Welcome And Prepared Piano Improv

SPEAKER_01 0:18

Hello. Ryan Tanaka is a musician and core Tea member at core team member. A Tea. Atea member at Team. An open source Tezos community. Ryan, welcome back to Tez Talks. I want to start with a performance from earlier this summer. Okay. So at Tezcon this year, you played a grand piano with books, paper, a phone, and other objects inside it. What are you listening for when you put a ping pong ball inside a grand piano?

SPEAKER_00 0:54

Uh how it'll change the sound, I guess, you know. Um, were you gonna play some footage or something?

SPEAKER_01 1:02

Or no, I'm just curious. Like, did you know what you wanted it to sound like?

SPEAKER_00 1:07

Um, actually, not really, because uh part of like playing, like I really love to do improv. So, like part of playing for me in that kind of style is really like the surprises you get, you know, from like trying something new, and then oh, what will happen when we throw something you know in inside of the instrument and how would it change? You know, after a while, you but but you know, I've been doing this a while, so I could kind of predict, right? I I've done the ping pong thing before, but um no, that was a great piano because uh it was a really crappy piano, and like even the lid um wouldn't close on its own, so I had to tape it up. But the nice thing about it is that uh, you know, sometimes uh some piano technicians they get really antsy, right, when you like mess inside because it is kind of like sensitive stuff, you know, and pianos aren't cheap, right? But for that one, you know, no worry, you can just do whatever you want. And so I had a lot of had a you know blast with it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 2:11

Was it uh was there anything that caught you off guard during the performance, or did it did you feel like it really was just a successful expression?

SPEAKER_00 2:18

Uh it was fine, you know. It's like I like to kind of I don't know, my like I say I tell people that I I only play one song, and it's really just me like noodling around on the piano, and they all kind of sound the same. I made hundreds of recordings over the years, but I just have like this general approach to making music, and and it kind of sounds, you know, in that ambient, kind of minimalistic kind of style, and um, you know, that's what I've settled into. I don't do anything else now. It's like that's my that's my voice, so to speak, you know.

SPEAKER_01 2:58

Okay, well, piggybacking off of that. You see, you've done hundreds of recordings. You said you've hate you hate making album covers, though. What is it about them that bothers you, my man?

SPEAKER_00 3:08

I'm just not that great in making, I'm not a visual artist, you know. I okay, I have done, I have done like front-end code and I can move like some stuff around, but I I think that's a different skill than like knowing how to draw or paint, or you know, I've never really had those skills, so um, I've always like and I'm also a very I'm a I'm a purist in terms of like a musician because um I don't you know what is this purist i mean it could come off of what's a purist saying the TV killed the radio star, you know, that kind of thing, like like Hollywood, you know, the music industry from the radio era became like about the the how things sound into like how things look, you know, like music videos and and that kind of continued on to even today, right? On YouTube, and it's hard to get the people to listen to just music as a pure thing, but you know, part of me actually most of me believes in that, you know.

SPEAKER_01 4:15

Well, some part of you said that that might be important. You ended up building a waveform generator, so yeah, on Taya create it instead of you know just a conventional cover, right?

SPEAKER_00 4:27

Yeah, if so if you go on Taya right now, uh it's been around for like a couple years already, but um I had actually I coded that myself. Like I had a little bit of help of AI, but it was mostly manual, you know. And I'm just like I I I love uploading music on Tea, and I have a lot of music on there even now, and you know, our our Tea Cafe um site is a radio player, right? So it'll show up on there too. So I've been continuously like uploading on there, but I hate making album covers because uh to me they're separate things, you know. So I made the recording, and then it's like, oh, I gotta find I gotta make an album cover. Uh so you know, you can make a crappy one just like you know, off of stock photos or you know, or um you could find a visual artist to collaborate with, but that's a lot of work, right? So, and it takes time. So, but I just wanted to get it out there. So yeah, I made that tool basically for myself. But but it but other people are using it too now, right? Because I'm not the only one who struggles with this. A lot of musicians, they're there for the music, they don't really want to think about having to do visuals, but unfortunately, you know, even even in web 3, you're you're kind of forced to um create a album cover, like yeah, like that's just the norm everywhere. And

Why Album Covers Feel Like Work

SPEAKER_00 6:00

I think I'm pretty sure, yeah, I don't know, a single site. They they always ask for some kind of visuals, right?

