In a world where YouTube rules Internet media, SoundCloud, an audio distribution platform that emerged in 2008, is making an effort to become the audio alternative to the video archive. Artists upload their audio files of all kinds—music, spoken word poetry and the like—and other users can comment on specific parts of the track and from there spark collaboration.
In early April, SoundCloud launched another campaign called SoundCloud Heroes. The goal of the project is to take the large mission of creating a national audio network of artists and collaborators, and make it local. Movers and shakers in community-music scenes were picked to head the projects in cities including Austin, Boston, San Francisco, New York City. . . and Syracuse. Which begs the question: How did Syracuse make that list?
Native Syracusan Jared Brickman began a project in 2010 called One Hello World, in which he takes voicemails called in to the number (316) 247-0421 and sets them to music. To date, he has composed nearly 100 tracks and released an album of 30 tracks in March.
One of those callers ended up being a community manager at SoundCloud, who picked Brickman as a prime mover and shaker in the Syracuse scene. He flew out to San Francisco for a SoundCloud Heroes conference in April and now Brickman is tackling the mission to bring together audio creators in Syracuse using a SoundCloud platform with a local focus: meetup.com/syracuse-sound.
The website allows members to talk, collaborate, jam and give the local music community a centralized home. Brickman plans to hold monthly “meet-ups” where members can join together to discuss what’s happening in the scene and share ideas.The first meeting takes place Thursday, May 17, 7 p.m., at the Redhouse Café, 219 S. West St.
“I’m forming the group with the idea that people who are passionate about audio of all kinds will come together,” Brickman said. “We have the Music Industry Conference (MIC) here and the Syracuse Area Music Awards (Sammys), and I want to kinda join that realm of interconnecting people and encouraging them to collaborate and maybe have the group itself generate some projects.”
The benefit of working through the SoundCloud platform comes in the accessibility that organizers are given. Brickman can harness the company’s massive network of users as well as its social media applications such as Facebook and Twitter.
The scope is big, but the hope is precise. “Here in Syracuse all of these groups have separate functions, but the same vision of making the music scene higher profile and more integrated rather than competing and duplicating efforts,” Brickman explained. “I’m all about working with people.”
