Improvising Inside a House of Cards: New performance and music-making through a collective networked instrument

This article presents experiences and reflections related to performing improvised, live processed electroacoustic music within a context of networked music performance. The musical interaction is performed through a new collective networked instrument, and we report how the ensemble ‘Magnify the Sound’, consisting of two of the authors of this article, meets the instrument in different networked performance situations, and how this is related to the affordance of the instrument. In our performances the network is inherent to our artistic practice, and we experience a phenomenological and somatic transformation in our roles as musicians, from individual instrumentality to shared instrumentality. The instrument invites new forms of music-making and contributes in fundamental ways to the ensemble’s musical communication and artistic expression. In the present article we outline our methods of working artistically with the networked instrument, and we point at some artistic results. We then discuss how the collective instrument has facilitated new performance and musical practice within the network.

Introducing the Networked Music Performance Library

In this article we present the Networked Music Performance Library, which documents research and practice in the field of networked music performance. The library was developed in response to the skyrocketing interest in networked music due to social distancing and travel restrictions during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. In this article, we discuss the library’s working environment and briefly describe several similar earlier projects by other researchers. The main goals we set for the library were to collect materials, organise accessible and straightforward ways of navigating the collection, including knowledge from a wider context of time-based arts (theatre, dance and other time-based art forms), and create a community of users and contributors. We describe the main methods we use to find the works for the library and examine the current state of our collection, which has grown in the last year. Through an analysis of the entries’ metadata, we provide several examples of professionals’ use of the library. Current library users include performing musicians, teachers and composers. As the project is ongoing, we outline the scope of our future work as well as analyse several possible post-COVID applications for networked music, which include assisting socially isolated musicians, teaching, travel and new pandemics. We also show how this library could contribute to the development of new electroacoustic approaches.

The Kaon’CPT Collective: Building a musical culture of not-in-real-life performance through conducted live comprovisation

In this article we describe a Networked Music Collective for online live performance events. Four characteristics of live performance (bodies, space and time, musical culture and social process) are identified as the conceptual and technological basis of our approach. Our recent distributed comprovisation, Perripplayear, is used to illustrate these concepts and to describe the technology stack we employed. The Kaon’CPT collective uses diverse instrumentation including acoustic and electronic instruments, voice and digital musical instruments (DMIs). Its members span 12 time zones and their comprovisation is conducted via a custom distributed score.

The constraints, aesthetic implications, and creative strategies of composing for networked music performance

<p>Performing music together over a public network while being located at a distance from each other necessarily means performing under a particular set of technical and performative constraints. These constraints are antithetical to—and make cumbersome—the performance of tightly synchronised music, which traditionally depends on the conditions of transmission stability, ultra-low latency, and shared presence. These conditions are experienced optimally only when musicians perform at the same time and in the same place. Except for specialized private network services, public networks are inherently latent and unstable, which disrupts musicians’ ability to achieve precise vertical synchronisation and create an environment where approaches to music performance and composition must be reconsidered. It is widely considered that these conditions mean that networked music performance is a future genre for when network latencies and throughput improve, or one that is currently reserved for high-end heavily optimised networks afforded by institutions and not individuals, or one that is primarily reserved for improvisatory or aleatoric composition and performance techniques. I disagree that networked music is dependent on access to advanced Internet technologies and suggest that music compositions for networked music performance can be highly successful over regular broadband conditions when the composer considers the limitations as opportunities for new creative strategies and aesthetic approaches. In this exegesis, I outline the constraints that prove that while networked music performance is latent, asynchronous, multi-located, multi-authorial, and hopelessly, intrinsically, and passionately digitally mediated, these constraints provide rich creative opportunities for the composition and performance of synchronised and resonant music. I introduce four aesthetic approaches, which I determine as being critical towards the development of networked music: 1) postvertical harmony, where the asynchronous arrival of signals ruptures the harmonic experience; 2) new timbral fusions created through multi-located resonant sources; 3) a contribution to performative relationships through the generation and transmission of vital information in the musical score and through the development of new technologies for facilitating performer synchronisation; and 4) the post-digital experience, where all digital means of manipulation are permitted and embraced, leading to new ways of listening to and forming reproduced realities. Each of these four aesthetic approaches are considered individually in relation to the core constraints, through discussion of the present-day technical conditions, and how each of these approaches are applied to my musical portfolio through practical illustration.</p>

