Harkive is an annual, online music research project that gathers stories from people around the world about how, where and why they listened to music on a single day. Since launching in 2013, the project has gathered over 10,000 stories. It returns for an 10th time on Tuesday 19th July 2022.
Craig Hamilton, the project founder, explains more below:
We live in exciting times. In the entire history of Popular Music fans have never had so many ways in which to consume our passion than we have right now. Technology has brought millions and millions of songs, videos, performances, as well as related items such as artwork, opinion, and information, just a click away. Armed with this technology, our music consumption habits have been changing rapidly over the last decade. We are increasingly becoming highly individualised in our listening, yet well all share a common bond in our love of sound. I’m interested in the ways we differ, and in the ways we are all the same.
It is my belief that no two people have ever listened to music in precisely the same way, and I think this is particularly, increasingly true today. Some of us may use technology or services common to many others, or we may listen to music on the same type of journeys, or in similar spaces, and for similar reasons, but each of us nevertheless creates our own, unique patchwork from what is available to us. The Harkive Project wants to find out how and why you listen to music in the way that you do, and how the devices, technologies, formats, services and time available to you are combined to create your personal listening experience.
On 19th July 2022 we will once again be gathering stories from music fans across the globe in order to create a unique snapshot of the many listening cultures, habits and practices that exist on that day. These will be added to the responses gathered in between 2013 and 2020, and our hope is that the results of our analysis into the responses to various instances of Harkive will develop into a useful, informative and interesting resource for anyone interested in Popular Music.
In order for this to happen, we need your help: We’d like you to tell us your story.
You’ll be able to tell that story in a number of ways: by writing a few words, or taking some photographs, or even recording some audio or video. You’ll also be able to contribute using Twitter, or by commenting on the Harkive Facebook page, or a number of other online and social networking services. Our intention is to make contributing as easy as possible, because we want to gather as many responses as we can.
If you’d like to be kept informed of developments as we build up towards Harkive 2021, please join the mailing list. Alternatively, you can follow Harkive on Twitter, or ‘Like’ the Harkive page on Facebook.
Thank you. We look forward to hearing your story.
Craig Hamilton