Calendar

Cherie Hu of Water and Music discusses Web3 at Consensys 2022.

Water and Music, the newsletter and research DAO (decentralized autonomous organisation) developing the innovative's guide to the business of music, was established to encourage conversations between people in music tech. The company is now taking it one step further by actively engaging the industry's brain to design research projects and to reward all those involved.

"My  reason for having this membership is helping people to better understand the world, as well as understanding their role within the global community," begins Cherie Hu who is the founder of Water and Music. Her goal is to aid people to get the best possible education so that they can make the most impact on their industry. Cherie's main tenets that she has used, particularly in the realm of business reporting, has been creating actionable writing. "At the conclusion of any article, you'll have an understanding about what you can do for your business or you can improve what you do. Making sure that you are able to bridge the gap between what members of the community need, and our writing, is crucial," Cherie explains.

The Water and Music team has grown to hold regular 'research sprints' of up to 10 weeks where they choose a topic to glean as much information as they can to help their customers. In these sprints of research, when they've settled on a topic the team will go out and speak to the Water and Music community: "We inquire, 'What are you currently concerned about?' and we crowdsource [those responses]. Our report stems directly from those needs," she tells me.

As is the norm, Water and Music research sprints are extremely collaborative and team-based. "It's an ideation process that is bottom-up and we have a large number of people in helping with the editing research," Cherie says. To date, this Water and Music community has issued two papers under the group arrangement. In keeping with the trend, they offered NFTs in retroactive fashion, which meant that anyone who were interested in supporting the research, they could - and the proceeds were distributed equally among those who contributed. "It's obvious for me that the results of this research was far superior than if a individual tried to do every aspect. This research would not be complete!" she smiles. "It's been a great experience for me to see the power of not just linking people, but also synthesising collectively knowledge."

Taking the power back

"It's more of academic phrase, but I feel it's really applicable in the context of Water and Music: we're in a group of practitioners," Cherie continues. "The term was coined in the year 1991 by cognitive sociologist Jean Lave and educational theorist Etienne Wenger] and represents a group of people who not only have a shared interest and passion, but also come together to focus on discovering how they can do things better."

The author explains that this could correspond to people in a similar industry, or with similar positions across sectors. These people communicate regularly, and also exchange information. Water and Music will contribute by not just producing tools and media that facilitate peer-to peer education: "That'll be a really vital aspect of our future: breaking down barriers to information in the music industry and encouraging people to be more collaborative," Cherie adds.

There's a certain element of 'taking the control back' within this. Cherie wants to reassure musicians that they are more in power than what it appears: "Certainly, in the streaming industry, there's more and more consolidations, dominated by Spotify and other big tech firms. The rates for royalties are decreasing and the trend is all downwards! So we're providing artists the means to appreciate the wide range of alternative choices. The artists we train and individuals around them to think creatively."

Sux3d7DLXXZZZHfaqDqtw Water and Music team Water and Music team

Cheire clarifies that the phrase 'community of practise' originally meant professional community, however it is also applicable to creative communities, such as the ones we have here. In the case of Water and Music the exact focus is the music industry and it's all down to a personal reason. "I'm motivated by this work since I was a child playing piano. I spent lots of being around classical music and I enjoy being around all kinds of artists as well as hearing their thoughts regarding where technology is headed," Cherie continues. "Hopefully the knowledge we put out there helps artists and their team members better understand technology so they can use it for creating cool art!"

Through the rabbit hole

The company's latest deep-dive research sprint has been into the mess that is Web3 which is the concept of the next generation of the internet built on blockchain technology. "We're looking to comprehend the State of the Union for tech trends in the field of music, particularly the ones that have a lot of noise," she explains. "Web3 is a perfect illustration, because there's so much confusion and no one knows exactly what's happening. This is the most absurd web and the rabbit hole just keeps going down. It's as if, "What's going on ?'!"

In the music industry it is not surprising that one of the top worries is that of fan-generated opinions. "I believe that's factor that explains why lots of musicians aren't doing NFTs right now: because of the fear of the backlash of fans," she muses. "We have released a report about concerns about Web3. Of course, in the world of music, there are many concerns around licensing and Intellectual property (IP) with NFTs. This is a full chapter!"

The tlg9Yi9H8w9qUpATyR6 The Water and Music meetup at the NFT.NYC conference

The next collaborative report within the community is in the process of being completed. "We're researching even more nebulous issues right now, such as the metaverse -- however that's defined!" Cherie jokes. "We're not making any plans to create anything right now; we're trying to determine what people's opinions are about it, and also what they are confused about." The report contains interviews with artists, startup founders and industry professionals about how they define the metaverse and what they're hoping to achieve through it and also what's proving to be difficult to solve.

Cherie states that her goal is to blend this research by creating online tools that solve these problems. "We tried this on a couple of Web3 themes that we already have, like the secondary sale of music via royalty shares and NFTs. Some smart contracts state 10% to 20% of the secondary sales will go to the artist who originally created it and lots of users see the idea as a profit. However, my opinion is that the vast majority of the NFT's aren't generating any secondary sales," Cherie explains. She believes that the value lies in the direct relationship and connection that the NFT represents, not in the opportunity to having something that can be sold on after.

In addition to the report, Water and Music will be developing a tracker dashboard that the users are able to input their NFT collection and see whether there were any other sales or, if there have been, how the NFT is moving through the marketplace. "We want to build more interactive tools. It's similar to interactive data journalism especially for musicians, since they're the people who are thinking the most about releasing and pricing their NFT drops. We're creating essential frameworks and tools to aid people to do this work themselves."

Conflicting visions

Cherie says that some terms in these newer ones are becoming more muddied and less clear in the course of time "For the metaverse, for instance, there's an enormous difference in how the concept of metaverse was historically as well as conceptually defined back in the '60s." Cherie explains how the Water and Music team is building a framework for understanding traditional definitions of the metaverse, and then the gaps between expectation and reality.

"The initial sci-fi works that mentioned the metaverse had an expansive vision of connected virtual and IRL worlds. The world is so far from that right currently. However, at the same time within the music industry the artists say "I've launched my personal metaverse!' even though they really mean a virtual world.

"There are currently two distinct conceptions of metaverses," she adds. "You are dealing with Meta [Facebook's holding firm] and Epic Games on one side: both are centralized where one corporation owns all the assets, but then there is the vision of a Web3-forward, multi-layered metaverse, with an interoperable identity and asset. It makes sense to try at least experimenting with blockchain, and the roles it has in supporting this, however it directly contradicts Facebook's approach."

Cherie concludes that the metaverse has "just been transformed into a nebulous term that anybody can utilize for the benefit of their own" and she is determined to cut through the clutter. This ties back in perfectly with Cherie's purpose: Water and Music will critically and analytically look at the topic, and then be able to provide practical insights to advise people what to do. These are real-world applications in addition, like helping artists and their team in assessing the possibility of working with specific metaverse-based platforms.

Water and Music meetup at the NFT.NYC conference

Cherie closes in usual fashion, encouraging collaboration within and within Water and Music community. "In the next few months, we'll be carrying interviews with musicians as well as platforms and startup founders. The metaverse research will probably continue through the autumn and summer months and if anyone is looking to get involved in this, please let me know. If anyone has suggestions of people to talk with, we're all ears!"

For more information, you can follow Cherie on Twitter: @water andmusic. To become a member of the Water and Music community, and gain access to the community's in-depth research reports and Discord server, go to waterandmusic.com/membership.