SPEAKER_01 6:07

Uh I mean a big question mark with like an empty thumbnail just doesn't quite sell it, does it?

SPEAKER_00 6:13

Yeah, and it has to do with you know, sales, and I I get it, right? When we put it on a website, you have to have something, I guess.

SPEAKER_01 6:21

And when I say sell it, I don't mean literally sell it. I'm saying like give the idea uh something relatable for someone outside to be.

SPEAKER_00 6:29

I mean, it's an art form in it in itself, you know, and and it's not to say that there's no value in it, it's just at least for me, like I'm so uh uh hearing focused, you know, it's more of a distraction. Um at least, you know, for for my music. Like I would rather people listen to it and look at whatever's there.

SPEAKER_01 6:52

So now let's go to Wallet Radio. You've listened to music you've collected on Tezos using that. When once you started using it that way, what did you notice about your own collection?

SPEAKER_00 7:06

Well, um at least for well, it's worth mentioning that I came here to Tezos mostly because of uh Hen Radio. And if you remember, you know, if you're around for that that time, like there was a lot of great music being put out by a lot of people. Um and and then but the they see like the thing I remember was like the UI of the site itself was really janky, it was very like you know, stitched together by um you know, tape, duct tape. Um, there was no volume adjust button, so you would have to turn turn it.

SPEAKER_01 7:52

So real, you know, it felt like it was MS paint quality, you know.

SPEAKER_00 7:57

Basically, but but see, like that that was like but the music was great, and that's what drew me in. And it wasn't because I was looking at something, it was because what I was listening to kind of really moved me right on a on a pretty significant way. So so yeah, you know, so so it kind of takes that idea, and then um, but but the framework behind it, the fact that this was an open system that you know you mint on Hickenak, Cortea now, and it just shows up, right? There's no gatekeeping, there's no um, yeah, there's no process, it's just like a really open and free system, and and people are still making uploadings even now, no, every day. And it's like yeah, pretty inspiring to see.

SPEAKER_01 8:54

Did you find yourself uh seeing anything in there you'd forgotten you you owned or maybe an artist?

SPEAKER_00 9:02

Oh, all the time, like even even now, like I thought I've been like listening to it for so long, like um kind of like almost um I I thought I heard everything, you know, and uh but you know, once in a while I just hit up the random button and was like, whoa, well, I never heard this before. That's kind of neat, you know. Um there's a lot of uh I think the big big artist for me on Tezos, at least was uh Stereo Hopper. And yeah, unfortunately he passed away uh uh recently due to health issues, but um I really I just really liked his music, and um it was sort of like a mix between classical and electronic, and it just kind of hit the right spots for me. He's very prolific, really, really nice guy. Um, I just if you look on my Twitter feed, you'll see just me saying really, really nice things about him all the time. And then he was so grateful, he actually sent me a whole album of his original music, which I still have today. And I'm not sure what to do with it because I don't want to publish it on, you know. But I don't know, but but you know, it just shows like the kind of generosity and the camaraderie, right? This uh community has always had. I just listened to his stuff just a few days ago, like so so great. And um Antea, we're we're coming out very soon with a curation feature, and what this allows people to do is that you can finally make collections, like you know how they have it on object, like collections of work. But uh Joe designed it in a way it where if there's audio files inside of it, you can just hit a button and turn it into a radio. So yeah, so someone uh Tesberry Pi who was good friends with um Stereo Hopper. Um he made an album dedicated to him, his music, and then now you can just hit play and all his music is there. And so yeah, I'm hoping you know, this is uh I think there's a lot of potential in this feature because uh something people have been asking for a long time. It's finally here, and we're gonna try to get like the music musicians in on it.

SPEAKER_01 11:36

Very cool, very cool. I like simple access roads, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 11:41

It's it's hard. It's so simple, but it took a long time to get here, you know.

SPEAKER_01 11:47

Simplicity is not easy to create, yeah. Effective simplicity is not easy. Good job, excellent work. All right, I'm gonna pivot here. Are you ready? Sure. Do you remember poll number 42? It was a Teya proposal about auctions and collector notifications. Someone pointed out that Tea could end up covering long-term storage for work sold elsewhere without getting the fee from that sale. And you said you hadn't considered that. When you saw that, where did it leave you on the proposal?

