This project is geolocating the history and future of music…  Map markers identify cultural regions, historic locations and venues where musical art forms originated and were incubated. This map will become the multimedia lens for the exploration of each art form. The team is made up of students and expert volunteers who are passionate about the arts.

 

Music Origins Project aims to remove the chronological and geographic barriers faced by music aficionados, students and travelers seeking to learn about the origins of various musical genre. The site/blog is a searchable, index of the cultural origins of musical art forms along with geo-located multimedia primary sources music and crowdsourced commentary. This site has been created to iterate and improve the database.

 

 

Founder, Executive Producer, Curator: David Grandison Jr.

David Grandison Jr. was raised in Detroit, Michigan and received a Masters Degree in Instructional Design and Media from Columbia University (TC). David has led multiple award winning studios and project teams and he is on a mission to democratize video storytelling using smartphones and mobile-friendly VR.

 

He was co-creator and Product Manager of the DIYdoc, an iOS App that enabled organizations to crowdsource the creation of short films. The app has been used by numerous causes like Alicia Keys’ We Are Here Foundation and Keep A Child Alive. These orgs used the DIYdoc app to enable volunteers in Africa and India to create short films on their smartphones that both highlight the positive stories of people living successfully with HIV and to draw attention to the struggles of activists, and refugees.

 

David has led production teams that have reimagined how health info is shared with teens as he helped found the Amaze Project (Amaze.org). His team produced a series of 30+ award winning animated shorts on challenging educational topics like sexual health, mental health, and gender identity.

 

He is also a Producer on the team for the feature film God Said Give Em’ Drum Machines (GSGEDM.com) which premiered at the 2022 Tribeca Film Festival. This film explores the birth of Techno music in Detroit and how Afro American teens revolutionized electronic music around the world. This film in partnership with his site The Music Origins Project (MusicOrigins.org), a project he created as part of his Masters Thesis at Columbia (TC), will teach young people digital storytelling and other STEM skills.

 

David most recently was Executive Producer at Yellowbrick (Yellowbrick.co). Yellowbrick connects the world’s leading universities with brands like Billboard Magazine, Complex Magazine, and Rolling Stone to develop learning experiences that help tomorrow’s leaders discover careers by following their passion. Ultimately, he specializes in utilizing cutting edge technology to create interactive multimedia websites, apps, games and VR projects to make learning fun.

 

 

The Team

Producer: Andre Holmes

 

Writers: David Grandison Jr., Kimberly Scribe, Gloria Colon, Andre Holmes

Student Contributors: Elena Takmakova, Romain Nicoletti, Erin Blankstein, Samantha Ann

 

 

Special thanks to Google, YouVisit and Yellowbrick.co/Music for their support of the project.