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The R2vgOULNXVhGzUq5YeQ Cherie Hu from Water and Music discusses Web3 at Consensys 2022

Water and Music, the newsletter and research DAO (decentralized autonomous organisation) developing the innovative's guide to the business of music, was created to facilitate conversations between music tech professionals. The company is now taking it one step further by actively engaging the industry hive of minds to develop research projects and to reward the people that is involved.

"My  reason for having this group is to help others get to know the world more as well as understanding their own place within the global community," begins Cherie Hu as the creator of Water and Music. She wants to help people become better prepared so that they have the best influence on the industry they work in. Cherie's main tenets that she has used, particularly in the realm of business reporting, has been creating actionable writing. "At the end of every article, you'll get an understanding of what to do for your business or to be better at the job you do. Closing that loop between what the society need and our writing, is very important," Cherie explains.

Today, the Water and Music team has increased the frequency of'research sprints' of between 10 and 12 weeks in which they choose a topic to gather as much data as possible for their customers. These research sprints are held once they have decided on a topic, they go out and speak to the Water and Music community: "We ask, 'What are your concerns right now?' then we ask the community to provide [those responses]. Our report stems directly from those requirements," she tells me.

As is the norm, Water and Music research sprints are incredibly collaborative and community-centric. "It's an open-ended ideation process and we have a large number of people to help in the research process," Cherie says. As of now, the Water and Music community has published two research reports under this collaborative arrangement. To keep up with trends, they sold NFTs in retroactive fashion, which meant that, if anyone wanted to support the research, they could - and the proceeds were distributed evenly among the contributors. "It's obvious to me that the result of this research was superior to if a singular person tried to research all the things. This research would not be fully completed!" she smiles. "It's made me believe in the value of not just creating connections, but more importantly, combining the knowledge."

Regaining power

"It's more of an academic concept, however I believe it really applies in the context of Water and Music: we're a community of practise," Cherie continues. "The term was coined in the year 1991 by cognitive sociologist Jean Lave and educational theorist Etienne Wenger] and refers to a community of people that do not just share an interest in common and passion, but also come together with the sole aim of discovering how they can do things better."

The writer explains how this might relate to individuals who are in the same industry or in similar roles across the different industries. People who communicate frequently and exchange knowledge. Water and Music will contribute in more than just creating tools for media production as well as facilitating peer-to-peer learning: "That'll be a really crucial aspect of the future: breaking down barriers to information in the industry of music and encouraging everyone to become more cooperative," Cherie adds.

There's an element of 'taking control back' with this. Cherie hopes to assure the artists that they hold more influence than they think: "Certainly, in the world of streaming, there's more and more consolidations, dominated by Spotify and other big tech firms. Rates of royalties are dropping and everything is going to go downwards! We're offering artists the tools to understand the variety of options. We're helping artists and individuals around them to be more innovative."

Sux3d7DLXXZZHfaqDqtw7 the Water and Music team

Cheire clarifies that the phrase 'community of practise' originally was a reference to professional groups, but it is also applicable to creative communities for example, as we have the ones we have here. The focus of Water and Music the exact concentration is on the music industry and it's all down to an individual motive. "I'm motivated by this work because I grew up playing piano. I spent a lot of being around classical music, but I love being around all kinds of artists and hearing their perspectives about where technology is heading," Cherie continues. "Hopefully that whatever information we impart helps artists and their team members better understand technology and they'll be able to use it to create cool artwork!"

Down the rabbit hole

The company's latest deep-dive study has focused on the mess that is Web3 The conceptual new version of the web based upon blockchain technology. "We're looking to comprehend the State of the Union for tech trends in the field of music, particularly those that are very noisy," she explains. "Web3 is an excellent example as there's a lot of noise; no-one knows the exact nature of what's going on. It's the most extreme tunnel and it continues to go down. Then it's like, "What's happening? ?'!"

In the world of music Unsurprisingly, one of the biggest issues is the fan's sentiment. "I think that's the number reason that lots of performers aren't performing NFTs right now: because of fear of negative reactions from their the fans," she muses. "We have released a report about concerns around Web3. Of course, in the world of music, there are lots of concerns about licensing as well as Intellectual property (IP) as well as NFTs. That was a whole chapter!"

It was a Water and Music meetup at the NFT.NYC event

The next collaboration report in the community has already begun. "We're researching even more nebulous subjects right now, like the metaverse -- whatever that means!" Cherie jokes. "We're not making any plans to create any thing right now. We're trying to determine the opinions of people about it, as well as what the people are confused about." The publication features interviews with artists startups' founders, as well as industry experts on how they view the metaverse and what they are trying to achieve through it as well what is proving difficult to solve.

Cherie mentions that the goal is to combine this research with building online tools to tackle these issues. "We did this with some Web3 themes that we already have, like second-hand sales of music using royalty shares and NFTs. Some smart contracts state 10% to 20% of all secondary sales will go to the original creator and lots of users see that as a benefit. However, my opinion is that the vast majority of NFT's do not result in any secondary sales," Cherie explains. She believes that the value lies on the personal relationship and connection that the NFT represents, not in the opportunity to having something to sell onwards again later.

In addition to the report, Water and Music will be building a tracking dashboard where users can input an NFT collection to determine if there have been any other sales or, if there have been what the NFT is performing in the market. "We are looking to develop more interactive tools. It's like interactive data journalism, particularly for artists as they're probably those who think the most about publishing prices for their NFT drops. We're creating essential frameworks and tools to help people do this analytical work by themselves."

Conflicting visions

Cherie notes that some terms in these newer ones become more complicated instead of clearer, as time goes by "For the metaverse for example, there's a huge gap between how the metaverse is historically, and how it has conceptually defined to the 1960s." She elaborates that the Water and Music team is creating a framework to understand traditional definitions of the metaverse and how they can bridge the gap between belief and actuality.

"The first sci-fi books with a metaverse reference had a grand vision of the interconnectedness of virtual as well as IRL worlds. The world is so far from that right now. But at the same time, in the music industry, artists are saying 'I just launched my personal metaverse!' even though they really mean an imaginary world.

"There is a direct conflict between conceptions of metaverses," she says. "You have Meta [Facebook's holding firm] as well as Epic Games on one side they are both centralized, where one corporation owns all the assets and everything else. But then you have the vision of a Web3-forward decentralized, metaverse with an interoperable identity and asset. It makes sense to explore blockchain technology and the role it has in supporting this, however it directly contradicts Facebook's approach."

Cherie says that the metaverse "just been transformed into a nebulous term which anyone can use to personal gain" and she wants to break through the confusion. It is in line to Cherie's raison d'etre: Water and Music will critically and analytically look at the topic, and then provide actionable knowledge to guide people on how to react. This has real-world use cases also, for instance, providing assistance to artists and their staff in assessing the possibility of working with specific metaverse-based platforms.

The Water and Music meetup at the NFT.NYC conference.

Cherie ends her show in a typical fashion and encourages collaboration in and within Water and Music community. "In the next few months, we'll be rolling interviews with musicians platform owners, artists, and startups founders. The metaverse research is likely to continue throughout the summer into the fall and if anyone is keen to be involved in that, let me know. If anyone has recommendations of people to talk with, We're open to suggestions!"

To be involved, follow Cherie to get involved, follow her on Twitter: @water andmusic. To become a member of the Water and Music community, and gain access to the community's in-depth research reports and Discord server, go to waterandmusic.com/membership.