DP·01
Piano
Democratic Instrument
Play↗

A Guide to Democracy In Music

OPEN SOURCE · FREE DEMOCRACYINMUSIC.COM
Guide → Source →

I've been thinking for a while now about how we might be able to create music democratically. Where voting choices could be built into musical instruments. Where the resulting music could be collectively owned.

What follows is a set of prototypes for communal composition. Models for how large groups of people might create and own music together using democratic decision making. Each one explores a different mechanism: averaging, spatial voting, electoral systems, embodied representation. They are working demonstrations.

None of these are finished pieces of music. They are instruments you can play with. All of them are single player for now, though they all have ways of tallying votes. Hope you enjoy them.

— Sam Vance-Law

Made together. Heard together. Owned together.

Democratic Piano prototype
DP·01
Piano
Democratic Instrument
A digital piano that only works with two or more players. Everyone picks a note; you hear the most popular choice, or a chord of the top votes.
Mean Mode prototype
MM·01
Mean Mode
Continuous Pitch
Like the piano, but on a continuous pitch line. You can watch the collective swing from one position to another, and hear it as the mean, the most popular bin, or a chord.
Miro prototype
MI·01
Miro
Spatial Voting
A 3D voter graph seen from above, like a Joan Miró dot painting. Each touch is a vote; overlapping votes form peaks. Raise the water level and only the strongest survive.
Democratic Assembly prototype
DA·01
Assembly
Layered Composition
Five layers (rhythm, bass, chords, melody, texture), four variations each. Like a Musikalische Würfelspiel of the 1700s, but the audience votes instead of rolling dice.
Parliament prototype
PA·01
Parliament
Redistricting
Electoral systems applied to musical composition. Five seats elected from five districts, 160 fixed voters. Drag the seeds, redraw the districts, and hear the parliament shift.
Choreography prototype
CH·01
Choreography
Body as Instrument
The body as musical instrument. Six dancers, each with their own tempo. When they fall in step the music takes on a recognizable pattern; when they scatter, it could fall into dissonance.