| Summary: | This article describes major lines of networked music as observed in the course of extended scholarship on the subject done by the author. The Internet protocols' condition of hosting systems for two-way communication is considered to mark the central difference from earlier media of audio diffusion. Musical uses of, and critical reflections on, this characteristic are shown to differ according to the diverse cultural lines or backgrounds of academic composition, media art or pop music. It is stated that the complexity of musical structures, of interaction schemes and the degree of reflection on the properties of the medium has increased steadily. While early expectations of the listener's total emancipation through the mere fact of the Internet's reciprocal communication structure had to be revised, the author proposes that musical systems based on non-hierarchical networks primarily support the development of music as a collective communal activity.
|
|---|