The constraints, aesthetic implications, and creative strategies of composing for networked music performance

<p>Performing music together over a public network while being located at a distance from each other necessarily means performing under a particular set of technical and performative constraints. These constraints are antithetical to—and make cumbersome—the performance of tightly synchronised music, which traditionally depends on the conditions of transmission stability, ultra-low latency, and shared presence. These conditions are experienced optimally only when musicians perform at the same time and in the same place. Except for specialized private network services, public networks are inherently latent and unstable, which disrupts musicians’ ability to achieve precise vertical synchronisation and create an environment where approaches to music performance and composition must be reconsidered. It is widely considered that these conditions mean that networked music performance is a future genre for when network latencies and throughput improve, or one that is currently reserved for high-end heavily optimised networks afforded by institutions and not individuals, or one that is primarily reserved for improvisatory or aleatoric composition and performance techniques. I disagree that networked music is dependent on access to advanced Internet technologies and suggest that music compositions for networked music performance can be highly successful over regular broadband conditions when the composer considers the limitations as opportunities for new creative strategies and aesthetic approaches. In this exegesis, I outline the constraints that prove that while networked music performance is latent, asynchronous, multi-located, multi-authorial, and hopelessly, intrinsically, and passionately digitally mediated, these constraints provide rich creative opportunities for the composition and performance of synchronised and resonant music. I introduce four aesthetic approaches, which I determine as being critical towards the development of networked music: 1) postvertical harmony, where the asynchronous arrival of signals ruptures the harmonic experience; 2) new timbral fusions created through multi-located resonant sources; 3) a contribution to performative relationships through the generation and transmission of vital information in the musical score and through the development of new technologies for facilitating performer synchronisation; and 4) the post-digital experience, where all digital means of manipulation are permitted and embraced, leading to new ways of listening to and forming reproduced realities. Each of these four aesthetic approaches are considered individually in relation to the core constraints, through discussion of the present-day technical conditions, and how each of these approaches are applied to my musical portfolio through practical illustration.</p>

Contemporary Approaches to Live Computer Music: The Evolution of the Performer Composer

<p>This thesis examines contemporary approaches to live computer music, and the impact they have on the evolution of the composer performer. How do online resources and communities impact the design and creation of new musical interfaces used for live computer music? Can we use machine learning to augment and extend the expressive potential of a single live musician? How can these tools be integrated into ensembles of computer musicians? Given these tools, can we understand the computer musician within the traditional context of acoustic instrumentalists, or do we require new concepts and taxonomies? Lastly, how do audiences perceive and understand these new technologies, and what does this mean for the connection between musician and audience? The focus of the research presented in this dissertation examines the application of current computing technology towards furthering the field of live computer music. This field is diverse and rich, with individual live computer musicians developing custom instruments and unique modes of performance. This diversity leads to the development of new models of performance, and the evolution of established approaches to live instrumental music. This research was conducted in several parts. The first section examines how online communities are iteratively developing interfaces for computer music. Several case studies are presented as examples of how online communities are helping to drive new developments in musical interface design. This thesis also presents research into designing real-time interactive systems capable of creating a virtual model of an existing performer, that then allows the model’s output to be contextualized by a second performer’s live input. These systems allow for a solo live musician’s single action to be multiplied into many different, but contextually dependent, actions. Additionally, this thesis looks at contemporary approaches to local networked ensembles, the concept of shared social instruments, and the ways in which the previously described research can be used in these ensembles. The primary contributions of these efforts include (1) the development of several new open-source interfaces for live computer music, and the examination of the effect that online communities have on the evolution of musical interfaces; (2) the development of a novel approach to search based interactive musical agents; (3) examining how networked music ensembles can provided new forms of shared social instruments.</p>

