We are a multimedia art-tech startup that produces transformative content bridging the fine art and technology sectors and pointing people towards the transcendent. Living Opera reflects a holistic approach to life, work and education. “Living” means “full of life and vigor”; "opera" means (in the Latin) “labor, effort, attention, or work.” In this sense, the ethos of our platform is one of passion and persistence, constantly seeking self-improvement and self-actualization so that we can be a force for good in the world.
Problem Statement and Project Description
Estimates suggest that there are nearly 28 million musicians in the United States alone. Not all of these individuals are professional musicians who earn income from these activities, but they still care about practicing their craft.
One of the greatest challenges, however, is that practicing requires substantial diligence – especially when the practice appears to go poorly. Not every session is going to feel like a success. These features create stress, contribute to burnout, and lead to an overall decline in musical engagement. In fact, musicians experience mental health challenges at a much greater rate than the average American; estimates suggest that nearly 73% battle mental illness.
We have a solution that makes practice more enjoyable and meaningful. Enter the Living Opera app, which will allow musicians to log their practice times, obtain statistics about their performance, and convert their audio from practice into beautiful art that can be shared on other platforms (e.g., social media) and/or minted into NFTs.
While the logging of practice times and retrieval of analytics are useful features, we believe that the most exciting and transformative aspect is the ability to create art through sound... and to share and/or sell that resulting art work with communities at large. Furthermore, we envision users beyond musicians. For instance, a teacher could use the app with a class full of students to produce art work that is showcased on Mother's Day. Similarly, parents could use the app as a therapy tool for special needs children.
Detailed Product Description
Our app will contain several core features:
Practice log tracker: Much like an Apple watch allows users to track their exercise activity, we will allow artists to track the time that they are practicing. Users will have the opportunity to earn different badges based on their consistency.
Sound recording and art production: As the user produces sound (e.g., voice, guitar, piano), the app will record the sound and convert it into abstract art. We do that by taking sound into the (x,y) geometric space: (a) Pitch determines the position on the x-axis.
(b) Frequency determines the distance on the y-axis. Furthermore, randomness enters in three ways. (a) The initial placement on the y-axis. (b) The direction (if it is a line or curve). (c) The shade of the color. Knowingly or unknowingly, users will be creating generative art, which will help position them for success in the NFT space.
Personal gallery: The user will have the ability to view their artwork in a personal gallery that will be optimized for sharing across platforms, including the Secret Network.
Global community: Every time that a user produces artwork, a light will appear on the global map. Users will have the opportunity to see others also on the app, including a Leader Board that ranks people based on their consistency.
We are ready to engage a development team ("Fabius Labs") to build out the app and have already received a quote and crude design plan for how to move forward.
Go-to-Market Plan
We have been accepted into an accelerator called Launchpeer, which will help us develop a prototype / minimum viable product. They will also conduct market research for us and help us develop a marketing strategy for reaching users across the world.
After working with Launchpeer to develop the marketing strategy and design prototype, we will re-engage our engineering team from Fabius Labs to build the app.
Version 1 (1.5 - 2 months): Include functionality for recording practice times, sound, and producing artwork, as well as badging for achieving and streaks for consistency.
Version 2 (1-1.5 months): Add an additional feature for opera singers that allows them to sing into their phones to obtain a classification of their exact voice type. Embed integration between the personal gallery and sharing of art work on social media and/or other platforms, like the Secret Network.
Version 3 (2 months): Add in the additional global community feature.
Alignment with Secret Network
The Secret Network is the ideal platform for us to collaborate with for several reasons. Most importantly, we believe that voice data is going to be similar to healthcare data in the future, so protecting it through encryption and other strategies will be integral to maintaining the trust and confidence of users on the platform. Especially for musicians, their income generating activities and brand depends on the provenance of the their content.
Furthermore, artists have increasingly experienced a decline in their bargaining power and stagnant wages as a result of monopoly power in the art and entertainment sector. We believe that aligning with the Secret Network, which shares our vision for secure and private decentralization, is the best way to transform the sector technologically, economically, and culturally.
Finally, while beginning with musicians is an easier place to start, we believe that it our app provides a use case for content creators and creatives more generally.
Norman Reinhardt: Head of Development and Education/co-founder.
We have a handful of other team members to draw on for expertise and assistance (e.g., Elizabeth Doss, https://www.izzyinkstudios.com/). We are also in the process of hiring more developers for our emerging Web3 productions.
Living Opera Website
Our website is www.livingopera.org, but we are undergoing a large re-branding and new launch of our website in the next 2-3 months.