SPEAKER_00 12:23

Uh what? Wait, that's a complicated question. Hold on. Yes, it is.

SPEAKER_01 12:29

But you're a complicated individual. So back uh this was December, I believe. December 2021.

SPEAKER_00 12:34

Okay, okay.

SPEAKER_01 12:36

Right? And we were talking about, you know.

SPEAKER_00 12:38

Poll number, that's very specific. Oh man. Poll number 42, you said? Yeah. Okay. 42. You know, maybe this is not a bad thing because people are finally starting to use the polls.

SPEAKER_01 12:59

Yeah,

Wallet Radio And Surprise Rediscoveries

SPEAKER_01 13:00

well, why don't you tell us about the polls while you look it up? Keep yourself.

SPEAKER_00 13:04

Oh, okay, okay. It uh implement an auction system and notification for collectors. Okay, so something like similar to what object has. Um, I mean, the results of the polls uh basically said uh we don't want that, you know, Teya. So uh yeah, and I and I wasn't sure, you know. Um, but the polls are really good for like measuring like what the community wants, you know.

SPEAKER_01 13:31

So to be fair though, sometimes the community can be wrong about what they need versus what they want. It unfortunately, this is where that taste comes in. This is where the Joe Simons world separate themselves.

SPEAKER_00 13:47

Well, you know, um, I think I think like the way we think, like Taya and Object thinks of each other, you know, we're we're like sibling sites, right? Um and we we're both kind of using the same resources, right? And we we do it next each other's works for to some extent. And uh, but I think I think we're appealing to different kinds of crowds, at least for people on Teya, they don't want to kind of deal with the hustle and bustle that comes with you know um auctions or uh yeah, most of the members, I don't know about now, but most of the members initially were against like bids and notifications, right? So they wanted to keep it a very pure place where the art kind of um yeah, a little bit more quiet, I guess.

SPEAKER_01 14:49

More uh do you feel that that same sentiment to this day? Is it shifting a little?

SPEAKER_00 14:57

Well, we are um if you notice in the last couple months we've added a lot of features um around basically turning Taya into a social media site, you know, and except that everything's on chain. So every time you do something, it's a transaction. And uh like we took it down all the way down to like comments on uh on uh artworks, uh we have uh forums, we have a blog now, we have um chat chat rooms, you know. So and it's kind of like a big experiment to see like uh do people really want this kind of like it's a very thorough system where everything's managed by the blockchain. Moderation is done by the DAO, the DAO team, and we have a moderator um role now, you know, for people who are voted in. Uh we have a wiki system that has its own proposal and um you know, review process. So so yeah, uh so now the uh the challenges, and and we're trying to get support for this, is that we want to see if this can like attract more users to the site because um, yeah, if they don't want to get involved with like auctions and um, you know, those are just the things that object uh provides, uh we're trying to do it in a different way, you know. So every if we were trying to build our community around usage of the NFTs as opposed to just pure sales, that makes sense.

SPEAKER_01 16:47

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 16:51

Yeah, and every time someone does something, yeah, we get a we get a small transaction fee. So the more you the more we can get people using the art, artworks, like comment, just talking about it, um, making curations, making collections, uh, yeah, the better off I think. Um, yeah, the whole and and all the fees goes into the treasury, and then the treasury is managed by the DAO, and the DAO can use that money to like you know, pay people to do stuff, put on events, which is which we've already been doing, right? So that's the idea, you know. That's like kind of the we just we're we're trying to grow our ecosystem just in different ways, you know.

SPEAKER_01 17:37

Makes sense. I mean, you guys should embrace what you guys live for, and it makes a lot of sense that you would go that direction.

SPEAKER_00 17:43

And yeah, all of these are like brand new, by the way. Uh right, as yes, how's the last month option going?

SPEAKER_01 17:51

Are people using it?

SPEAKER_00 17:53

Uh yeah, some people are using it here and there, but you know, we're trying to keep expectations realistic realistic because we look at the polling system, yeah. I mean, we try. I mean, you guys are doing great. This is where we're we're we're transparent, we're upfront about everything, you know, and I don't want to mislead people, even if it, you know, I don't want to over like what we're just starting out. How about that? But it but the potential is huge, right?

