In: Producing Music
Zack Moir, Paul Ferguson, and Gareth Dylan Smith
Abstract:
Inhabitants of the 21st century live and work in a world in which many aspects of daily interactions with other humans are no longer hampered by physical distance. Indeed, scholars and practitioners in fields such as music and communications are finding that there is much to be gained, both epistemologically and experientially, through collaborating across (often) vast distances. Relatively recent developments in Internet technology have “led to the advancement of new collaborative cultures which use the network as a medium for exchanging creative materials in an electronic form” (Renaud et al., 2007). People in technologically advanced societies frequently engage in almost instantaneous communication with friends and colleagues across physical distance, often in remote locations, in the form of email, SMS, social media, and various messaging apps. Dropout affects real-time performance and music production, as it introduces glitches in the audio signal. Literature suggests, as anyone with experience in this area might expect, that latency is one of the fundamental challenges for attempting to engage in real-time, interactive music-making over a network.