Team's Experience
Both Soula Parassidis and Norman Reinhardt are world-class opera singers with incredible domain experience in the arts. Christos Makridis is similarly a world-class researcher with over 40 peer-reviewed publications, 60 news stories/op-eds, experience in both government and private sector, and dual doctorates in economics and management science & engineering from Stanford.
Funding Needs
Beyond the funding needs enumerated below, we would also appreciate technical support from the Secret Network to integrate the app into your blockchain. We would like to talk about how we could proceed. Our following budget is based off a year's planning.
App design with Launchpeer: $15,000
App engineering and launch with Fabius Labs: $134,000
Marketing and press with Angel42: $42,000 (3 months at $14,000/month)
Discord/community manager (part-time): $40,000
CEO: $100,000
CTO: $80,000
We would like to have 1/3 upfront and the remaining based on milestones that the Secret Network signs off on. We are also flexible and glad to talk through the budget in more detail.
Living Opera
We are a multimedia art-tech startup that produces transformative content bridging the fine art and technology sectors and pointing people towards the transcendent. Living Opera reflects a holistic approach to life, work and education. “Living” means “full of life and vigor”; "opera" means (in the Latin) “labor, effort, attention, or work.” In this sense, the ethos of our platform is one of passion and persistence, constantly seeking self-improvement and self-actualization so that we can be a force for good in the world.
Problem Statement and Project Description
Estimates suggest that there are nearly 28 million musicians in the United States alone. Not all of these individuals are professional musicians who earn income from these activities, but they still care about practicing their craft.
One of the greatest challenges, however, is that practicing requires substantial diligence – especially when the practice appears to go poorly. Not every session is going to feel like a success. These features create stress, contribute to burnout, and lead to an overall decline in musical engagement. In fact, musicians experience mental health challenges at a much greater rate than the average American; estimates suggest that nearly 73% battle mental illness.
We have a solution that makes practice more enjoyable and meaningful. Enter the Living Opera app, which will allow musicians to log their practice times, obtain statistics about their performance, and convert their audio from practice into beautiful art that can be shared on other platforms (e.g., social media) and/or minted into NFTs.
While the logging of practice times and retrieval of analytics are useful features, we believe that the most exciting and transformative aspect is the ability to create art through sound... and to share and/or sell that resulting art work with communities at large. Furthermore, we envision users beyond musicians. For instance, a teacher could use the app with a class full of students to produce art work that is showcased on Mother's Day. Similarly, parents could use the app as a therapy tool for special needs children.
Detailed Product Description
Our app will contain several core features:
We are ready to engage a development team ("Fabius Labs") to build out the app and have already received a quote and crude design plan for how to move forward.
Go-to-Market Plan
We have been accepted into an accelerator called Launchpeer, which will help us develop a prototype / minimum viable product. They will also conduct market research for us and help us develop a marketing strategy for reaching users across the world.
After working with Launchpeer to develop the marketing strategy and design prototype, we will re-engage our engineering team from Fabius Labs to build the app.
Alignment with Secret Network
The Secret Network is the ideal platform for us to collaborate with for several reasons. Most importantly, we believe that voice data is going to be similar to healthcare data in the future, so protecting it through encryption and other strategies will be integral to maintaining the trust and confidence of users on the platform. Especially for musicians, their income generating activities and brand depends on the provenance of the their content.
Furthermore, artists have increasingly experienced a decline in their bargaining power and stagnant wages as a result of monopoly power in the art and entertainment sector. We believe that aligning with the Secret Network, which shares our vision for secure and private decentralization, is the best way to transform the sector technologically, economically, and culturally.
Finally, while beginning with musicians is an easier place to start, we believe that it our app provides a use case for content creators and creatives more generally.
Living Opera Team
Our core team consists of:
We have a handful of other team members to draw on for expertise and assistance (e.g., Elizabeth Doss, https://www.izzyinkstudios.com/). We are also in the process of hiring more developers for our emerging Web3 productions.
Living Opera Website
Our website is www.livingopera.org, but we are undergoing a large re-branding and new launch of our website in the next 2-3 months.
Team's Experience
Both Soula Parassidis and Norman Reinhardt are world-class opera singers with incredible domain experience in the arts. Christos Makridis is similarly a world-class researcher with over 40 peer-reviewed publications, 60 news stories/op-eds, experience in both government and private sector, and dual doctorates in economics and management science & engineering from Stanford.
Funding Needs
Beyond the funding needs enumerated below, we would also appreciate technical support from the Secret Network to integrate the app into your blockchain. We would like to talk about how we could proceed. Our following budget is based off a year's planning.
We would like to have 1/3 upfront and the remaining based on milestones that the Secret Network signs off on. We are also flexible and glad to talk through the budget in more detail.