7pm Project Update – Nov 10, 2020

It’s been a month since I processed the May 10th recording and put together the post. Why slow down? What else has been going on?

Well, it’s actually been a pretty busy few weeks for me and the family, and the neighborhood, and the city and the country and the world. In response to all of this activity, I decided to sit back a while and try to process my thoughts instead of audio files.

News Break:
On November 7th, clapping broke out at random moments and at 7pm when the election returns had provided enough data for media outlets to announce the winner of the presidential election. At an random moment that day, someone would open their window and cheer and clap. Sometimes it was greeted with a crowing chorus others were simply lone voices. I think this mode of expression is going to be with us for a while

First order of business on the project is to simply document one of the new goals of this project. 7pm Somewhere is what I am calling the platform evolution of the project. In short what I have already been doing is:

  1. Taking my recordings of 7pm from April 29th to July 9th, taken in one spot on the globe
  2. Create a unique soundscape by processing the recordings with a unique processing method (I use something different for each day – and the processing should be thought of as the application of a number of algorithms to the original data set).
  3. I post the resulting soundscape to this site and append additional information about that day to help offer some context.

7pm Somewhere would take the very static structure I have:

Day’s recording at my location + Unique Processing Algorithm for that Day’s recording (and thus my location) + Some contextual info about My Location on that day

Let’s make this a little more math-ish

R = Recording (1 per day at fixed location at 7pm)
D = Day (20200429 – 20200709)
L = Location (fixed)
P = Processing (Unique Per Day, may have more than one per day)
C = Context (Unique per day, news and data from Location and other information about the days recording process and insights)

PD(RDL) + CDL = One Perspective on One Location on One Day

But this is a global phenomenon – I thought WWJBD? Well, the realization is that It’s always 7pm Somewhere (with a nod to Jimmy Buffet and Alan Jackson – let the conjuring begin) What we all want is to get together and party – folks from all over the world – we all have a common experiences – all of us! I there is a prime opportunity for people to come together, I can’t think of a better one than this.

7pm Somewhere goal is to provide a platform for people all around the world to bring their:

  • 7pm recordings from their location on any day the celebration occurred
  • Send along their processing algorithms (or make them available as a service)
  • Contextual info from their location on that given day

The 7pm Somewhere Platform would allow folks to mix and match recordings and processed to create new soundscapes. This would begin the creation of a graph that would connect locations (recording by location and day, processing by location and day, context by location and day). That is, someone could upload a recording from Barcelona (41.405825 North, 2.165260 East ) from July 12th, select my processing algorithm from May 5th, create a new soundscape that connects our two locations and those two dates, plus the date the processing algorithm was originally used. That person could also upload contextual information regarding their date and location. This would allow for the remixing and connecting of experiences. The platform would provide a centralized location for listening, creating, sharing, studying the 7pm phenomenon.

Please let me know if you think this is interesting and would like to participate. I do not ascribe to the build it and they will come approach. Just leave a comment. Now it’s time for me to get back to the tasks at hand. New soundscapes should be out soon.

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