Mostly groupware software usually seems to be noted as communication tools and social collaboration. The collaborative software could be used for serious creation as well, as for example handing out pieces of code or programs or other information and buildind one bigger work from various locations. My interest in this blog post in the otherhand is towards the possibilities of groupware software in creation of music and exchanging musical ideas between artists.
Trough globalization and internet the people are also changing their aspects into more international way of thinking. Also there are many artists worldwide who are skilled musicians and have somekind of a homestudio options for recording music, trough groupware software it is possible also to build up recordings internationally. For example musicians could have a whole band kind of a project without leaving their homestudios. As it also was noted in Ville’s post earlier this week a group is: “people having a shared purpose, being aware of each other, interacting and communicating with each other”. That purpose could also be creating music and exchanging ideas with other musicians. In one case these people shouldn't even need to be familiar with each other in real life, they just need to have a common goal.
I have been trying to use google to search for this kind of international collaborative music projects, which wouldn’t really include people meeting each others in real life environment. At the moment I didn’t find any, maybe because I didn’t know how to search for them correctly, but I know these kind of projects do exist, so if someone has more information, it would be kind to post a comment.
I was able to find an article about cooperative music notation using the Moods system. (Music Object Oriented Distributed System). ACM: http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=568515 . Though this article is interesting it is more of a music composing and notation, than about realtime remote music creation. I could imagine many different groupware applications, as the simpliest email, could be used in creating music and sending parts of recordings to each participants of the project and so the piece could be in cooperation trough the home studios. But I could also imagine a recording program that could work in realtime, like for example google docs and wiki’s work for collaborative document creation. Though maybe that kind of applications already exist, I just am not aware of them or maybe that is just a vision of a future home recording.
As it seems, the purpose of this blog post is not to be a very informative one, but more of challenging people think that how groupware software could also be used for music and for other kinds of art as well and if possible it would be great to hear different aspects around this topic and also build my own information more around it. I believe the possibilities for collaborative creation could be endless, if the tools just would be right.
When I read your post it came immediately to my mind 2 things that are music groupware tools.
ReplyDeleteFirst Last.fm, is a tool that lets you effortlessly keep a record of what you listen to and based on your taste it recommends you more music and concerts, it also shows you the music compatibility with your friends and let you check what music they are listening and post comments on their wall.
Second tool is Spotify, a library with over 10 million tracks that let you listen to them with out downloading them, you can share music with a click to Facebook or Twitter, and anything that you and your friends listen to on Spotify can be seen and shared by you all. Just drag and drop music between your usernames.
You should try them out :)
have you heard about the Reactable? http://www.reactable.com/
ReplyDeletewhen remote, the network latency becomes a problem. :) I suppose it is a problem even for modern music if the players are not in sync.
Spotify and last fm, I am aware of them, indeed :) They are social media around music. But what I had more in mind was groupware software for making and recording music. Something like logic, reaper, protools ect. that would provide instantly the groupware feature, without the need to use other applications for sending the bits of music to other people involved in the project (or band). Could also be a collaborative music making project with people who wouldn't necessarily know each other from before, but just would have a common musical goal. Though sending the pieces of recordings trough dropbox for example is not that hard either.
ReplyDeleteReactable seems interesting.
I think some music making programs such as sequencers (Cubase, Logic, Sonar) would be prime candidates for added groupware functionality that was discussed in the Grudin's paper. I doubt many would be willing to learn a new application that is as complex as a sequencer. At least my music making productivity took a dive when I migrated from a tracker to a sequencer years ago.
ReplyDelete