Troy Ramos Launches New Sound Project: "Music for Strangers"

Recently I couldn’t help but think about the persons who may or may not come in contact with any work that I create. What are my goals, in terms of whom I’m connecting with? Am I trying to control the “target audienc” too much? If so, is that a good thing? If I wanted to change that, HOW would I go about doing that?

Enter my new sound project called "Music for Strangers". It's an experiment into interacting with random people and spaces through the composition of new musical works. It's also about the loss of control of what we create and freeing the works from the hands of the artist.

Composer Toru Takemitsu once said about his works, with regard to having possession of them: "Should I leave them unsigned?" In this work, #MusicForStrangers, I take that approach, but address our possible expectations with what happens to the works themselves after they've been created and attempt to become part of the universe.

Beginning Saturday, October 22,, 2016, I will compose many short, musical works for one calendar year and then post them in random public spaces or offer them to random strangers. The copies I send or leave will be the ONLY copies. In other words, the fate of these notated sound works lies entirely on the shoulders of the strangers who come in contact with them.

Each one will be signed, photoed and numbered for the project. Once written, what happens to these works will no longer be in the control of the artist. Whatever happens to these pieces, happens to them. If they live on, they live on. If they are to be discarded forever, that's up to the people who find them or the people who ignore them.      

One year. Musical works posted/given away randomly, in as many cities as I frequent. #MusicForStrangers.
 

Music for Strangers
by Troy Ramos, Artist