Telematic Concert between Salen and Portal - Performers’ Reflections
A Telematic Experience
As MCT master students, one of our focus areas has been practicing low latency software solutions which allow us to host real-time music performances over the network. In our first semester, we did try performing together by using different software solutions. As part of these efforts, we were expected to perform two telematic concerts. Each concerts were hosted in two different locations at the same time over the network using a low latency audio visual streaming software, Lola.
As one of the performer teams, we will describe this journey and provide some details about our first experience performing a concert over the network. Our performance, ‘A Telematic Experience’ was hosted in the Portal and Salen seminar rooms on the 4th of October and thanks to all the practices we did in the class, everything worked well and the performance and rehearsals turned out to be a lot of fun!
Music for the Performance For this performance, we prepared four instrumental, semi-improvisational pieces, each led or originating from different members of the group. A theme which emerged from our first rehearsal was a general trend towards cinematic music. This allowed for a balance between playing synchronously and freedom in structure while also necessitating communication between musicians.
The lineup of musicians was:
Salen
- Christian - Piano and confransier
- Kristian - E-Drums and Synth
- Alex - MPC/Synths and FX pedals
Portal
- Jack - Violin through laptop FX
- Joseph - Guitar through laptop FX
Playing Telematically
In our case, probably owing to the fact that both locations were in the same building, latency was imperceptible during both the final rehearsal and concert, retaining the feeling of being in the same room.
Learning how to communicate through Lola was very important, especially due to the improvisational nature and somewhat fluid structure of our music, proving to be our biggest challenge. Specifically, it was difficult to communicate verbally during the final rehearsal, since if one of us had something to say we needed to give that microphone priority and pause the rehearsal, which overall slowed us down and made the rehearsal less efficient.
A dedicated talkback microphone in the Portal may have helped with this. However, during the day of the concert we did have satisfactory communication, thanks to the rehearsals and time we spent practicing together as well as individually, resulting in the pieces working efficiently from the first run-through over the network. Additionally, we had also decided who was going to cue which pieces and sections while we were rehearsing in the same room, making the transition to Lola less jarring. The biggest take away we think is that practice and great planning makes perfect.
A Telematic Rehearsal
Ultimately we did not execute all the marketing ideas we intended due to time constraints. It could have helped attract a larger in-person audience if we had shared the event more widely with printed posters and sharing through email lists.
We were very pleased with the music we were able to create together in just three rehearsals, since the pieces had variety and made good use of all the instruments we had available. Finally, we were lucky with the instrumentation and our music preferences, because everything fitted together very adeptly from the very first rehearsal.
