Last weekend, I had pastries with a friend who is a musician. I found her in the halls of MTV many years ago. We struck up a friendship. She played her music — and some Velvet Underground — at my wedding. She popped into my office on my 40th birthday with her electric viola. She taught my eldest son how to read music, and boy, was he a difficult student.
As we sat in the sun in Ridgewood, she told me that after many years she felt a new, different creative calling: the desire to make making music a more central part of her life. We talked about how when you get that call, no matter how strong, sometimes it’s still hard to take the first step. You know you have to go down the path, but which direction do you go?
I told her that I too had been called to make something I’d wanted to exist in the world for at least 10 years. And thanks to Claude Code (what a time to build!!), I’d made it. But I too was blocked on what to do next. On the bike ride home, I wondered if those wild ideas — the ones in the Telepathy Tapes, in Rick Rubin’s book, in my psychoanalytic sessions — were knocking at my door too. The ones that say ideas come to you, and your job is to accept and enact them. To create, make, do, take the next step. Or else, they’ll teleport to someone else.
For now, this is with me. So I’m asking you, the universe, and my dearest friends for help.
I’m not asking you to beta test my next (half-baked, let’s be honest) product/app. (Not yet.) I’m asking you for a voice memo. Let me explain.
I made an app called Alter.
The app is a container for a ritual.
The ritual is a daily offering.
The offering is a piece of music — a complete piece — and an accompanying voice note from the human being who chose it.
You experience the offering in the dark. Neither the piece nor the guide are revealed until later.
The vibe is like an abandoned Taiwanese temple. Musty but smells good. Dark, except for when the music lights it up. Which only happens once a day.
Anonymous. Synchronous. Time-bound. Shared.
You have one job, one way to win the game: attend. Listen to the music in its entirety. Even if you don’t like it. Get to the end and you get a trophy, a gold star. A sense of completion and satisfaction. Maybe something to talk about with your friends if they’re also attending.
I want this ritual to transcend the wellness aisle and the “time spent listening” overlords who have pushed music to the background of our lives. Functional music, generated music — that’s fine, and yes, it works. Music, even in the background, even when you’re tuned out, can change your mood, help you sleep, etc etc. But like the other antidotes to our distracted existence, our modern malaise — meditation apps, sauna, microdosing — these are vitamins, supplements, nice to have and fun to try.
The drug, the cure I think we all need, is age-old yet somehow, in our days of skip-swipe-n’-scroll, kind of novel: actively, actually listening to music. With your body. Your breath. And your most valuable resource: your attention.
So here is my ask:
Send me a voice memo. Tell me about ONE piece of music that makes you FEEL and NOTICE something. Could be something in the piece. Could be something in yourself.
Do not play or mention the name of the piece in your voice memo! But tell me what it is please.
What genre? What era? What mood? Doesn’t matter. The only requirement is that the piece is arresting in some way. Worthy of your attention. Evokes a feeling.
How long? Keep it short.
How? Record it on your phone. Send it to me however you usually send me things — WhatsApp, Signal, iMessage, email. Anything goes.
When I listen to your notes, I think I’ll know what to do next. My bigger hope is that soon, you’ll be participating in this weird experiment alongside each other, and me.
XO,
Shan