In recent years, software instruments have enabled the exchange of musical information over a network and thus, collective music making. Time-dependent delay (latency) occuring between those creating music over asynchronous networks like the Internet presents a pertinent yet, up till now, scarcely examined problem. The author will present a simple process which integrates network latency into the individual musicians ’ collective playing. This process is part of a P2P multi-user software instrument developed by the author called peerSynth. This real time synthesis program runs on standard PC’s, is easily distributed over the Internet and allows a decentralized P2P network to be built up over the Internet. With the help of a specially developed user-interface, the software enables multiple users to collectively make music in both real time and offline sessions independent of time and space. Through these processes, a “boundaryless ” music can occur. 1

The iltur system features a novel method of interaction between expert and novice musicians through a set of musical controllers called Beatbugs. Beatbug players can record live musical input from MIDI and acoustic instruments and respond by transforming the recorded material in real-time, creating motif-and-variation call-and-response routines on the fly. A central computer system analyzes MIDI and audio played by expert players and allows novice Beatbug players to personalize the analyzed material using a variety of transformation algorithms. This paper presents the motivation for developing the iltur system, followed by a brief survey of pervious and related work that guided the definition of the project’s goals. We then present the hardware and software approaches that were taken to address these goals, as well as a couple of compositions that were written for the system. The paper ends with a discussion based on observations of players using the iltur system and a number of suggestions for future work.

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In recent years Computer Network-Music has increasingly captured the attention of the Computer Music Community. With the advent of Internet communication, geographical displacement amongst the participants of a computer mediated music performance achieved world wide extension. However, when established over long distance networks, this form of musical communication has a fundamental problem: network latency (or net-delay) is an impediment for real-time collaboration. From a recent study, carried out by the authors, a relation between network latency tolerance and Music Tempo was established. This result emerged from an experiment, in which simulated network latency conditions were applied to the performance of different musicians playing jazz standard tunes.

networked music performance, involving video and audio representations, is rapidly growing and presenting new possibilities and opportunities for aesthetic expression. This thesis examines the expanding body of works in telematic music and formulates a critical analysis of the primary aesthetic and technical concerns for music composition and performance. Presence, agency, and interactivity inform telematic music performance, stemming from the transparency or mediation of the network, directly impacting the expressive capabilities of the medium. Practical issues in the problem domain of networked ensemble performance were examined through a series of experimental research sessions, showing that latency affects the perception of interactivity and presence and strongly coerces musical results. Visual representations can be critical for communication at key ensemble moments, regardless of synchrony with other media, yet audio streams remain the primary channel for musical connection and interaction. The multiple composite musical results, different at each location due to network transmission times, leads to a unique reformulation of the notion of “piece, ” creating many valid aesthetic experiences from a single, distributed production. ii To Meagan and Rowan.