Online orchestra: performance, edited journal and patent
- Submitting institution
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Falmouth University
- Unit of assessment
- 32 - Art and Design: History, Practice and Theory
- Output identifier
- 508
- Type
- I - Performance
- Venue(s)
- Truro Cathedral, Cornwall
- Open access status
- Out of scope for open access requirements
- Month of first performance
- July
- Year of first performance
- 2015
- URL
-
-
- Supplementary information
-
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- Request cross-referral to
- -
- Output has been delayed by COVID-19
- No
- COVID-19 affected output statement
- -
- Forensic science
- No
- Criminology
- No
- Interdisciplinary
- Yes
- Number of additional authors
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1
- Research group(s)
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-
- Proposed double-weighted
- Yes
- Double-weighted statement
- Developing the Online Orchestra involved the undertaking of a complex, multi-layered process of creative and technical investigation involving research into a range of issues, technical understanding and investigation through performance.
- Reserve for an output with double weighting
- No
- Additional information
- The benefits of participating in music ensembles are well documented. These include benefits to instrumental technique, creativity, social interactions, sense of community, well-being, and skills development. The UK Government’s 2011 National Music Plan recommended ‘Children from all backgrounds and every part of England should have the opportunity [...] to make music with others’. Young and amateur musicians living in geographically remote communities often do not have access to ensemble music-making opportunities. Time, expense or travel logistics can make regular participation impossible. On the Isles of Scilly, there are insufficient specialist teachers to provide full coverage of instrumental lessons, and school-wide ensembles are limited to flute choir and wind group, with no string and/or brass instrument teaching or ensemble performance.
Networked performance provides a starting point to address this problem. Online Orchestra was a large-scale pilot that sought design solutions to enable musicians in remote communities to experience ensemble music-making. Using an iterative, action research design process based on Kolb’s learning cycle the project team explored (1) software options; (2) computer and peripheral equipment options and usage; (3) approaches to latency (a time delay resulting from processing data and sending/receiving it between locations); (4) compositional options; and (5) approaches to online rehearsing and directing. New software was developed to stabilize network latency and lock it to a specified musical tempo so that latency stopped functioning as an impediment, instead becoming part of the musical content.
The project culminated in a four-location pilot performance in July 2015 of three new works, commissioned for the performance, involving a conductor at Falmouth University, leading an orchestra of flutes on the Isles of Scilly, brass in Mullion on the Lizard and strings, choir and soloists in Truro Cathedral.
Research Output: Performance, edited journal, patent
Contextual: Website, case study
- Author contribution statement
- -
- Non-English
- No
- English abstract
- -