What are some good examples of real time virtual music making?
To answer this question I would mention the project Music World designed by Sean Kelly and Christopher Sung ( Virtual Music, Chapter 4, 78) an online world to mix sounds, compose patterns to a “live” online album.
Another example that comes to my mind is Web Drum (Virtual Music) , the online multiplayer drum machine that can be played by one person up to seven people per session. In this program there are different types of drums for people to play. Users can join an existing session and share the editing of a drum pattern, alter rhythm , tempo, pitch and sound color.
I also think that the program Garage Band can be considered as real time virtual music making. This program contains music samples that can be combined by the users. We used this program in the past weeks for our composition assignment and as we realized this program offers a wide variety sounds, instruments, rhythms and colors which can be mixed freely. One can play around with all these possibilities and let the imagination work. I personally found this project to be very compelling and creative.
As we often hear: the internet connects people. I agree with Steve Jones, nowadays the internet offers different online music communities where users can share similar preferences and interests. These communities, of various genres, are inclusive and exclusive at the same time. So, we can see that music industry, like musicians, works around the audience and this situation has not change very much throughout the history.