The sound exchange

This project was undertaken during 2002-2004, funded by Arts Council England (£48,000) and the DTI ‘connexions’ scheme (£60,000). Collaborators included members of the Philharmonia Orchestra and a support team of engineers, programmers and administrators at DMU. The central research question was: how can an orchestra achieve an online existence? The project explored tensions between a live concert experience and a mediated internet experience. The project included: tools; resources; novel presentations of orchestral techniques, repertoire and history; and social networking models for orchestral music such as MusiMOO, user forums, upload/download areas; and several interactive sites. The main research strategy was to treat the orchestra as a group of human beings, rather than a collection of instruments and repertoire. This led to a methodology involving structured interviews and recorded case-studies. There were three major published elements: • The Orchestra: A User’s Manual: a multimedia exploration of orchestration; • The Sound Exchange: a sample library and forum for original Philharmonia sounds; • The Composer Resource: real-time connections between orchestra and creative community. The research also encompassed creative projects, including original compositions that explored use of new streaming media such as Flash in an orchestral setting. The project had access to the Philharmonia’s recorded legacy. Orchestral players programmed Java applets, MySQL, Javascript and XML, and the Education and Access department developed the educational aspects. The results were published by the Philharmonia Orchestra as The Sound Exchange http://www.philharmonia.co.uk/thesoundexchange/. The project was nominated for the BT Digital Music Awards in 2004, and continues to evolve, mainly through creation of specially designed ‘pathways’ to enable more effective navigation of the educational content. The Orchestra: A User’s Manual has consistently received 2-3,000 ‘hits’ per month. As a result of this project, Hugill was Guest Editor of Contemporary Music Review Vol. 24, Part 6, 2005 (Routledge): ‘Internet Music’.http://www.philharmonia.co.uk/thesoundexchange