ amount of up-votes. After a while, the resulting list should illustrate people’s idea of the music that best complements that specific place at that specific time. A playlist generated for Boston Commons on a sunny day will be different to a rainy day one.

Think About…

Imagine you find yourself at Plaza Mayor in Madrid, Spain. By connecting to the local Beam we fade from the world of Spanish conversations to the world of Spanish music. The new sights and sounds from your cultural discovery get complemented by your discovery of Spanish music. Imagine the feeling of sharing one of your favorite songs to the Beam and immediately finding out people like it just as much as you do. This human connection is within arms reach.

What if…?

What if you’re an artist hoping to make creative use of Beam? Let’s say Radiohead chooses to share an early version of their new song in progress. For their Boston fans they choose a specific tree at a specific location to serve as their Beam, It shall only stream the song for people around the area. As fans make the pilgrimage they congregate around and discuss the music as they stream it.

Radiohead could even create a smart contract on a blockchain that allowed maybe only 30 copies of the song to be bought there for fans who want to take the song home. “Digital Uniqueness” is a concept that could thrive in this environment.

another way to see it, beam creates an array of data capable of producing an alive and breathing map that illustrates how elements such as weather, time of day, current events etc influence people’s choices for music playing. In music notation the horizontal straight line connecting 2 or more notes is called “Beam”, our service also acts as a link, a connection between people, an opportunity to learn and grow directly from humans around us and share our understanding of the relationship between music, place and time.