What follows is a set of working prototypes for communal composition. Each explores a different democratic mechanism — averaging, spatial voting, quadratic voting, electoral systems, embodied movement, generational ownership — applied to the creation of music. They run in a browser. You can play them. None are finished pieces of music. They are instruments waiting for you to pick them up.
Seven Prototypes
I
Piano
Mean & Mode
30,000 people sit at a piano. Each plays a note. The output is the statistical result of every choice. The simplest model is pure democratic averaging applied to pitch. Chords allow you to create harmony from proportional representation.
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I-b
Mean Mode
Continuous Pitch
From discrete notes to a continuous frequency space. Thousands of votes cluster into a visible distribution. Switch between mean, mode, and chord to hear how the same votes produce different music depending on the aggregation method.
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II
Miro
Spatial Voting
A shared canvas where each touch becomes a vote. Overlapping choices form peaks in a 3D landscape. The topography is sonified becoming sound. Inspired by Miró's Bleu II.
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III
Assembly
Quadratic Voting
Five layers of pre-composed musical blocks. Participants spend voice credits to vote on which blocks to play. Concentrating votes costs quadratically more, so the output reflects not just majority preference but intensity of feeling.
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IV
Parliament
Electoral Systems
Vote for one of seven parties alongside 300 simulated citizens. Toggle between first past the post, proportional representation, and coalition. The votes stay the same. The system changes.
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V
Choreography
Body as Instrument
Democracy as representation, as being seen, translated, on the record. Cameras track dancers' movements and transcribe them into sound in real time. The tension between abandonment and structure is lived out not in response to an external score, but to the other people on stage.
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VI
Epoch
Generational Ownership
A composition that accumulates over days, months, generations. A neighbourhood builds a shared piece over a decade. A digital community of 50,000 whose work arrives in viral waves. A city of half a million over half a century. The literal ownership of cultural history.
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Core Idea
Music has always been communal but its creation and ownership rarely are. These prototypes explore what happens when democratic governance is applied directly to the act of making music. The process of creation becomes as democratic as the outcome.
Next Steps
- Real communities, real networks
- Neighbourhood touchscreens in public squares
- Camera-tracked dance performances
- Orchestras whose audiences vote on what comes next
- Onchain provenance tying every touch to its creators