Displaced Soundscapes:
A Survey of Network Systems
for Music and Sonic Art Creation
Álvaro Barbosa
Collaboration has long been a key element in
music; therefore, the use of collaborative systems based on
computer networks to achieve musical results were a natural
development. The advent of computer network music dates
back to the late 1970s with early experimental performances
in California by the League of Automatic Music Composers
[1]. Up until the early 1990s, systems for musical collabora-
tion using computers were based on local networks. In the last
decade, the massive worldwide growth of the Internet has in-
creased the possibilities for composers, performers and audi-
ences. However, it is well known that the phenomenon of
network delay is a major drawback for real-time collaboration
over global networks. At the global level, physical limitations
in current network technology introduce higher latency than
is acceptable for real-time acoustic collaboration.
For the human ear to perceive two sounds as simultaneous,
the sounds should not be displaced in time more than 20 msec
[2], which means that for mutual awareness to be supported
in a bilateral performance, the maximum threshold would be
around 40 msec (the time it would take a performer to per-
ceive a second performer’s reaction to his or her action). It
should be noted that the perception of two different sounds
performed simultaneously is strongly dependent on sound
characteristics (timbre, pitch and loudness), musical style and
other types of feedback such as visual or physical stimuli. Nev-
ertheless, a 20-msec threshold should be adequate.
If we consider the smallest possible peer-to-peer connection
between two opposite points on the planet, we have an ap-
proximate distance of 20,004.5 km (half the distance of earth’s
perimeter: 40,009 km). Even with
data transfer at the speed of light
(approximately 300,000 km per
sec) and unlimited bandwidth,
bidirectional latency would reach
approximately 133.4 msec, which is
much higher than the tolerable
threshold. With such numbers in
mind, it is not surprising that net-
work delay is an assumed part of
creating music on-line.
The thought that network delay
is particular to the medium and
that composers should embrace
this fact when creating music is
clearly expressed by experimental artist Atau Tanaka in an in-
terview with Golo Föllmer:
I find Internet time delay rather interesting and I think of it as
a kind of unique acoustic of this media. . . . [R]ather than to
play existing music on this new time basis, what is interesting to
me is trying to find a musical language that works on this time
axis. ...[3]
This same idea motivated the SoundWIRE group at the Cen-
ter for Research in Music and Acoustics (CCRMA) at Stanford
University to conduct significant research over the last few
years to address the influence of network conditions in acoustic
communication [4,5].
Latency has a highly variable and unpredictable nature, cre-
ating time-based errors, de-sequencing and even partial loss
of content, resulting in difficult conditions for performance
control. There are major efforts under way to improve the sit-
uation by increasing bandwidth and data compression options.
Such improvements, along with restricting projects to Large
Area Networks (LANs) or to Wide Area Networks (WANs) in
geographically constrained territories (e.g. a country or even
a continent), may reduce network latency to levels that will
not impede real-time acoustic communication over the Inter-
net. Network latency tends to be central to the discussion of
network-based activities, yet there are other important issues,
such as who will perform with these systems and whether time-
based musical events/performances are always appropriate.
REDEFINING THE ACOUSTIC COMMUNITY
Designing and implementing a network music system supposes
that new, meaningful sonic results can be achieved by collab-
© 2003 ISAST LEONARDO MUSIC JOURNAL, Vol. 13, pp. 53–59, 2003 53
ABSTRACT
The introduction of various
collaborative tools, made
possible by the expansion of
computer network systems and
communications technology, has
led to new methods of musical
composition and improvisation.
The author describes a number
of recent music and sound art
projects involving the use of
network systems that enable
geographically displaced
creators to collaboratively
generate shared soundscapes.
Various system designs, ideas
and concepts associated with
this interaction paradigm are
presented and classified by the
author.
Álvaro Barbosa (researcher), Music Technology Group, Pompeu Fabra University, Passeig
de Circumval•lació 8, 08003 Barcelona, Spain. E-mail:
abarbosa@iua.upf.es.
Fig. 1. Screen shot of the FMOL software bamboo interface. With
this interface the user can manipulate and generate individual or
collaborative pieces. (© Sergi Jordà)
LMJ13_02body_005-096 11/25/03 2:57 PM Page 53

oration over computer networks. When
first addressing this supposition, one
should start by considering the target au-
dience. In 1984 Barry Truax introduced
the concept of the acoustic community
in his book Acoustic Communication:
The “Acoustic Community” may be de-
fined as any soundscape in which
acoustic information plays a pervasive
role in the lives of the inhabi-
tants. ...Therefore the boundary of the
community is arbitrary and may be as
small as a room of people, a home or a
building, or as large as an urban com-
munity, a broadcast area or any other sys-
tem of electroacoustic communication
[6].
Truax’s concept of the acoustic com-
munity can be viewed from an on-line
context. The notion of a soundscape fa-
miliar to all users is inevitably tied to sonic
events transmitted and produced with
computers, suggesting that computer-
generated electronic music might be an
engaging format to address in the place
of more traditional musical formats.
