Southwest Florida · Our mission
Music gives us
a way in.
The Listening Project enriches lives and strengthens Southwest Florida communities through accessible music programs, cultural preservation, and shared storytelling that foster connection, curiosity, calm, and creativity.
Developing music and community programs in Southwest Florida. No musical background needed.
Common ground
More reasons to be together.
315societies examined.
Music in every one.
Mehr et al., Science, 2019 · See the research
Everyone deserves welcoming ways to connect, explore and create. Shared music gives us a place to begin.
We’re creating more reasons to gather, listen and learn from one another, with music as the starting point.
A note from our founder · Four ways in
A few things I’d
love you to hear.
My listening goes in a lot of directions. Here’s a small introduction: music I love, a few discoveries along the way, and some moments worth staying with.
Follow your curiosity
Soul & Substance · Inner Worlds
Feeling in Full · Closer Listening
Four moods, with older and newer recordings in each. Choose what fits today and follow it somewhere new.
The story behind the invitation ↗What we’re developing
Find your way in.
Four proposed formats. First events as pilots. One shared interest in what music makes possible.
Formats describe ways to participate, and can travel to partner venues.
Connect · Proposed format
The Lounge.
Trade songs and the stories they carry. These concepts make room for conversation, shared memories and new connections.
Got Me Through
Proposed format: Lounge
Media: Recorded tracks on vinyl, CD or digital playback
The song that carried you through something.
Details
- What happens
- Everyone brings a song that got them through something: a loss, a move, a bad year, a great one. We hear a handful of them together on a proper system, and whoever brought each one says as much or as little as they want. Most people end up hearing their own story in somebody else’s song.
- When
- Weeknight evenings, Sunday afternoons
- Length
- About 90 min
- May suit
- Anyone, especially people new to the area or in the middle of something
- Why it works
- Most people assume what they’re going through is theirs alone. Hearing a room full of strangers pick songs for the same reasons is the quickest way we know to find out it isn’t.
At Seventeen
Proposed format: Lounge
Media: Recorded tracks from two generations
Two generations, same age, different year.
Details
- What happens
- Pairs of people decades apart each bring what they were listening to at seventeen. Played back to back, the room hears how close the feelings are, even when the sound is nothing alike. Built for the two-generation ticket.
- When
- Sunday late afternoons
- Length
- About 90 min
- May suit
- Grandparents and grandkids, parents and teens, mentors, anyone curious about another generation
- Why it works
- 53% of US adults say few of the people they regularly spend time with outside their family are much older or younger than they are (Generations United).
Mixtape Exchange
Proposed format: Lounge
Media: Digital playlists, CDs or cassettes
Make a mix for a stranger.
Details
- What happens
- Bring a short mix built around that night’s prompt: a playlist, a CD or a cassette if you’ve still got one. Mixes get traded and heard at listening stations and back in the room, and you go home with one somebody made for you.
- When
- Weeknight evenings, weekend afternoons
- Length
- About 90 min
- May suit
- People coming alone, music obsessives, anyone who’s ever made someone a mix
- Why it works
- When strangers were asked to get to know each other, music was the topic they reached for first (Rentfrow and Gosling).
Research behind this format
The Harvard Study of Adult Development has followed adults since 1938. Its clearest finding is that people with strong ties to family, friends and community are happier, healthier and live longer.
Source: Harvard Gazette, 2025
Curiosity · Proposed format
The Library.
Follow the people, places and ideas around a record, with guides and guests who bring another perspective.
Deep Catalog
Proposed format: Library
Media: An album or curated tracks, with liner notes and artwork
A full record, or a curated set around one idea.
Details
- What happens
- Either a complete album heard in order, or a curated selection spanning a topic, a theme or an artist’s arc across their career. Along the way, the world it came out of: the scene that formed a band, the politics a song answered, the artwork on the sleeve and what happened when it reached everyone else. Guides come from everywhere: historians, poets, scientists, producers, the artist’s old bandmates. Weekday mornings run over coffee with one side of a record.
- When
- Weekday mornings and afternoons, early evenings
- Length
- 75 min to 1 hr 45 min
- May suit
- Lifelong learners, retirees, library and archive audiences, after-work listeners, first-timers
Local Legends
Proposed format: Library
Media: Recorded music and a live guest conversation
The people who made music here, in person.
Details
- What happens
- Musicians, engineers, DJs, promoters and venue owners who shaped scenes in Southwest Florida and across the state, sitting down with the records they made or broke. With permission, events may be recorded so the stories can stay in the community.
- When
- Afternoons, early evenings
- Length
- About 90 min
- May suit
- Longtime residents, musicians, new arrivals, history groups
Somewhere Else
Proposed format: Library
Media: Recorded music, immersive lighting and visual design
A room built to take you where the record goes.
Details
- What happens
- Dark, immersive lighting and a space designed around one album, song or piece of cover art, so the room becomes the place the music describes or suggests. A desert record, a city at 3 a.m., the ocean floor. Ambient and texture-heavy sets on a really good system. Lie back, wander or stay a while.
- When
- Weeknight evenings
- Length
- 2 to 3 hrs, come and go
- May suit
- People who want to be around others without having to talk, anyone who’s done with bars, artists and designers
Research behind this format
In a study of 6,710 adults over 50, people who went to concerts, museums or the theater every few months or more had a 31% lower risk of dying over the next 14 years than people who didn’t go at all.
Source: Fancourt et al., BMJ, 2019
Calm · Proposed format
The Retreat.
Make time to pause through attentive listening, sound and shared rhythm. Each concept offers a different way to settle into the moment.
