No two people are likely to answer that question the same way. Enter open-ended software to solve the job, with tools like Max/MSP/Jitter and its open-source cousin, Pure Data (a.k.a. Pd). With these tools, you can create your own musical solution. Once musical information becomes numbers, patched around inside these virtual, modular environments, there’s no reason that data can’t flow over networks to locations thousands of miles away.
For Robert Henke, a.k.a. Monolake, networks create ways of letting two people perform together without being on the same stage. Using his tool Atlantic Waves (monolake.de/atlantic_waves), Monolake can play in Berlin with Scott Monteith (a.k.a. Deadbeat) in Montreal. The work itself, built in Max/MSP, looks like an abstracted circuit board, as a matrix of boxes, lights, and IM chat between the performers crosses the screen. Latency isn’t an issue, because the patch works only with control data, and much of that controls step sequencers — there’s no need for realtime interaction, which is a major issue since no technology is likely to break the laws of physics and space any time soon. Over time, Atlantic Waves has evolved, as the interface has increasingly become abstract art in itself, and controlled parameters have been extended from basic percussion samples to complex synthesis.
If you’re interested in building your own similar work, network communication objects are now included in Max/MSP/Jitter for sending simple control data locally or over the UDP or TCP/IP protocols to remote machines, and even broadcasting video and audio streams. Try the net.maxhole object for local communication, or the net.udp.send and receive and net.tcp.send and receive for network communication, or Jitter’s Networking objects.