Chordano: Ada
The Meaning behind the Art
At the core of all music is frequency. But what truly bonds us to those frequencies are their interrelated harmonies. When we combine several simultaneous notes and their frequencies, we receive a beautiful new mixture of sound, known as a chord. We can order and sequence these chords to create unique progressions that evoke strong emotions, and thus the music is born!
I've long been interested in the ways in which we can represent the real world with musical phrases, and from this was born my idea for "Chordano". A play on the name of the Cardano blockchain upon which this project will be minted, I wanted to use ciphers and simple cryptography to create musical interpretations of phrases in common language.
As the first in a series of chordal interpretations, the "Chordano: Ada" collection re-interprets the name of the fundamental currency of the Cardano blockchain, $ADA, in a set of several chord progressions. A total of 6 unique chord progressions, each one interprets a different capitalization permutation for the three letters in the word: a, d, and a. Following Western conventions of chordal notation, upper-case letters signify Major chords, while lower-case letters signify minor chords. So the chords used in this collection are: A Major, a minor, D Major, and d minor.
The choice of instrument for this collection was a synthesized vocal choir. Vocal choirs represent the core potential of humankind to create a harmonious musical force with nothing more than their pure human abilities. Their raw simplicity is symbolic of the powerful fundamental significance of the $ADA currency to the Cardano blockchain, while the humanity of the choir represents the Cardano community's foundational objective to change the world through the power of human connection. Due to the nature of blockchain technology and its digital impacts, it was only fitting to synthesize the choir to illustrate the importance of technology as our means of connecting each other. In order to best allow for community members and collectors to appreciate the beauty of the music, this collection does not have any accompanying visuals besides the thumbnail, so as to allow the listener to hone into their own imaginations.
The Collection
The collection, and its sale, play on numbers related to Western musical convention and several more that are significant to the life of the $ADA currency's namesake, Countess Ada of Lovelace. The sale price for each piece from this collection is an accessible 12₳, the number of distinct, standard notes in the Western musical paradigm. The rarities for the various chord progressions were based on the last two digits of the birth year, age, and death year of the Countess, or 15, 36, and 52, respectively. Rarities were based on the relative homogeneity of the capitalization structure in the associated chord structures; i.e. three-of-a-kind chord structures had only 15 pieces each, one-major-two-minor chord structures had 36 pieces each, and two-major-one-minor chord structures had 52 pieces each.
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After the initial drop, which did not sell out in the first round, a community poll was conducted with the help of those who had already purchased pieces from the collection, and several of the pieces were minted prior to the policy ID's expiration. The new total supply is 147, the sum of the frequencies in the word "Ada", i.e. A1 (55Hz), D1 (~37Hz), and A1 (55Hz); coincidentally this is exactly 50% of the initial collection size. Rarities and their relative frequencies were preserved as best as possible.
The updated rarities are more clearly illustrated in the table below:
Variation | Frequency | Serial #s |
|---|---|---|
ADA | 7 | 1 - 15 |
ada | 8 | 16 - 30 |
Ada | 18 | 31 - 66 |
aDa | 18 | 67 - 102 |
adA | 18 | 103 - 138 |
ADa | 26 | 139 - 190 |
AdA | 26 | 191 - 242 |
aDA | 26 | 243 - 294 |
Experience the Art
Click below to hear each variation
How to Purchase
The collection initially dropped on Thursday, October 21, 2021, at 4PM UTC, and ran until the policy ID expired on Sunday, January 16, 2022, at approximately 5:30PM UTC.
I teamed up with the MermADA team to help me host the initial CNFT collection drop as an automint vending machine. The initial drop minted 22 pieces. With input from a community poll, I pre-minted several more before the policy ID expired, bringing the total supply to 147. Some of these will be placed on secondary marketplaces.
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You can click on the buttons below to find the filtered sale pages to get your own "Chordano: Ada" piece:
After the Sale
You can experience your new CNFT in a variety of locations, most popular of which is pool.pm. Simply search for your wallet address in the pool.pm search bar to view and listen to your CNFTs! Here's an example of #108 in the pool.pm viewer. For the best immersive listening experience, I would recommend using headphones or a good set of speakers.
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You can also verify that the Policy ID matches the following if you ever have any doubts about the token's authenticity:
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68889259e2c0b09e3653694391d552c3dc68cc41e9a54524d34035d0
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Ownership of these CNFTs grants the holder a non-exclusive license to utilize the CNFT audio recording associated with that particular token as they deem fit, such as in derivative art pieces or as supplementary audio for works in other media (e.g. Youtube videos). While attribution is much appreciated, it is not required so long as the user possesses that particular NFT. Usage of the CNFT does not constitute any affiliation with the Ave Musiqa brand unless expressly stated by Ave Musiqa; users should not imply any formal partnership or affiliation, outside of attribution, with the Ave Musiqa brand unless verifiable written permission is obtained from Ave Musiqa.
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Purchase and/or ownership of any Ave Musiqa product, including NFTs, is not a promise or guarantee for any future services or obligations.