Musicalonline and the Web Concert Hall:
Serious music websites linking professional communication, performance, and education

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Dr. Yoon-il Auh and Prof. Robert P. Taylor
Columbia University Teachers College

Introduction

This paper references Musicalonline.com, a multifaceted website created by the authors, and its related sub-site WebConcertHall.com, featuring audio and video, to illustrate strengths and weaknesses of the web as a medium for establishing communication among musicians and those affiliated with them or interested in music performance and music education. Particularly in WebConcertHall.com, it features showcase, CD-quality performances by top-quality professional and semi-professional musicians. Between them, the sites illustrate how unique properties of the web can support such communication about serious music and suggest how these sites can uniquely inform understanding of the pieces performed, through a number of related avenues, all accessible through the web. They include interviews with musicians and composers about the works performed, presentation of related art and cultural materials that reveal the historical and social currents that may have shaped the composition of the pieces, and some of the other details which the web can so ably support. The paper is too brief to be totally comprehensive introduction to the many possibilities represented by these sites, but only to open a discussion about them. Other papers will appear, carrying the arguments further, and interested readers of this paper should watch for them. Meanwhile, readers should refer during and after reading the paper, to the sites themselves, browsing across appropriate aspects of each, accessing them through their registered names:

www.webconcerthall.com

www.musicalonline.com

The remainder of this introduction provides a brief description of each site and concludes with an overview of the rest of the paper.

Figure 1: WebConcertHall main page

WebConcertHall.com (Figure 1) sprang from a number of discussion the authors had together about music recitals and the problems of bringing globally dispersed performers to appreciative and informed audiences in the few major music centers of today's world. In a world in which serious, classical music is a global art form, practiced much the same everywhere in the world by musicians, and critiqued and appreciated much the same way by audiences interested in such music, wherever on the earth they dwell, the traditional approach of live recitals only seemed strikingly inappropriate today. By providing a live forum in which deserving performers perform for interested and knowledgeable listeners, the live recital is admittedly a very effective solution in a context where geographic constraints do not make it unrealistic. As a single solution in today's increasingly global cultural environment, the live recital alone is no longer an adequate solution for bringing together audience and performer. Though modern transportation has made it easier for performer or audience member to travel to and therefore meet in performance centers like New York, it is still impossible for most to manage to travel nearly enough to satisfy either the performer's desire to perform in the right, appreciative context, or the listener's desire to be a part of that context. To respond to this new globally-shaped situation and to compliment the live recital solution, we decided to provide a new, forum, the web recital, and implemented it in an appropriate new website, WebConcertHall.com.

The remainder of this paper does three things in connection with these two sites. First, it identifies some previously unsolved problems of music and music education. it was these which suggested the need for the two sites. Second, it identifies salient web features which address these unsolved music and music education problem. Third, it illustrates the problem solutions developed by using web features to precisely address these unsolved problems

This section identifies three of the many unsolved problems in music and music education, each of which is addressed by either or both the two sites: Musicalonline.com and WebConcertHall.com. Each problem is sketched in sufficient detail to clearly indicate the nature of the problem, but not sufficiently to present all its variants and ramifications. The three problems are easily stated: (1) It can be difficult or impossible to find dependable, widely accessible, up-to-date comprehensive listings of and specifics about the musical world such as: performances, career opportunities, and support figures like agents, accompanists, or teachers; (2) Interested performers and audiences are literally scattered all over the world and can not easily afford to travel frequently enough to any commonly convenient location for performances or for sharing opinions and information; and (3) It is difficult or impossible for most musicians and music educators to gain access to a reasonable proportion of the large volume of related cultural and ancillary musical information relevant to performing or even appreciating a given musical work. These are not the only problems that plague the serious music world, and they are not the only problems addressable by web technology. They are discussed because they are important and because they are addressed in the sites presented in this paper.

(1) It can be difficult or impossible to find dependable, widely accessible, up-to-date comprehensive listings of and specifics about the musical world such as: performances, career opportunities, and support figures like agents, accompanists, or teachers. Printed sources like Musical America provide such information but they are often out-of-date before they reach the subscribers. On the one hand, performers, agents, and others who become active after the latest issue has gone to press can not appear in such a guide until the next edition is printed. On the other, information that becomes obsolete after the guide has gone to press (an advertised performance that gets canceled or changed, for example) continues to appear exactly as it was originally entered until the next edition is printed. Such guides are often days or even weeks in preparation once the copy is all collected, and by the time they are shipped and reach the consumer, they can be out-of-date when received. Moreover, since such guides are often annuals, they become increasingly inaccurate as the year wears on.

