New York . I mixed the sound of Stewart ’ s MIDI backing track with the sound of my acoustic vibraphone and then performed “ Oye Como Va ” via iChat . The students in Winnipeg began playing along as soon as my signal arrived at their side of the video conference . As far as anyone in Stewart ’ s music classroom was concerned , there was no latency .
Stewart had muted the microphone on the Winnipeg side of the videoconference in order to eliminate the sound loop of my audio signal mixed in with the return audio signal of the student performers . This worked very well for performance , but for the sake of being able to evaluate student success efficiently during the improvisation lesson , I asked Stewart to leave the audio feed from Winnipeg open . This allowed me to engage with the student performers in real time and to respond with appropriate musical phrasing when I was trading fours with them .
As expected , there was latency between the two locations , but the student side of the videoconference was unaffected by this because I was monitoring their audio signal through a set of headphones . This ensured that the students could not hear their own audio signal after it had traveled to and from New York . They could only hear the sound of my vibraphone and MIDI track ( from NYC ) mixed in with the acoustic sound of their own instruments as they played along with me from Winnipeg .
I , on the other hand , had to adapt to the latency while trading fours with the students . It took a couple of minutes for me to adjust to the time lag while playing along with them , but it was quite successful given the limitations of the technological tools that we had at our disposal back in 2004 .
The success of this project launched an initiative that Stewart and I created as a vehicle for collaborating with like-minded music educators and performers . Together , we embraced the spirit of experimentation and innovation by applying these technologies to music education and live performances . And we managed to assemble an amazing team of brilliant colleagues in the process .
Friends & Colleagues KoSA Music Co-Founder Aldo Mazza and I have been collaborating with online performance and pedagogical projects since 2004 , and it wasn ’ t at all surprising when I discovered that he had already explored similar media-related activities long before we ever met . I invited Aldo to contribute the following synopsis of one such project .
From Aldo Mazza : “ In 1985 I was invited along with Repercussion for an interview on Peter Gzowski ’ s national CBC radio show , Morningside . We had returned from a major Central and South American tour and had just appeared at Toronto ’ s Roy Thompson Hall . The Morningside producers got wind of our intensive explorations of West African drumming at the time and invited Repercussion to perform along with invited guests on live radio from the CBC studio in Montreal . We suggested that since one of our mentors , master drummer Abraham Adzenyah , was visiting Toronto at the time , we could collaboratively perform with him live on the air from different cities .
“ Since we had another good friend and fellow percussionist in Vancouver who was well versed in Ghanaian drumming , we suggested that it may be great to perform live on-air from Montreal , Toronto , and Vancouver across time zones while live on Peter ’ s national morning radio show . It was a fantastic experience as well as a very successful precursor to all later live online video performing .”
One Planet Education Network ( OPEN ) It has been a pleasure for me to connect and collaborate with George Newman , the president and founder of One Planet Education Network . OPEN prepares students for a science and technology-accelerated world , and to use this knowledge to effect positive social , economic , and technological change . George has spent decades assembling and guiding a team of educators in the development of interdisciplinary academic programming , and then sharing these resources with schools world-wide via videoconferencing technology . George also happens to be a talented musician who has integrated the use of videoconferencing technology in collaboration with many world-renowned musicians , most notably Little Richard and Graham Nash .
The following is George Newman ’ s account of a videoconference collaboration with Graham Nash dating back to 1996 :
“ I served as MC , hosting the final evening event at the Comnet ‘ 96 conference in Washington , D . C . This annual event for the telecommunications industry was sponsored by International Data Group and hosted 50,000 attendees . That evening I engaged in a conversation with Graham Nash , which included a Q & A and a musical performance for our D . C . audience of 2,000 communications technology executives and their wives , families , and customers . Graham participated live from the House of Blues in Los Angeles where he was featured on vocals , guitar , and keyboards via videoconference . He was accompanied in this real-time performance by guitarists Dave Dunkley and Dave Nolting who performed live on the conference stage in D . C . Graham knew how to play perfectly to the delay and it was a ground-breaking event , technologically and performance wise .
ALLAN MOLNAR & ALDO MAZZA PERFORMING AT THE 2005 VIRTUAL DAY OF PERCUSSION IN WINNIPEG
Everyone played very well together from 3,000 miles apart .
“ The technical component of this performance was facilitated with the support of Dolby Sound and PictureTel video engineers . MCI and AT & T were the telecom carriers . The event was a huge success .”
Aldo Mazza and George Newman have each initiated early and lasting contributions to the process of developing collaborative musical performances from a distance via videoconferencing and other similar technologies . Little Richard , Graham Nash , Repercussion and the many artists who were also mentioned in this narrative brought these projects to life by sharing their musical talents and creative spirits .
Coda The art of performing online has intrigued me from the moment I first learned that this could even be a possibility . Ironically , I have never traveled as much as I have since I embraced these online teaching and performing opportunities . I have given related presentations onsite at educational institutes and for events in Hong Kong , Australia , Norway , Sweden , Italy , and of course , in the U . S . and Canada . I ’ ve shared the virtual performance stage with Aldo Mazza , Stewart Smith , The Kansas State University Latin Jazz Ensemble under the direction of Dr . Kurt Gartner , and with many other artists who have all collaborated with me in these hybrid in-person / online performances .
Many talented music teachers and performing artists have paved the way for the new wave of technological wonders that are already defining the new cutting edge in music technology . This is indeed a giant step forward for our profession !
Allan Molnar currently lives in New York City where he freelances in the music profession and teaches music production and jazz at Lehman College in the Bronx . Allan is also the producer of the Johnny Pacheco Latin Music and Jazz Festival at Lehman College . www . percussionstudio . com .
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