Connecting us through the universal language of music

The Human Sound Project - connecting us through the universal language of music.

From Gospel churches singing songs to Jesus to Hare Krishnas ecstatically praising Krishna, to stadiums singing chants to their fav football team, for millennia human beings have used song to unite and uplift their communities. Today science shows us that singing together has evolved as apart of our evolution and produces bonding neurotransmitters in the brain that unites groups in a shared emotional experience. In an increasingly divided and lonely world, singing together can unite and uplift our organisations and communities. Yet as ecstatic as singing together in large groups can be, it is equally an incredibly terrifying prospect for most people who would only classify themselves at best as “shower singers” and still hold onto the trauma of their fifth grade teacher denying them entry into their choir.

Provided expertise: Facilitator | Researcher | Product designer | Event producer

Task.

The Human Sound Project was born to answer a question: how might we empower divided groups of ‘non musicians’ to unite through singing when this very act seems to most as terrifying as jumping off a cliff?

Having never facilitated a group of singers before, I was perhaps equally as terrified as any new singer might be in taking on this design challenge. Yet, I was determined. I believed in the power of music to unite people and I wanted to find out how it might work with groups of people from different cultural backgrounds and of all musical skill levels.

Action.

I created 12 singing workshop prototypes with the aim to provide an uplifting and unifying singing experience to groups of participants from diverse cultural backgrounds and musical skill levels.

Over 6 months in NYC organised, promoted and delivered 12 usability testing workshops, comprised of groups of 10-20 participants of different cultural backgrounds. Workshops tested a series of group singing formats including: singing well known pop songs, writing an original group song, singing chants, recording sounds and more.

Participants were actively involved to shape and design the ideal user journey: After each workshop, I ran qualitative surveys receiving feedback on the user journey. Testing framework included scales on “feeling of unity”, “confidence levels”. Workshop design was iterated over 6 months.

Result.

Testing proved that creating an original group song that represented a collective narrative of the group, proved to be most successful. As opposed to performing a song written by an outside writer, the co-created group song represented the personal story and musical tastes of every group participant. The resulting Human Sound Project songwriting workshop enabled any group, no matter their cultural background or musical skill level, to unite through writing and performing an original song about their shared story.

With a tested workshop methodology in place, my vision for uniting communities and organisations through the power of song, came alive! From 2013-2019 I spent 7+ years designing and facilitating over 250+ highly immersive song co-design workshops writing songs with groups of 10 to 1000+ people around the world. Some highlights include working with Israeli and Palestinian leaders building empathy for change, and with fortune 500 teams like Vodafone who’s song unified their employees around their collective values, purpose and vision. My facilitation work was featured on Channel 10, TEDxSydney & VIVID ideas.

Here is how a musical co-design workshop works: As a facilitator of the workshops, prior to each workshop my role was engage with senior stakeholders of NGOs, community and corporate organisations to assess group needs and design and customise the songwriting workshop to suite their desired outcomes. When it came time to deliver the workshop, I would run end to the end co-design songwriting workshop with diverse groups from facilitating group storytelling around themes and questions, record participant’s key quotes and ideas, clustering data into themes and insights and then further synthesizing these insights into powerful lyrics that expressed the groups’ key insights. Then I empowered the group to ideate, prototype and iterate their way towards a new song that expressed a collective insight about who they were as a group - their shared purpose.