European Bridges Ensemble - Network Music and Quintet.net

Network Music and Quintet.net

The term "network music" is often used to refer to musical activities that utilise computer network technologies in a performative context. Network music can be performed by laptop ensembles, for example PLOrk, SLOrk, The Hub, or PowerBooks_UnPlugged. The extent to which network technology is utilised in performance can vary. EBE's implementation of network music involves the use of software called Quintet.net which was developed by the ensemble's co-founder, Georg Hajdu, using Max/MSP/Jitter.

The basic concept of Quintet.net is that there's a conductor and several (up to five) performers (or clients), connected to each other using a central server. The clients get instructions from the conductor. These instructions can be messages sent to the clients, but usually it is a score part to play. On the other hand, control data created by the clients are sent back to the network. This latter, combined with the fact that an unlimited number of clients can connect to the server in a so called listener mode (that is, a mode where the client only receives data but doesn't send control data back) lets anyone connect to the server and listen the music being played in real time.

Since the network is only used to send control data (using Open Sound Control) and the music itself is always created locally, the normal household bandwidths are generally sufficient to transmit all the data needed for the platform. This means that the performers don't need to be physically present at the performance's place, but can play from anywhere in the Globe (this is a big difference compared to the usual concept of musical performance, and at the time when the Ensemble was founded, the EBE was the only group playing music in a Wide Area Network). As an example, during the first concert of the Ensemble the performers were located at four different cities of Europe (Budapest, Münster, Stuttgart and Vienna), and the concert itself was broadcasted at three different concert halls (and, of course, the Internet) in Münster, Stuttgart and Vienna at the same time.

After video artist Stewart Collinson joined the EBE, the original Quintet.net concept was expanded with a new tool called Viewer, which is an extension that makes Quintet.net able to manage video mixing as well.