Let’s Make Sweet Music Together
Music in the commons brings diverse communities together.
“From my perspective, music is a universal language. There are so many different genres throughout the world, and seeing how these different genres can come and play together, it’s just a beautiful thing — it’s a language that speaks to people, and it’s a part of life that connects us all”. — Zaire Best, Philadelphia-based rapper and music educator
As a young boy, John Gore cried nearly every Sunday at church. An aspiring drummer still developing his talents, John regularly sat behind the older, more seasoned drummers in his gospel church band in Northwest Philadelphia. The music drew him in. He would thump his knees and tap his feet to the rhythms emanating from the stage. John desperately wanted to sit at that drum stool and have the chance to be part of something bigger than himself — the music was a force that was vital in connecting his community each Sunday.
With determination, practice, and time, John made it to the stage. He became a regular in his church’s band, a successful touring musician, educator, and mentor to young aspiring musicians. Yet, John’s musical journey did so much more for him than develop his craft. Music — and access to instruments, mentors, and resources — became a vehicle for John to foster a social network with other musicians, audiences, students, and new friends across the country. In other words, music was instrumental in developing John’s social capital, both with members of his church community, and with countless others from different backgrounds, cultures, and walks of life.
A Framework to Jam On
“Music does bring people together. It allows us to experience the same emotions. People everywhere are the same in heart and spirit. No matter what language we speak, what color we are, the form of our politics or the expression of our love and our faith, music proves: We are the same.” — John Denver
In his seminal work Bowling Alone, Robert Putnam identified two kinds of social capital. The first, “bonding” social capital, involves the strengthening of ties within communities that share the same identity, a form of “sociological superglue.” The second (and more difficult to gain form), “bridging” social capital, enables us to connect with people who are different from us, creating connections between diverse communities by serving as a sort of “sociological WD-40” — reducing friction between people from different socioeconomic groups.
Music is a universal part of the human experience that is found in every society across the globe. Like food, music has the power to connect people across different circumstances, cultures, and languages, even in instances where distrust and animosity exist between groups. Research has shown that the act of playing music together “can be a powerful medium for social interaction,” coordinating the movements and rhythm of individuals in harmony with one another. When performing together, musicians are “not just ‘spending time’, together, they are sharing time…coordinated at the level of milliseconds.”
Let’s Make Sweet Music Together
In 2019, inspired by music’s power to connect people to each other, Philadelphia Parks & Recreation and the Fairmount Park Conservancy asked our team at Interface Studio, along with Tiny WPA, Mad Beatz Philly, and The Free Library of Philadelphia’s Music Department, to create a program that could leverage music in cultivating social capital between people of different backgrounds. The result was “Let’s Make Sweet Music Together”, an initiative designed to give people free access to instruments and collaborative music programming in an open air, mini music studio that debuted at The Oval+ last summer.
While the heart and soul of the initiative was getting people to perform the simple act of making music together, we knew at the outset that it was essential to design an attention grabbing mobile studio for the initiative that would draw people in while also providing a durable home for the instruments. The studio would act as a “third place” — inviting people to stop, play, and jam together. It also needed to incorporate solutions for security, inclement weather, storage, branding, and ease of access for staff. We worked with Tiny WPA to design and fabricate the space and develop the deployment of the installation and user interactions. Seven young “Building Heroes” (aged 15–26) from Tiny WPA — an organization dedicated to “growing an army of talented community design professionals” — helped lead the creation of the installation. The Building Heroes contributed a large portion of the design and fabrication while also helping prototype solutions for some of the most vexing challenges, such as waterproofing.
Once built, we stocked the installation with a diverse collection of real instruments to ensure that players of all ages and abilities felt welcome to enter and play. Working with librarians in the Philadelphia Free Library Music Department’s MIC Program (as well as music educators running youth programs throughout the city) we built a wide-ranging and relatively affordable collection of over 50 instruments. The collection included string, keyboard, and percussion instruments targeting novice to experienced players of all ages, with everything from kid-friendly percussion tools from West Music to full-size electric guitars from Fender.
