Exploring Art & Music with @sndbox-alpha

A Month in Review with @sndbox-alpha

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We’ve just wrapped up our first full month of curation with the @sndbox-alpha account! Over the last few weeks a team of Steemians from around the globe collaborated and curated the theme "Art & Music". The Alpha team published multiple weekly reports and produced an effective system to engage Steemit creators. Read all about the account’s mission here.

Today, we’ve got all four OG-Alpha Curators at the table to answer a number of questions on their experiences curating creative content on Steemit. Let’s dive right in!

@sndbox: Hey @sndbox-alpha team! Thanks for joining us. For those learning about your community work for the first time, tell us a bit about yourselves.

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@djlethalskillz: I am a DJ as the name, a Turntablist (Vinyl Manipulation) and a Music Producer and a newly Blockchain and Crypto Enthusiast that said I come from Computer Engineering Background. Been blessed to have the best of both worlds in a way, musically I reach levels where I open up and perform with Legends like Grandmaster Flash, De La Soul to acts like Timberland, 50 cent etc.. and on the corporate and IT front, got to work with big Multinationals like IBM, Kodak and such... In a nutshell a cool looking geek with lots of hidden skillz.

@heymattsokol: Hello, my name is Matt Sokol, I am a drummer and electronic producer gleefully participating in the creative explosion of new music today. This is maybe the best era to be a musician and I’m hoping Steem is a new part of that.

@playitforward: Hi! My name is Aldon Baker, I am a Los Angeles based guitarist, composer, and music producer. I have experience working on set and in the post-production stage of commercials, and films. I have also worked on several game projects in sound designer and composer capacity.

@paolobeneforti here. Italian professional artist - painter, sculptor, illustrator - since 1990.

@sndbox: How have your experiences been focusing on Art and Music? What’s your take on the current state of creativity on Steemit?

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@djlethalskillz: Steemit is a never ending growing community. It’s attracting great content creators, talents and creative people from all across the world especially from artistic and musical backgrounds as it provides great opportunities and a great pool of knowledge and resourceful community.

@heymattsokol: From the musician side it is wonderful. When you do it right, Steem is an income stream and a creativity booster all in one. The consumer side is much more awkward though - quality of content is inconsistent and we are nowhere near Reddit (yet) when it comes to providing good content for lurkers / casual viewers and listeners.

@playitforward: I have found that Steemit as a platform has had an uncanny positive drive toward collaboration. There is a freeness and openness that it seems people have with it. I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that there’s a tangible reward for a collaboration higher than maybe getting Youtube views or Facebook likes. It’s amazing to me how people are so knowledgeable on here and resourceful, and just overall helpful that when you’re in a bind or need a creative boost, there are so many willing to help push us along.

@paolobeneforti: I wrote many posts about how a rewarding system like Steem can change the role of the visual artists in our society. There is a new road we just started walking on, and I don’t know exactly where it will lead us. I also talked about it at Steemfest2 in Lisbon.

@sndbox: What were some of the more difficult parts of curating specific content on Steemit.com?

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@djlethalskillz: With the amount of content being created by the second on Steemit, trying to filter the original great stuff can be really time consuming but I love digging and finding those gems as I do the same with my music. My biggest challenge is ensuring the content is original as we do have lot of people who are in here for a quick buck with no sense of being part of shaping and building a greater ecosystem and a community for the future to come.

@heymattsokol: It can be time consuming. I think curation should be left to newer users, who are excited about the opportunity and get to learn about Steem via curation. For a busy long-time Steemian, or at least for me to be honest, I find the act of curating to be a chore even though the end results are amazing.

@playitforward: The most difficult thing for me was that there’s just so much content and so many skilled artists. That, on top of making sure the content was in fact created from the person claiming it. I actually had to message a few people on Twitter to make sure that their profile and posts are actually coming from them and not someone using their work. Even though I have been exceedingly busy, it is so rewarding to be able to help out other creators.

@paolobeneforti: the biggest problem in curating on Steemit (or on other Steem interfaces) comes from the lacking of options for organizing the contents. Steem needs the possibility to create subcommunities, lists, groups and so on.

• Click here to listen in on a music collaboration featuring @playitforward + @djlethalskillz.

@sndbox: What would you like to see out of the Steemit creative world in the future?

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@djlethalskillz: I believe Steemit is a great place to learn, pitch ideas, build solid networks and work collectively with like minded artists, among the so many great things Steemit provides I can definitely see it in the future being used as the base for supporting and crowdfunding art and music projects on a global scale.

@heymattsokol: More consumer traffic - I think need 80+% of our visitors to be here for entertainment, not money, to facilitate support for the content creators who do rely on the money/attention. This is tricky because many steem entrepreneurs are understandably focused on creators right now.

@playitforward: I think I want to see more creative ideas being put into action. Even for myself it’s scary thinking about the parts of starting up a project in the cryptocurrency world. But as I’ve done more and more, it gets easier and more rewarding. I would love to have more ideas pitched and pushed into fruition. The more diverse of projects involving creatives and community would be incredible to see. I personally would like to see a turn in personal posts and a push for projects.

@paolobeneforti: I don’t know. I hope the community will be able to overcame the problems it has at the moment (vote selling, inflated rewards etc.).

@sndbox: And last but definitely not least, tell us about your unique @sndbox-alpha music collaboration!

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@djlethalskillz: Being part of Sndbox-Alpha team is surreal and overwhelming, we have a massive pool of great expertise, talents and resources. We did few great musical collaborations and now we have full on projects running and lot more coming. To highlight one:

@heymattsokol: We made a song, it was fun. The second Alpha group (Meetups & Philanthropy) should think of a collaborative capstone project too -- can y'all outdo us??

@playitforward: We thought of an idea to make a song by each contributing layers, first @heymattsokol sent us a beat, then @djlethalskillz took it and tweaked it, then I took it and added some weird harmonic and melodic stuff, and @heymattsokol mixed it. @paolobeneforti definitely took that and made several pieces of art and animation. I took that and edited it into a video with @heymattsokol’s final mix.

@paolobeneforti: as an artist, my contribution has been visual: it was exciting to create something starting from an amazing musical theme. This new experience has been possible thanx to this fantastic team. (thx guys!)

The Next Theme for Alpha!

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First off, thank you @djlethalskillz, @heymattosokol, @playitforward, and @paolobeneforti. Stellar job and great feedback from a quartet of bonafide curators. The group has moved on and now with a new group of curators, @sndbox-alpha will be pursuing a new theme for the next several weeks - Meetups and Philanthropy by @steemitph, @nairadaddy and @kenan1989. If you yourself or others around you are pursuing work in these topics, be sure to engage them on their page.

Steem on Steemians!

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