The Way We Sound is a digital project of St. Louis-based KDHX Community Media, and while you can’t go see it quite yet, it’s coming, and bringing a lot of stories and impact with it (or so we aim). The producers of the project will be chronicling its evolution in this space, since we think that the process will tell a story in and of itself. Allison Wilson and I are the lead producers, and are on staff at KDHX, but you’ll also hear from the design and development folks at Efeqdev, and possibly others.

The focus of the project will be the St. Louis music community. We want to tell the story of this community and those that contribute to it— artists, fans, writers, photographers, club owners, clubs, record labels, record stores and more. We’ve arrived with the ambitious goal of creating a panoramic view of a community that is relevant to both insiders and outsiders, and of doing it by approaching content and engagement in new ways.

The project’s conception was slow, pushed along by numerous forces. A few years ago I had an idea for a personal blog project: I wanted to highlight the people that make up the St. Louis music community. I use that word, community, intentionally. It’s not a scene — where people go to see and be seen — but rather a group of supportive music lovers and creators that interact in myriad ways, where each contributes to a sum-is-greater-than-its-parts effect. I had been a part of this community for several years, and had started thinking about the people and the forces that shape it. It’s a community that feels both large and small, accessible and isolated. I saw individuals pouring loads of passion, talent and energy into the community, and it came from all directions, not just musicians.

The idea was simple: I’d create profiles of people, posting a simple portrait with their responses to questions relevant to their history with, place in and perception of the St. Louis music community. They would be diverse, and I’d do a lot of them. Doing as many as possible would force me out of the comfort zone of friends, favorite bands and frequented clubs, exposing me to new people along the way. And the volume of profiles would create a wide-sweeping portrait.

The only problem was that I never felt like I had the time to get it off the ground in my free time, so it just sat there, like a an old notebook in the bottom desk drawer. But I had already decided on a name, The Way We Sound (names are important). I also had a domain and a Twitter handle. But that was all that I had until March of 2013.

That month I attended the annual conference of the Integrated Media Association in Austin, Texas and was introduced to the Austin Music Map, which had recently launched. The idea was simple but powerful: Put places where music happen in a city on a map, and associate with them a rich multimedia experience showcasing the music that happens there. There are aspects of this project that would later further shape The Way We Sound — including many of the principles put forth by Localore, of which the Austin Music Map is a part — but the most immediate reaction I had was to consider the idea of place as a component of community.

The places where music exists — where it is created, sold, discussed, practiced — are just as important as the people that interact with it. People and places are part of the same story. And integrating places into the concept of The Way We Sound brought to light a new idea: connectedness. Places are where people connect, and communities are about connections. This seems obvious now, but it was a minor epiphany at the time. The project should include people, places and the connections between them.

Fast forward to June 2014. KDHX has been awarded a grant by the Regional Arts Commission from its Innovation Fund to see the The Way We Sound to fruition. This is exciting not only because it means that my idea is actually going to happen, but also because, as Chief Content Officer at KDHX, I see great potential for this project to push the boundaries of content creation and audience engagement at the organization.

The Way We Sound is now happening. It has lofty goals, but they’re reachable, and the desired impact on our community is tangible. Nebulous ideas have been fleshed out, strategies discussed, developers engaged and advice obtained. There’s more to tell, but we’ll leave those ideas for another time.

For now, just know that St. Louis sounds amazing, and soon a lot more people will know it.