Interconnected Musical Networks: Toward a Theoretical Framework

This article attempts to define and classify the aesthetic and technical principles of interconnected musical networks. It presents an historical overview of technological innovations that were instrumental for the development of the field and discusses a number of paradigmatic musical networks that are based on these technologies. A classification of online and local-area musical networks then leads to an attempt to define a taxonomical and theoretical framework for musical interconnectivity, addressing goals and motivations, social organizations and perspectives, network architectures and topologies, and musical content and control. The article concludes with a number of design suggestions for the development of effective interconnected musical networks.

Interdependent Music Performance

Music performance is an interdependent art form. Musicians' real-time gestures are constantly influenced by the music they hear, which are reciprocally influenced by their own actions. In group playing, the interdependent effect bears unique social consequences such as the formulation of leaders and followers or changes in individual players' dynamics and timing in correlation to group synchronization (Rasch 1988). Other manifestations of interdependent group routines can be found in a variety of musical genres such as Western chamber music, Jazz, Gamelan, Persian music, and others (see details in Weinberg 2002). Performers often address the importance of interdependent group collaboration and sharing in their music. Jazz performer Milt Hinton noted, "I was pretty young when I realized that music involved more than playing an instrument; it's really about cohesiveness and sharing . . . I've always believed you don't truly know something yourself until you can take it from your mind and put it in someone else's" (Hinton and Morgenstern 1988). Cognitive scientists, on the other hand, tend to address the perceptual aspects of interdependent group play. William Benzon (2001) discusses his experience playing Ghanaian Bells in a group of four: "melodies would emerge that no one was playing . . . it arose from cohesions in the shifting patterns of tone played by the ensemble. . . . Occasionally, something quite remarkable would happen. When we were really locked together in animated playing, we could hear relatively high-pitched tones that no one was playing." Benzon uses this example to strengthen his definition of music as "a medium though which individual brains are coupled together in shared activity."

But although acoustic-interdependent models provide an infrastructure for a variety of approaches for interconnections and interdependencies among players, they do not allow for actual manipulation and control of each other's explicit musical voices. Only by constructing electronic (or mechanical) communication channels among players can participants take an active role in determining and influencing not only their own musical output but also that of their peers. For example, consider a player who, while controlling the pitch of his or her own instrument, continuously manipulates the timbre of a peer's instrument. This manipulation will probably lead the second player to modify his or her play gestures in accordance to the new timbre that was received. These modified gestures can then be captured and transmitted to a third player, influencing this player's music playing in a reciprocal loop. Another example is a network that allows players to share musical motifs with other members of the group. By sending a motif to a co-player who can transform it and send it back to the group, participants can combine their musical ideas into a constantly evolving collaborative musical outcome.

The shape of the composition in such systems grows from the topology of the network and its interconnections with the performers. Such an environment that responds to input from individuals in a reciprocal loop can be likened to a musical "ecosystem." In this metaphor, the network serves as a habitat that supports its inhabitants (players) through a topology of interconnections and mutual responses that can, when successful, lead to new breeds of musical life forms. These interdependent connections can bring a wide range of new experiences into musical group playing. For example, a soloist can guide his or her collaborators with a simple interdependent touch toward a musical idea in which the soloist is interested, or change a supporting voice into a contrasting one so that a...