Why Music Forest Exists (AI-free writing!)
Once in a blue moon, a dazzling flower would burst through the earth of my attention garden (a metaphor for my brain). I would frantically invite everyone to come and see the dazzling flower. It was urgent; the flower would die overnight. Every flower did. I was 29 when I discovered a magic question that kept the flowers alive:
"How did we get here?"
I needed to understand the ground that grew the flowers.
I built Music Forest because I love:
- Listening to music that is off the beaten path;
- Sharing with friends and family music they have never heard;
- Making choices based on my own preferences and curiosity, rather than algorithmic recommendations;
- Noticing connections;
- Building simple systems that nurture my capacity for attention.
Music Forest is a ritual of choice you can perform before opening up your regular music listening app.
Music Forest gives you albums released on this day in history, one at a time. You can filter for certain tags and decades that are available. For example, you could narrow your options to dungeon synth, elektronika, future jazz, and Australian rock records between 1980 and 2010. The tags update daily with the new list of albums.
Your personal notebook logs which albums you listened to and any notes you'd like to include about tracks, contributing artists, and more. Only you can see your notebook because everything is end-to-end encrypted. There is no tracking or algorithmic recommendations based on your choices.
The notebook feature is based on years of optimizing a simplified music listening journal. It is a stack that keeps things labeled by date of entry. You can search across all of your own entries. You can tag songs, artists, and more. You can export your notebook in JSON format if you want to get fancy and do your own analysis. Your data is yours and yours alone.
If you have feedback for me just reach out in whatever way is convenient for you. This is a big passion project for me so I would love to hear about your experience of Music Forest. If you don't have my contact info, you can use the feedback button in the app menu, or write to me at info@musicforest.lol
In song,
Clancy