The Online Orchestra: Connecting Remote Communities through Music

TY - GEN

T1 - The Online Orchestra

T2 - Connecting Remote Communities through Music

AU - Reuben Paris, Federico

AU - Rofe, Michael

AU - Kolkowski, Aleks

N1 - Telematic music performance poses complex technical challenges associated with network speed and quality, audio feedback and echo, audio-visual quality and synchronisation. In particular, there are significant barriers to performing music online due to the latency inherent in transmitting information over the Internet, which fluctuates according to available bandwidth. This research output presents a musical and technological framework for telematic performance in community music settings, aimed primarily at young, amateur and community musicians. Reuben carried out this work as researcher in technology and composition in the AHRC-funded project, The Online Orchestra (PI Michael Rofe, Falmouth University: https://onlineorchestra.com). Through interdisciplinary research, combining expert musical and technological knowledge with creative approaches to composition, this output presents a solution that improves the experience of amateur and community musicians by allowing them to play notated music together, across multiple locations, without specialist equipment or high-speed connections. The output comprises four interlinked components constituting Reuben’s contributions to the project: an international patent (WO2019038019A1/US20200186575A1/GB2566008B) describing a novel invention designed and implemented by the author (overseen by the PI, named as co-inventor) as an audio-visual software system that stabilises and controls latency across a network, locking it to a user-defined tempo, and allowing performances of fully-notated, pulsed music to be simultaneously performed across locations; two co-authored journal articles describing i) solutions brought by the invention to musical issues of latency, and ii) the systems-design and cost-effective solutions utilised in the project; a large-scale composition, Spiritus Telecommunitas, demonstrating musical strategies for telematic performance in community settings and the musical affordances brought by the system. Spiritus Telecommunitas was devised with soloist Aleks Kolkowski, who contributed with historical recordings and improvisations on Stroh violin and sound reproduction devices. An additional article (Rofe and Geelhoed 2017), submitted here as contextual background, discusses the composition in the context of the research project.

PY - 2017/12/1

Y1 - 2017/12/1

N2 - Telematic music performance poses complex technical challenges associated with network speed and quality, audio feedback and echo, audio-visual quality and synchronisation. In particular, there are significant barriers to performing music online due to the latency inherent in transmitting information over the Internet, which fluctuates according to available bandwidth. This research output presents a musical and technological framework for telematic performance in community music settings, aimed primarily at young, amateur and community musicians. Reuben carried out this work as researcher in technology and composition in the AHRC-funded project, The Online Orchestra (PI Michael Rofe, Falmouth University: https://onlineorchestra.com). Through interdisciplinary research, combining expert musical and technological knowledge with creative approaches to composition, this output presents a solution that improves the experience of amateur and community musicians by allowing them to play notated music together, across multiple locations, without specialist equipment or high-speed connections. The output comprises four interlinked components constituting Reuben’s contributions to the project: an international patent (WO2019038019A1/US20200186575A1/GB2566008B) describing a novel invention designed and implemented by the author (overseen by the PI, named as co-inventor) as an audio-visual software system that stabilises and controls latency across a network, locking it to a user-defined tempo, and allowing performances of fully-notated, pulsed music to be simultaneously performed across locations; two co-authored journal articles describing i) solutions brought by the invention to musical issues of latency, and ii) the systems-design and cost-effective solutions utilised in the project; a large-scale composition, Spiritus Telecommunitas, demonstrating musical strategies for telematic performance in community settings and the musical affordances brought by the system. Spiritus Telecommunitas was devised with soloist Aleks Kolkowski, who contributed with historical recordings and improvisations on Stroh violin and sound reproduction devices. An additional article (Rofe and Geelhoed 2017), submitted here as contextual background, discusses the composition in the context of the research project.

AB - Telematic music performance poses complex technical challenges associated with network speed and quality, audio feedback and echo, audio-visual quality and synchronisation. In particular, there are significant barriers to performing music online due to the latency inherent in transmitting information over the Internet, which fluctuates according to available bandwidth. This research output presents a musical and technological framework for telematic performance in community music settings, aimed primarily at young, amateur and community musicians. Reuben carried out this work as researcher in technology and composition in the AHRC-funded project, The Online Orchestra (PI Michael Rofe, Falmouth University: https://onlineorchestra.com). Through interdisciplinary research, combining expert musical and technological knowledge with creative approaches to composition, this output presents a solution that improves the experience of amateur and community musicians by allowing them to play notated music together, across multiple locations, without specialist equipment or high-speed connections. The output comprises four interlinked components constituting Reuben’s contributions to the project: an international patent (WO2019038019A1/US20200186575A1/GB2566008B) describing a novel invention designed and implemented by the author (overseen by the PI, named as co-inventor) as an audio-visual software system that stabilises and controls latency across a network, locking it to a user-defined tempo, and allowing performances of fully-notated, pulsed music to be simultaneously performed across locations; two co-authored journal articles describing i) solutions brought by the invention to musical issues of latency, and ii) the systems-design and cost-effective solutions utilised in the project; a large-scale composition, Spiritus Telecommunitas, demonstrating musical strategies for telematic performance in community settings and the musical affordances brought by the system. Spiritus Telecommunitas was devised with soloist Aleks Kolkowski, who contributed with historical recordings and improvisations on Stroh violin and sound reproduction devices. An additional article (Rofe and Geelhoed 2017), submitted here as contextual background, discusses the composition in the context of the research project.

M3 - Other contribution

PB - World Intellectual Property Organization; Intellect; http://www.squib-box.com/; https://www.youtube.com/; https://federicoreuben.bandcamp.com/

ER -