Contemporary Approaches to Live Computer Music: The Evolution of the Performer Composer

<p>This thesis examines contemporary approaches to live computer music, and the impact they have on the evolution of the composer performer. How do online resources and communities impact the design and creation of new musical interfaces used for live computer music? Can we use machine learning to augment and extend the expressive potential of a single live musician? How can these tools be integrated into ensembles of computer musicians? Given these tools, can we understand the computer musician within the traditional context of acoustic instrumentalists, or do we require new concepts and taxonomies? Lastly, how do audiences perceive and understand these new technologies, and what does this mean for the connection between musician and audience? The focus of the research presented in this dissertation examines the application of current computing technology towards furthering the field of live computer music. This field is diverse and rich, with individual live computer musicians developing custom instruments and unique modes of performance. This diversity leads to the development of new models of performance, and the evolution of established approaches to live instrumental music. This research was conducted in several parts. The first section examines how online communities are iteratively developing interfaces for computer music. Several case studies are presented as examples of how online communities are helping to drive new developments in musical interface design. This thesis also presents research into designing real-time interactive systems capable of creating a virtual model of an existing performer, that then allows the model’s output to be contextualized by a second performer’s live input. These systems allow for a solo live musician’s single action to be multiplied into many different, but contextually dependent, actions. Additionally, this thesis looks at contemporary approaches to local networked ensembles, the concept of shared social instruments, and the ways in which the previously described research can be used in these ensembles. The primary contributions of these efforts include (1) the development of several new open-source interfaces for live computer music, and the examination of the effect that online communities have on the evolution of musical interfaces; (2) the development of a novel approach to search based interactive musical agents; (3) examining how networked music ensembles can provided new forms of shared social instruments.</p>

Temporal Coordination in Piano Duet Networked Music Performance (NMP): Interactions Between Acoustic Transmission Latency and Musical Role Asymmetries

Today’s audio, visual, and internet technologies allow people to interact despite physical distances, for casual conversation, group workouts, or musical performance. Musical ensemble performance is unique because interaction integrity critically depends on the timing between each performer’s actions and when their acoustic outcomes arrive. Acoustic transmission latency (ATL) between players is substantially longer for networked music performance (NMP) compared to traditional in-person spaces where musicians can easily adapt. Previous work has shown that longer ATLs slow the average tempo in ensemble performance, and that asymmetric co-actor roles and empathy-related traits affect coordination patterns in joint action. Thus, we are interested in how musicians collectively adapt to a given latency and how such adaptation patterns vary with their task-related and person-related asymmetries. Here, we examined how two pianists performed duets while hearing each other’s auditory outcomes with an ATL of 10, 20, or 40 ms. To test the hypotheses regarding task-related asymmetries, we designed duets such that pianists had: (1) a starting or joining role and (2) a similar or dissimilar musical part compared to their co-performer, with respect to pitch range and melodic contour. Results replicated previous clapping-duet findings showing that longer ATLs are associated with greater temporal asynchrony between partners and increased average tempo slowing. While co-performer asynchronies were not affected by performer role or part similarity, at the longer ATLs starting performers displayed slower tempos and smaller tempo variability than joining performers. This asymmetry of stability vs. flexibility between starters and joiners may sustain coordination, consistent with recent joint action findings. Our data also suggest that relative independence in musical parts may mitigate ATL-related challenges. Additionally, there may be a relationship between co-performer differences in empathy-related personality traits such as locus of control and coordination during performance under the influence of ATL. Incorporating the emergent coordinative dynamics between performers could help further innovation of music technologies and composition techniques for NMP.