Interviews with Practitioners Shaping Internet-Based Collaborative Music-Making

Jiayue Wu

Proceedings of the International Conference on New Interfaces for Musical Expression

Abstract

This paper presents a qualitative study of networked audio based on interviews with nine leading artists, developers, and educators shaping collaborative music-making across distance, industry, and academia. Conducted between 2023 and 2025, the interviews provide firsthand perspectives from developer–researchers, artist–scholars–educators, and industry founders working in academic, commercial, and independent contexts. The study examines the experiences, values, and community practices sustaining networked music performance (NMP). Interviewees connect technical challenges—latency, audio quality, scalability, and accessibility—to broader social concerns, including pedagogy, inclusion, environmental responsibility, and artistic intention. Situating these developments within the longer history of telematic practice, the paper traces how open-source initiatives, commercial platforms, and artist-led organizations have collectively shaped NMP into a distributed socio-technical ecosystem. Special attention is given to women leaders whose mentorship and institutional initiatives have expanded access and strengthened professional networks. Three pedagogical case studies further demonstrate how network audio functions as a student-centered, intercultural learning environment across K–12 and higher education settings. Drawing together open-source, industry, and artistic perspectives, this paper argues that networked music is best understood not as a sequence of technological breakthroughs, but as an evolving cultural infrastructure co-constructed through artistic experimentation, pedagogical innovation, and institutional leadership.

Citation

Jiayue Wu. 2026. Interviews with Practitioners Shaping Internet-Based Collaborative Music-Making. Proceedings of the International Conference on New Interfaces for Musical Expression. DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.20784139 [PDF]

BibTeX Entry

@inproceedings{nime2026_41,
 abstract = {This paper presents a qualitative study of networked audio based on interviews with nine leading artists, developers, and educators shaping collaborative music-making across distance, industry, and academia. Conducted between 2023 and 2025, the interviews provide firsthand perspectives from developer–researchers, artist–scholars–educators, and industry founders working in academic, commercial, and independent contexts. The study examines the experiences, values, and community practices sustaining networked music performance (NMP). Interviewees connect technical challenges—latency, audio quality, scalability, and accessibility—to broader social concerns, including pedagogy, inclusion, environmental responsibility, and artistic intention. Situating these developments within the longer history of telematic practice, the paper traces how open-source initiatives, commercial platforms, and artist-led organizations have collectively shaped NMP into a distributed socio-technical ecosystem. Special attention is given to women leaders whose mentorship and institutional initiatives have expanded access and strengthened professional networks. Three pedagogical case studies further demonstrate how network audio functions as a student-centered, intercultural learning environment across K–12 and higher education settings. Drawing together open-source, industry, and artistic perspectives, this paper argues that networked music is best understood not as a sequence of technological breakthroughs, but as an evolving cultural infrastructure co-constructed through artistic experimentation, pedagogical innovation, and institutional leadership.  },
 address = {London, United Kingdom},
 articleno = {41},
 author = {Jiayue Wu},
 booktitle = {Proceedings of the International Conference on New Interfaces for Musical Expression},
 doi = {10.5281/zenodo.20784139},
 editor = {Benedict Gaster and João Tragtenberg and Anna Xambó and Tom Mitchell},
 issn = {2220-4806},
 month = {June},
 note = {},
 numpages = {9},
 pages = {351--359},
 title = {Interviews with Practitioners Shaping Internet-Based Collaborative Music-Making},
 track = {Paper},
 url = {http://nime.org/proceedings/2026/nime2026_41.pdf},
 year = {2026}
}