(2) Interested performers and audiences are literally scattered all over the world and can not easily afford to travel frequently enough to any commonly convenient location for performances or for sharing opinions and information. Though music has increasingly become a global art, with those interested in a given aspect widely scattered geographically, in today’s world the numbers of performers, educators, and potential appreciators is even more numerous and geographically more widely distributed than ever before. Global transformations, like the widespread adoption of English as a common language or the acceptance as common of ideas propagated by world-wide television, tend to increase the global awareness of everyone in what is going on elsewhere in the world. Musicians and music educators are no exception. However, because of globalization and the world-wide distribution of interested people, the traditional focus of musical activity in live recitals and performances alone is no longer adequate. Entirely within the Twentieth Century alone, video and audio broadcasting and recording have arisen, spreading awareness of musical styles and performers far more widely and than ever before. Each fails, though, to provide the actual physical coming together for discussion and communicative appreciation that the live local concert hall provided. One does not know who else is listening to a broadcast or a CD and one has no way of getting in touch with them to discuss the performance, regardless of how interested they might be.

(3) It is difficult or impossible for most musicians and music educators to gain access to a reasonable proportion of the large volume of related cultural and ancillary musical information relevant to performing or even appreciating a given musical work. Information about composers, related art and music, cultural and historical factors, technology, and other matters influence the composition of a given piece of music, and to understand that piece it may be important to understand some or all of the things. Unfortunately, such information in any detail may reside only in libraries and other repositories, scattered across the country or even the world. Indexes or catalogues might determine the information’s existence and location, but unless the location is nearby the person needing it, it may be practically inaccessible anyhow. And the problem is worse if the information desired may only be in human memory somewhere. Finding out whether it exists, and in whose head, can be even more difficult than locating printed or other externally recorded information.

There are many salient features of the web and a number of them will be briefly identified in this section. They must be identified and the basic nature of each clarified before any can be cited as applicable to solving any specific problem. They will be discussed further in the final section of the paper, as components of the solutions embodied in one or both the two web sites. This section only identifies the features and elaborates the character of each briefly. This list should not be construed as comprehensive. There are other already identifiable web features that are not here. Moreover, additional new features may emerge in the future, as applications of the web continue to develop. The features presented are: (1) Instant accessibility of updates; (2) Seamless updating, including expansion or contraction (3) Built-in content arrangement alternatives; (4) Wide scope of information representation modes; (5) User scheduled; (6) Extensible scope of content information; (7) Globally accessible; and (8) Supports global communication among site visitors.

(1) Instant accessibility of updates. Because the visitor sees the latest version of the site the instant it is saved by the site maintainer, all changes of every sort are instantly seen instead of the old information or format. One need only consider the importance of the swiftness with which scheduling alterations can be displayed to those interested in the site to appreciate the importance of this feature.

(2) Seamless updating, including expansion or contraction. Web sites also offer an excellent environment for changing focus or content of parts of the site, while still maintaining a smooth overall appearance. Thus a section of the site may be removed when it is no longer appropriate or after a certain duration, and either be replaced by another alternative or not, as the site maintainers choose.

(3) Built-in content arrangement alternatives. By taking advantage of links to related pages, website can display a considerable range of information in a way that allows the visitor to the site to focus on what he or she is most interested in, merely by presenting an array of summary but descriptive labels of the kinds of information it features in its various subparts. This makes it particularly good at presenting a large amount of information in a very concise yet easily grasped format. This compares favourably to the index or table of contents feature of printed material, except that it can be arranged to be far more flexible. The web site can easily provide alternate tables or arrangements of the information it features or points to, and these indexes can be updated new ones added to the site at any time.

(4) ) Wide scope of information representation modes. Because the web can display images of every kind imaginable, including moving images, CD quality audio, and text in wide range of formats, fonts and sizes, a web site offers wide flexibility in types of information which it can feature, and in the medium the designer wishes to use to represent it. The additional facility at the user end of being able store, reproduce, and redisplay or replay much of what appears in a site only adds to the representational flexibility.

(5) User scheduled. Because visitors can access a website whenever they wish, the web provides an environment in which schedule is determined largely by the visitor. Whenever he or she chooses to access the site, the visitor can see its still or moving images, listen to its audio, read its text, or interact in any other means the site supports. One need only contrast this with broadcast radio or television to appreciate the powerful advantage of this feature of the web. The web delivers information whenever browsed, allowing the user to determine the schedule.

(6) Extensible scope of content information. Through pointing (linking) to sources outside itself but within the world wide network of internet connectivity, the web can instantaneously provide the visitor with a depth and scope of information far beyond the immediate site's contents, on an unprecedented scale.

(7) Globally accessible. Through its distribution over the internet, a web site is automatically accessible from any appropriately connected computer, anywhere in the world, 24 hours per day, 7 days per week, 52 weeks per year.

(8) ) Supports global communication among site visitors. Through their Internet support, websites are able to provide a range of possibilities for easy communication among the community of site users and maintainers. Chat spaces, email exchanges, and threaded discussions are typical of the types of communication features supportable through the web.

Musicalonline.com and WebConcertHall.com : Solutions realized by addressing unsolved problems with appropriate web features

This final section of the paper outlines how, by capitalizing upon appropriate salient features of the web to precisely address important specific dimensions of the those problems, Musicalonline.com and WebConcertHall.com together solve the three unsolved problems with which the paper began. The problems are discussed in order but where appropriate, remarks on one problem may be expanded to cover either or both of the others. In general, the discussion involves little more than citing the appropriate web features that apply, and briefly explaining their applicability to the given problem in the context of website named.

