Introduction

Abstract

The scope of this book is to provide a quick and informed introduction to the issues and developments in Networked Music Performance (NMP) to, then, introduce the use of wireless technologies for transmission of audio (and possibly video) signals in short- to medium-range contexts, which is a very recent development of NMP. The topic stands at the intersection among several research areas including audio and video digital signal processing, wired and wireless communications, psychoacoustic research, and musical aesthetics. While computing and networking shall be treated at length, given the technical nature of this book, some basic aesthetic and psychoacoustic concepts for NMP are also reported together with a brief history, in order for the reader to become acquainted with the main concepts that drive composers and performers to explore NMP and remote telepresence for musical performance. The feasibility studies and the developments carried out by the authors, in the context of the WeMUST project, are reported at length. A few practical examples of music performance and art installations employing wireless networking are described. Given the recent introduction of wireless networking in music performance, a whole chapter is devoted to issue yet to solve and future trends that can be foreseen for research in the field in the years to follow.