SPEAKER_01 18:23

Because it's people are using it though.

SPEAKER_00 18:26

Yeah, people are using it, and but if you look at the polling system, right? That was sitting around for like about a year before people starting using it, you know.

SPEAKER_01 18:38

And well, it just takes one good use case and people understand that it's there. I think marketing might be an issue, maybe a little.

SPEAKER_00 18:45

It's a it's a marketing thing. Uh, it's also but it's also like a uh because of the system is so new and different, it just takes some time for people to get used to, you know, like the same with the polls. It's like, oh yeah, so if you have a Teya token, you can create a poll and use it for your projects, and that was true for since the beginning. Actually, that that system was there since the beginning of Tea, in fact. But uh it only came, you know, it had to reach that point where they're like, oh, I can use it for this, you know, like so we have a lot of features like that that are kind of um all over the place on the on the site right now, and you know what we're hoping is that one day people will find like a really great use case for it, and and then yeah, because everything's connected together, right? And that that's kind of the the strength of our our uh community because

Curation Radios And Honoring Artists

SPEAKER_00 19:50

we're intricately tied to everything's tied together in an intricate way that really you can't find anywhere else, I would say.

SPEAKER_01 20:02

Now, Ryan, you once described Taya's password manager as this giant list. How did it get that big?

SPEAKER_00 20:12

Did I say that? I did say that. Uh just all the people involved, you know? Like it's just um yeah, the core members get access to a password list to keep all the you know, like social media sites. We we do have to go back into like web two services occasionally for some things, but even the password system is decentralized, right?

SPEAKER_01 20:42

And uh well, just you know, in case people don't have an idea, what what kind of things pile up once you get a bunch of people maintaining things over a period of time?

SPEAKER_00 20:52

Well, it's just um a lot things tend to get fragmented, and uh, you know, we there's like like like him said, there's a huge list of passwords, and just like comprehending all that, you know, for one person is just asking for a lot, right? So the last year we've been trying and consolidate a lot of the uh like we have there's like documentation on things everywhere, you know, some of it on Notion, and some of it like Twitter threads. Someone posted it on Tumblr like two years ago, somewhere, you know. I don't know. So we've been trying to do is uh a lot of the recent features we're trying to bring back into have everything consolidated into the site itself. And and that's what the wiki is for, really. You know, we're we're starting, we're getting better at like kind of make a unified, seamless experience. Uh, if you go on the site, uh if you go to the Dow um tabs we now have statistics so you can see like uh yeah how how the site has been doing as a whole you know uh we also have an activity feed so like people know what other people have been doing um there's also if you dig dig dig deep enough if if you check your profile uh there is also an activity feed for artists as well so they've been asked they asked they were asking this for a long time like and you know I wish we could have done it sooner but but it was done you know in the last couple months and so yeah you know I think we have a pretty good foundation to like start building things upon you know I've always believed like this was it you know like this is where NFTs are gonna thrive like long term uh well Ryan you're you're kind of deep in it and you're kind of cleaning up the back end of this the infrastructure organizing how things are handled what were you really careful not to lose uh I think the biggest thing was I have to make sure uh we've been pushing a lot of changes right and um and there was a lot of concern by the team that we were moving too fast right like move move fast and break things right uh they don't want things to break okay and and so uh I had to spend some time um yeah I made it

