Design Thinking a Band

Background

Portland, Oregon has had a thriving samba scene since the early 2000s. Over the years we’ve had various samba bands, dance classes, shows, and parties. The community often gathers around pagodes — Brazilian parties with samba sing-alongs, dancing, and plenty of caipirinhas (a delicious rum cocktail). Most of the participants are Americans who do not speak Portuguese, and thus struggle to sing along or participate fully. I noticed this problem and wanted to solve it.

Goal

Empower non-portuguese speaking samba lovers to participate fully in pagodes and Brazilian singalong culture.

Challenges

• People don’t have the time or desire to seriously study Portuguese
• A solution needs to be fun, easy, and in community
• Most people in the community don’t have opportunities to practice Portuguese

My Process

Understand

Research

As a member of the samba loving community, I was intimately familiar with the problem space and the audience. So my research was informal, and included: informal interviews with samba loving Portlanders, participation in events, and observation. I was able to distill this qualitative data into two personas with slightly different needs.

Personas / Point of View

With the problem space and audience needs clarified, I was able to craft a problem statement, helping me focus on solutions.

Problem Statement

Native English speakers need a way to more easily sing along at pagodes, because the events are fueled by participation, and the native English speakers are not able to contribute as much as they would like.

Ideate Solutions

Talking with some of the pagode musicians, I came up with a few possible solutions:

1. By organizing fun monthly pagode song learning workshops for non-Portuguese speakers, non-Brazilian samba-lovers will be more prepared and empowered to participate with their voices at pagodes.
2. By creating a song list for the pagodes and distributing lyric sheets, non-Portuguese speakers will be able to sing along easier, at least when they know the melody but not the lyrics.
3. By creating a band that combines pagode instruments, rhythms, and sensibilities with English lyrics from famous songs, non-Portuguese speakers (as well as more people from diverse backgrounds) will be able to sing along and participate fully in pagodes.

We’ll know any of these to be a true solution when we see more participation at Portland pagodes.

Design + Test

After weighing the pro’s and con’s of each solution, I decided that creating a new band combining pop-soul songs in English with Brazilian instruments, rhythms and stylings would be the most innovative and highest impact solution. I began recruiting musicians that understood both genres, were from the Pagode/samba community, and could help launch a minimum viable band.

POPgoji Prototype

Creating a Minimum Viable Band = (2 vocals, 2 drums, 1 guitar, 1 trumpet) + 3 songs

I took on the role of musical director (the product manager of a band), and facilitated the group to be as collaborative as possible in choosing and composing songs, arranging them, and strategic planning. The reason for this collaborative horizontal hierarchy was to help the band’s aesthetic best represent the diversity of the community, as well as model community participation for the pagodes. I named the project POPgoji, as a PUN and portmanteau of the Brazilian Portuguese word pagode (spelling it more phonetically), and incorporating the reference to pop music and a tropical place with goji(berry). I booked us a low stakes show at a small venue with a short 15 minute time slot (a minimum viable performance length for testing). This deadline allowed us to make sprint goals. We put together 3 songs, then tested the project on a small audience of brazilian music/culture fans at a small venue called Eugenios on a Brazilian themed music night.

Iterations

The second show we were able to increase our performance time to 45minutes. The feedback was again very positive; however, I observed how reserved the crowd seemed to be for music that was intended to be vibrant participatory party music.

Requirements for 2nd Iteration:

• Add 4 songs to fill a 60 min performance
• Remove chairs from the stage & enable the whole band to play standing
• Change venue: better lighting, full bar, dance space, reputation for concerts

This next iteration was gold. Venues quickly filled with Samba lovers, Brazilian expats, and dance party fans. The air was electric, hot, sweaty, and everything we had hoped for.

Audience members soon became loyal fans, telling their friends to follow us too. We continued to iterate, adding and trading out musicians. Our audience and venues increased in size. We built themed shows and unique collaborations with established artists. We started to get local press, radio play, and then invitations to festivals. We released our first self-titled album in 2018 on all platforms.

Learnings

Design thinking is a method for all fields, from creative art projects to rocket science. It’s a process for designing solutions. Many musicians, we create from our own point of view, pursuing our own pleasure or catharsis. I love that experience with music; but, if the goal of a band is to make music for an audience, with a desire to sell tickets and albums, then it is beneficial to use design thinking, to consider who the target audience is and what their needs/wants are.

POPgoji Website