This work demonstrates a new way for cities to narrow the startling gap between low-income and wealthier students’ access to instruments and music training. Correcting this disparity is critical for multiple reasons: research has shown that music training positively impacts numerous cognitive functions tied to academic performance. Studies have also shown that young people who are involved in “identity projects” — activities they are passionate about that provide a sense of purpose and self-worth such as music or the arts — are much more likely to avoid negative life influences in their communities.
Working with music educators John Gore, Zaire Best, and Jesse Mell of Mad Beatz Philly, we hosted a bucket drumming session, hip-hop rhyming workshop, and a Philly-centric Eye of the Tiger power chord workshop. It was critical for us to curate programming that would engage visitors in meaningful interactions and experiences. This programming series, facilitated by young, experienced musicians with a passion for their craft, enabled us to provide high-quality, interactive programming while showcasing a model for cities to tap the creative talents of young musicians to activate public spaces.
Together with Tiny WPA, we worked with The Oval+ ambassadors to develop a protocol for managing the site. The installation was locked and secured at night but was open during operational hours and staffed with one team member whose primary role was to invite people to pick up an instrument and play. This was the result of a deliberate decision over the merits of security vs. access, and in the end, we successfully made the case that public enjoyment and open access to instruments should trump concerns about instruments being damaged or stolen. It ended up being a good decision, as not a single instrument was harmed in the making of this project.
If You Play Together, You Can Vibe Together
“There’s so much fragmentation in our society right now, but when you go to concerts, you see people vibing out in harmony with one another — no matter if it’s rappers, rockers, or gospel singers — music is a part of life that has the power to connect us all”. — Jesse Mell & Zaire Best, Mad Beatz Philly
Playing and listening to music can be a powerful medium for social interaction, and we learned that by curating an open access platform for making music together, at its essence, we were providing a platform that encourages all participants to practice the most elemental steps of interaction — to pause, reflect, and listen to one another. In doing so, and in observing how people responded to the installation, we learned a few things about music’s potential to bring people together and how other cities can approach similar initiatives:
- Location matters. Public space is a powerful platform for bringing communities together. Our installation site was intentionally located in a central public space (The Oval+ and Love Park) where diverse populations would be most likely to overlap — look for those bustling shared spaces where diverse communities already gather.
- Be flexible. Like jazz musicians or rappers in a cypher, we learned to improvise and respond in real-time in response to how people naturally interacted with the space. Welcoming design into our process allowed us to evolve the space to consistently convey to audiences a “permission to perform”.
- Find your ambassadors. Whether it’s the people building the platform or the artists leading programs, having talented, friendly, and welcoming people involved results in greater participation by diverse members of the public.
- Access creates engagement. By creating an open stage where all were invited to express themselves musically, the installation enabled anyone — no matter their background, age, or skill-level — to create moments that drew people together.
- Shared spaces grow friendships. Participants who chose to engage on a deeper level — by joining an extended jam or showing off a few riffs learned during a music workshop — often chatted afterwards and came back with a friend.
- Center the community. By tapping the talents of young, local designers and musicians in building and activating the space, we can not only better reach the communities we intend to serve, but can also help grow homegrown talent while integrating them in the design and sound of their city.
Cutting Through The Mix
“Music would not have developed in our civilizations if it did not do very important things to us…Music allows us to communicate common humanity to each other. It models the value of diversity in ways you don’t readily see in other parts of our lives.” — Jake Harwood, University of Arizona Department of Communication, as quoted in Futurity
In our last session of programming, just before the cold weather of fall forced the instruments indoors for the season, Mad Beatz Philly led one last bucket drumming jam session at Love Park, right in the heart of the “City of Brotherly Love”. Jamming together were people from all walks of life, and despite the differences between us, the act of pounding out a beat in unison made those barriers melt away and brought each of us in sync and harmony with each other. Tourists from around the world, suburbanites on their lunch break, families, individuals, as well as people struggling with homelessness found they had something in common through the universal language of music.
We live in a world where stopping what you’re doing, putting down your phone, and taking a moment to relax, listen, and respond to another human being is something of a radical act. If we want a more empathetic and open society, we need more public spaces and programs that connect people through a universal language that can cut across our differences.
Reimagining the Civic Commons is a collaboration between The JPB Foundation, the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, The Kresge Foundation, The Rockefeller Foundation, William Penn Foundation and local partners.