Polls Auctions And Platform Direction

SPEAKER_00 23:45

made a few polls on a certain few features like when we pushed the blog for example the the MIDI thing the uh uh the um the copyright thing um you know I did have to ask around and make sure everyone was okay with it you know and uh first few times I did it formally but I think after a while they they trusted me you know with that process and and so yeah you know I I didn't want to lose the trust in the community because yeah you know even once then it's over you know it's like can't do this anymore they're they're gonna stop me right that's that's how it's designed like so so yeah you know like that that's that's really it and uh yeah so I'm hoping we can continue to kind of like keep on building because I do think like we made a lot of progress in the last couple months and and hoping keep that momentum going. At Tezcon this year you ended up showing the Teya art platform to people who had basically zero Tezos context when you show Tea to someone without any context what do they ask that longtime people never ask longtime people oh you mean like uh you and me we would just go right over our head things that we just well usually it's forget yeah usually it's like what's going on you know especially if they have no con they have no uh con you know if they're especially if they're not crypto people even the idea of a wallet is foreign to them right so um one thing um you know I've been pitching our uh our startup a lot lately and then we we kind of settled on a like a quasi-model you know for for a company it's like uh just gets straight to the point right it's like Tea has no database there's no login it's only the blockchain you know and and that's kind of what sets us apart from what everyone else is doing because you can't find you can't really find that anywhere else at least not to the extent that we're doing it you know so so yeah a lot of the times it's like oh how do I log in and like there is no login and like well is there ever going to be a login no do you feel like that unless we have unless yours will ever change uh if we get takeover and taken over hostile takeover of the Dow which I don't even know how that would happen you know they would have like there would have to be significant overturn to the team because 99% of the team uh likes it this way you know and so so you know like I've been doing a lot of pitching like I've been like applying to accelerators and like trying to raise money for company you know um yeah oh if it if there's anyone up there we're looking for angels by the way uh but I gotta I gotta show I I have to show but uh uh but uh yeah you know uh we we we would we are getting some pushback from it and it's not surprising because right like why wouldn't you have a login why why not collect people's emails and like just make it easier for people but um we're kind of way in that you know this is as pure blockchain as you're gonna get people and if you want that you know

On-Chain Social Features And DAO Moderation

SPEAKER_00 27:40

we're here you know so so yeah that that's kind of we're positioning ourselves you know like most of the at least from what I've seen like most of the startups now like 90% of it is all AI you know and then we're we're we're we're the only weirdos in the room trying to do this NFT blockchain thing on a Tezos you know which is a chain that most people haven't haven't even heard of right so but that that that's it you know that that's who we are and and I think like you know if you want something to go to small to big that that's a real opportunity you know you make money from something going from small to big and uh but yeah it it it's like actually kind of very comforting to see like I check the activity feed on Taya every day now not that that's a thing you know uh before it was just like what's going on you know it was kind of unclear but now I see every day there's transactions every day I'm looking at it right now there was someone sold an NFT to someone else a real person five minutes ago you know and and so what was the question again it kind of it kind of went on a it it was just you know we were talking about um zero context showing it to oh yeah yeah exactly no but but I've always uh I've always said this you know I've been saying this for a while like we need to get out of our bubble you know we we need to convince someone outside of our ecosystem that this is worth something and that is basically what I'm doing right now you know and uh is it gonna work I don't know but um but I still believe in it I still believe we are doing something very unique that that some you know that that the world needs i i think we're solving a problem because uh the thing about the is that because everything's on the blockchain every everything is accountable you know if the moderator does something sketchy it shows up on the blockchain right if there's someone being a bully or you know doing something illegal it's right there like it's it's arguably the safest place on the internet I would say right now you know right now you go everywhere you don't know what's going on right who knows you know they could be censoring your thing I don't get half my notifications these days you know fake news and just that might just be inefficiency in the system it might not even be overt censorships or yeah I'm I don't know but but uh you know and then a lot of it comes from the fact that uh bots and AI you know they take a advantage of things being free right on the internet um we're we're actually uh a microtransaction based system I guess like every you know everything you do but I mean everything you do serves a purpose microtransactions arguably are a way to bleed hope out of out of a customer

No Login Design And Sustainable Microtransactions

SPEAKER_00 31:10

whereas yours are functional transactions you just technically instead of relying on the structure to to execute we yeah it's not a game well I guess everything's a game but you know but but yeah we're we're not we're we're not trying to extract people anyway you you you you it get what you see is what you get you know yeah you're yeah you can see value in in what you're spending it's not a gotcha it's not a secret egg with maybe the hand buzzer that you and if someone spams us then at least we're getting something out of it right other rather than it being a drain on the servers right which is the case for like most places so yeah I know our system's sustainable it's um it's uh everything is verifiable you know and uh the data with data that we have we've been experimenting with like using AI on top of blockchain data on Teya uh if you check the blog there's like been automated reports that's pretty cool like it shows the sales and you know featured people and and all those things so I think there's a lot of potential you know to like um you know even in the age of AI like I can I still think it's it can serve a valuable purpose especially in the in the arts well Ryan thank you for coming back to Test Talks today it was a great conversation and I appreciate joining us well thank you all for joining us in today's episode of Test Talks thanks for watching take care