Sound Bath
Proposed format: Retreat
Media: Recorded or curated sets, live instruments, electronic sound, or a blend
Settle in and spend time with sound.
Details
- What happens
- Settle into a seated or reclining guided listening experience. A event may use pre-recorded sound, a curated set, live acoustic instruments such as bowls and gongs, electronic elements, or a blend. Each edition will describe its sound, volume and seating arrangements. Optional humming or a quiet pause may close the event.
- When
- Weeknight evenings, Sunday mornings
- Length
- About 60 min
- May suit
- Anyone winding down, people who’ve never been able to meditate
- Why it works
- Slow sound brings heart rate and breathing down (Bernardi et al.). When singers hold a note in unison, their heart rates slow and fall into step with each other (NPR on the Gothenburg study).
Listening in the Dark
Proposed format: Retreat
Media: Recorded music and intervals of silence
Breathe, lights down, nothing to do but hear.
Details
- What happens
- A few minutes of slow breathing to start, then a curated set in full darkness, with long gaps of silence between pieces so the room can settle into them.
- When
- Weeknight evenings, lunch hours
- Length
- About 60 min
- May suit
- People who’d rather listen than talk, anyone who spends all day on screens, caregivers
- Why it works
- Longer, slower exhales calm the body down. In one study, two minutes of silence between tracks brought heart rate, blood pressure and breathing lower than any of the music did (Bernardi et al.).
Drum Circle
Proposed format: Retreat
Media: Live, participatory percussion
Find a shared rhythm.
Details
- What happens
- Hand drums, shakers and tambourines passed around the room. We start with call and response until the group finds its own pulse. No training needed.
- When
- Weeknight evenings, weekend afternoons
- Length
- About 75 min
- May suit
- All ages, people who’d rather do than sit, groups and teams
- Why it works
- After ten weeks of group drumming, adults using mental health services reported less depression and anxiety and more social resilience, and the gains held three months later (Fancourt et al.).
Research behind this format
randomized trials with nearly 9,700 people found that music lowers stress, both in how people feel and in the body, with the clearest effect on heart rate.
Create · Proposed format
The Workshop.
Get hands on with audio, turntables and words. Try the tools, make something of your own and learn by doing.
Soundcraft
Proposed format: Workshop
Media: Synthesizers, recorded tracks and field recordings
Get your hands on the sound.
Details
- What happens
- Explore how sound is captured, shaped and played back with synthesizers, microphones and recording tools. A producer demonstrates how a recording or mixing choice changes what you hear, then you try it. Some editions begin outdoors with handheld recorders before bringing the sounds back to the system. A family edition could adapt the activities for younger listeners.
- When
- Weekend afternoons, Saturday mornings for families
- Length
- About 90 min to 2 hrs
- May suit
- Curious people of any age, families, musicians and non-musicians
Two Decks
Proposed format: Workshop
Media: Vinyl records, turntables and a mixer
Learn to blend two records.
Details
- What happens
- Turntables, a mixer and a DJ who shows you how to match two songs and move a room from one into the other. Then you try it.
- When
- Weeknight evenings
- Length
- About 90 min
- May suit
- Anyone who’s ever wondered how DJs do it, teens and adults
Words to It
Proposed format: Workshop
Media: Recorded music and guided writing
Listen, then write.
Details
- What happens
- A guided listen to a few pieces of music, then quiet time to write whatever comes up. Lyrics, a letter or a page nobody else reads. Sharing is optional.
- When
- Weeknight evenings, weekend mornings
- Length
- About 75 min
- May suit
- Writers, songwriters, people who journal, people who never have
For teens and kids, explore The Listening Lab
Research behind this format
young adults kept a daily diary for about two weeks. On the days after they did something creative, they felt more upbeat and more like they were flourishing.
Piloting
Help the first programs take shape.
Our first goal is four pilots in Southwest Florida, selected from these concepts with collaborators. Support will fund the research and preparation behind them, put good sound within reach, and help keep participation affordable.
We’ll refine each program with feedback from the room and keep track of what people learned, who returned, and what delivery cost. Strong programs can then be adapted for new audiences.
What each pilot will test
- Did people hear something new? A short, optional survey asks what listeners noticed or understood differently.
- Did it feel welcoming? Especially for people who came alone, were new to the music or were the youngest or oldest in the room.
- Did it get people talking? Whether people stayed to talk, and with whom, including across generations.
- Do people come back? Actual return visits, not just intentions.
- What did it really cost? Full delivery cost, including paid preparation, so every format has an honest budget.
The formats that show learning, repeat demand and a credible way to pay for delivery become recurring programs. See the roadmap.
Where the formats could take place
Lounge, Library, Retreat and Workshop programs could take place as pop-ups in libraries, galleries, cafés and other partner venues, or as recurring programs over several weeks. Capacity, timing and equipment will depend on the program and host. A permanent home remains a longer-term possibility. Explore The Listening Place.
Tickets and access
- Access seats in every ticketed event. A share of seats will be reduced-price or free, funded by supporters.
- Student and under-30 pricing for evening events.
- Bring someone from another generation. A paired ticket for a grandparent and a grandchild, a mentor and a student, two neighbors.
- Multi-event passes for people who want to come back.
- Free events with libraries and schools.
Prices will be listed with each event when the first pilots are announced.
Choose a format or swipe across. Scroll within each panel for its concepts.
Get involved · Partners
Build something worth gathering for.
We are looking for listeners, collaborators and welcoming places to host our pilots.
Venues, educators, artists, record stores and local businesses can help us reach new people and keep participation affordable.