Figure 2: Music world details listed in Musicalonline

(1) It can be difficult or impossible to find dependable, widely accessible, up-to-date comprehensive listings of and specifics about the musical world concerning things like: performances, career opportunities, support figures such like agents, accompanists, or teachers, and so on. Some of the print listing now available are fairly comprehensive; the problem is cost of keeping them up to date. Republication is too expensive to be done as often as is appropriate. The web features that address this problem extremely well are the first two and their applicability is self-evident: (1) Instant accessibility of updates; (2) Seamless updating, including expansion or contraction. Together they make it reasonable to keep the listing entirely up to date, all the time. If an item becomes obsolete, it can be instantly deleted and anyone looking at the sight the next hour will no longer see the obsolete notice (1). Just as easily, new entries can be made instantly and the appearance of the listing overall can be seamlessly maintained in the original form with minimal effort (2). Entries in listing of services of all kinds (accompanists, agents, schools, scholarships, teachers, etc.) can be added or subtracted with the same minimal cost disruption to the site, and maximal effect on accuracy. When the list is long and comprehensive as it is for Musicalonline.com (see Figure 2), this is important.

(2) Interested performers and audiences are literally scattered all over the world and can not easily afford to travel to a convenient common location for performances or for sharing opinions and information. There is no substitute for live performance. However, when live performance is impossible, is only possible infrequently, or can only be attended by a small portion of the audience who would come if it were not far away, audio and video performances on the web as in WebConcertHall.com are certainly far better than nothing. Any of the performance segments on this site, like that of trumpeter Alex Hilton (Figure 3) demonstrate this quite clearly.

Figure 3: Still of trumpet performance in WebConcertHall

One can certainly see clearly what the performer is like and what his or her style and command of instrument or voice is. In this regard, three of the salient web features listed above (4), (5), and (7) clearly contribute to providing the solution of making performances and audience assemblage global. The very creditable audio and rapidly improving video suggested by feature (4), the wide scope of information representation modes, make the web concert valuable. And both features (5) and (7) make it accessible under difficult conditions of globally scattered performers and audience members. The fact that attending to the performance can be (5) User scheduled makes it possible to "attend" whenever it is convenient - an essential need in the face of global time differences. And feature (7), being globally accessible, allows one to "attend" regardless of where in the world one is. Finally, the fact that the web supports global communication among site visitors, feature (8), allows the listener, whatever his or her interest (agent, appreciator, student, etc.), to communicate with the performer via email (see link at bottom of Figure 3 - "Write to Alex"), and thus enjoy at least a cybernetic sense of the community generated by a live recital.

(3) It is difficult or impossible for most musicians and music educators to gain access to a reasonable proportion of the large volume of related cultural and ancillary musical information relevant to performing or even appreciating a given musical work. Even examination of WebConcertHall alone suggests how well the web can provide access to a huge amount of relevant information that is extremely valuable to appreciating a given work. For example, in connection with Holton’s performance of a Telemann trumpet piece (Figure 3), through the link to "who is Telemann", a user can directly jump to a section specifically on Telemann (Figure 4) and, should he or she choose, from there directly to a section on "What is Baroque" (Figure 5). Such information is linked to other sites around the world and one can examine other art works from the time of Telemann that are not in this site, by linking directly to other art sites elsewhere in the world on the web (Figure 6), that are cited or referred to in this site. This solution depends for its realization upon salient web features (3), (4), (6), and (7). The built-in content arrangement alternatives, feature(3), allows the visitor to navigate among the sources of information in the order and to the extent he or she chooses. The images and text, together with the audio of the Telemann piece itself depend upon feature (4), wide scope of information representation modes. The ability to link WebConcertHall to other sites, anywhere in the web, to find relevant art and other information depends upon feature (6), extensible scope of content information. And finally, the fact that anyone, anywhere in the world can use WebConcertHall to explore this ancillary information depends upon feature (7), that the site itself be globally accessible. Though not detailed here, the same features are used to broaden the scope of information directly accessible through Musicalonline.com as well, providing a breadth of information previously unavailable to any interested person, regardless of where in the world they may be located, no matter how far it is from any reasonable center of musical activity.

Figure 4: WebConcertHall detail on Telemann

Figure 5: WebConcertHall detail on Baroque definition

Figure 6: Visual art of Telemann era, through WebConcertHall link

Two sites are presented, Musicalonline.com and WebConcertHall.com, as examples of solutions to problems in musical performance, music education, and communication among music professional that have grown more and more intractable in the last century, even as the need to solve them has become more and more obvious for the musical world. The solutions identified each depends upon the application of one or more salient features of the web to one or more aspects of the problems involved. The elaboration presented is not put forward as a comprehensive treatise but as suggestive, with the comment that further papers to advance the argument still further will be presented in the future, by these authors and others.

Readers are again advised to browse the two sites and review the arguments put forth above, to verify for themselves the degree to which the solutions are appropriate and worthwhile. Work in using the web is only in its infancy and readers and the Web browsers are urged to push forward with their own ideas in this area and to thereby improve upon these ideas or better yet, to contribute new and more powerful solutions of their own.

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