Music Down A Wire

When the telephone was first invented, its inventor, Alexander Graham Bell, thought that his invention would mainly be used by people to listen to concerts. The phone, of course, went on to take on a very different role, though the first public stereo transmission over telephone lines was of a concert in Philadelphia to an audience in Constitution Hall in Washington, D.C. on April 27, 1933.

Scientists continue to be fascinated by the ways in which technology might facilitate the making and transmission of music. One news item that has caught my attention over the last few days comes from Manchester University, where Dr Barry Cheetham, a senior lecturer in The School of Computer Science, is seeking to combine his academic expertise in communications, networks and digital signal processing with his love of choral singing.

He wants to create a choir consisting of people from all over Europe who will rehearse and perform together via the Internet. But to make this possible, according to a University-published article, he will have to address the limitations of existing communications networks.

New 'ultra broadband' networks will be needed, capable of delivering sound and images with far less delay than services like Internet telephony and video conferencing currently achieve. If there is too much delay, the 'real time' interactive experience of singing in a choir will not be achieved. The voices travelling down the wires will need to be processed and digitised quickly to achieve the required high sound quality. The voices will also need to be accurately merged to give the impression all the singers are together in one concert hall. Other challenges include discovering how a conductor can control and rehearse a choir made up of people in different locations and how singers can be made to feel as if they are interacting with fellow performers.

In principal, I think this is a great idea. It'll bring people together from extremely diverse backgrounds. It will enable people who can't physically get to rehearsals (e.g. because of a disability) to sing in a choir.

On the other hand, part of the power of performing in a choir or hearing a choir perform stems from the energy that the group creates together in a physical space. The quality of a performance depends a great deal on this factor -- how the singers interact with each other physically, how the audience responds. You can't simulate this kind of stuff with the Internet.

Still, I'm excited by Dr. Cheetham's project. My initial impulse is that I'd like to be involved. I wonder if he'd consider including people based in the U.S.? I mean, if we're talking about the Internet, then why restrict choir membership to Europe?