However, traditional musical culture is
somewhat strict regarding what consti-
tutes a music event, and one of the major
questions regarding collective music cre-
ation by indiscriminate Internet users is
whether this community is prepared to
express meaningful musical results. The
fact that Internet technology provides
permanent public access to music crea-
tion systems and listening paradigms
raises additional questions regarding tra-
ditional aspects of a musical piece, such
as its duration. An ongoing musical piece
that is not constrained by time limits
seems to be an appropriate form for
using some of the emerging systems dis-
cussed later in this article.
TIME DIMENSIONS OF
A PERMANENT EVENT
In the book Microsounds, Curtis Roads in-
troduces a taxonomy of timescales from
a music theory perspective [7]. In this
proposal, music timescales are, in de-
creasing order, the Infinite timescale, the
Supra timescale, the Macro timescale, the
Meso timescale, the Sound Object
timescale, the Micro timescale, the Sam-
ple timescale, the Subsample timescale and
the Infinitesimal timescale.
Most music creations driven by an
event are in the Macro timescale, defined
by Roads as “the timescale of overall
music architecture or form, measured in
minutes or hours, or in extreme cases,
days” [8]. However, one might wonder
where an ongoing musical piece, per-
manently available for use by hybrid com-
munities of creators and listeners, would
belong. Realistically it should fit in the
Supra timescale, defined as a “timescale
beyond that of an individual composition
and extending into months, years, de-
cades, and centuries” [9], since the Infi-
nite timescale is an abstraction beyond
the time life of the present cultural and
technological state of development.
Some recent artistic proposals ap-
proach unlimited music events. In 2000
Antoine Schmitt created the Infinite CD
for Unlimited Music [10]. Once inserted
in a computer, this CD generates music
infinitely, always different yet always sim-
ilar, with no images or form of interac-
tion. Another approach to this idea
explores Internet technology and user
interaction: In 2003 Chris Brown pre-
sented the Eternal Network Music proj-
ect, a flexible piece created on-line that
allows up to four players at a time to
change the harmony and motion of
eight modulated sine-wave oscillators to
produce a richly vibrating drone that
continues endlessly [11].
NETWORK SYSTEMS FOR
MUSIC AND SONIC ARTS
Given the subset of the musical universe
constrained to computer-network-based
music, it is useful to consider Guy E. Gar-
nett’s definition of music:
The nature of music, particularly in the
century of John Cage, multiculturalism,
and other varieties of aesthetic choice,
becomes more problematic. Nonethe-
less, I think it is possible to reduce the
problem somewhat. Just as I have con-
sidered aesthetics in only its broadest
manifestations, similarly, music can be
roughly considered to be sounds made
with aesthetical intent, or even sound lis-
tened to with aesthetic interest. The for-
mer gives more weight to the role of the
creator, while the latter formulation
tends to privilege the listener [12].
In this sense we can consider the sonic
outcome of a collective Internet creation
as a music event, since users commit
themselves to create a sound piece col-
laboratively with aesthetic intent and si-
multaneously are audience members
interpreting the results with aesthetic in-
terest.
Computer network music falls in part
within the larger category of sonic art, a
term that emerged in the 1960s and that
applies to a very broad spectrum of sce-
narios in which acoustic phenomena are
manipulated in different ways. Histori-
cally, sonic art came from the academic
tradition of electroacoustic music, as
until quite recently, advanced electron-
ics and computer technology for audio
were available only to members of insti-
tutions such as universities and radio sta-
tions. The electroacoustic music tradition
dates back to the 1950s and 1960s, when
it emerged as a discipline in college and
university music departments, based on
the work of composers such as Pierre
Schaeffer and Karlheinz Stockhausen. Al-
though there is no comprehensive defi-
nition of sonic art, in the 1980s this field
became a playground of diversified artis-
tic proposals and experiments with elec-
tronic and digital music creation when
computer technologies became more
widely available to the ordinary music
creator, and expanded in the 1990s with
the advent of Internet-based communi-
cation.
EARLY EXPERIMENTS WITH
MUSIC AND COMPUTER
NETWORKS
In the late 1970s the commercialization
of personal computers in the United
States, which allowed the fine-tuning of
network topologies, enabled the first at-
tempts by experimental musicians to cre-
ate local computer networks. The first
events using computer networks to cre-
ate collaborative music were performed
by the Oakland, California, group the
League of Automatic Music Composers
[13]. The “League” came together
through the mutual interests of central
protagonists Jim Horton, John Bischoff
and Rich Gold, who named their new
genre of musical performance Network
Computer Music.
In 1985 the Network Muse, a network
music festival, was held in San Francisco,
California, and featured a collective of
electronic musicians such as John
Bischoff, Tim Perkis, Chris Brown, Mark
Trayle, Scot Gresham-Lancaster, Larry
Polansky, Phil Stone and Phil Burk. From
the context created around the activity
of these composers, the League evolved
into a subsequent group in 1987, the
Hub, which employed more accurate
communication schemes by using the
MIDI protocol [14].
LOCAL MUSICAL NETWORKS
In 2002 Gil Weinberg introduced the
concept of Interconnected Musical Net-
works (IMNs) with an example from a
performance at the MIT Media Lab in
the spring of 1998:
[T]wo musicians were playing a newly de-
veloped multiplayer squeezable instru-
ment. While controlling the pitch curve
of his own part, one of the players was
also continuously manipulating the
other player’s timbre. This manipulation
54 Barbosa, Displaced Soundscapes
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