With improvements in digital technology, audio encoding and delivery software and the introduction of world-wide copyright regulations for controlling the use of intellectual property on the Internet, the idea of the lone artist creating and living in obscurity, dependent upon large corporations for success and fame, is fast becoming a thing of the past. A single musician, or group of musicians, can now act as their own content creator, publisher, agent and distributor, bringing music directly to the consumer without the need for "middle men" – those parts of the industry which have proved to be a barrier in making underground music available to the public in the past, including retailers, distributors, and TV and radio tastemakers.

This phenomenon of allowing a single person to complete several tasks "in-house", using digital technology in this way, known as convergence is set to change the face of the music industry in the next few years. The popular music press is currently discovering and reporting on the technologies discussed previously in this paper, bringing the issue of digital music distribution out of the technical white papers and trade journals, to the attention of the music-buying public. The most recent articles in the music press include Kieran Wyatt's Is This the Future? From dance music monthly Muzik (No.41, October 1998),Music on the Internet and Will the Internet Kill the Music Business? From Computer Music (No.1, October 1998).

The computer has become the latest form of mass media, and following the tradition of radio and television before it, has greatly influenced society and the music that society creates and consumes. Just as the popularisation of radio brought about the increased importance of singles in an industry dominated by the album format, and the television allowed the rise of the music video and MTV (probably the greatest socio-musical innovation of the 1980s, after the compact disc), resulting in the imagery and iconography of the superstar phenomenon of the Eighties (Madonna, Michael Jackson, Bruce Springsteen etc), the Internet has not only changed the way people listen to music, but also the way people create it.

Electronic and digital media are by definition, democratic – their universality and ease of use allow the traditionally musically illiterate to create and record music with no great educational "capital". Furthermore, technology and innovation can be subverted and used for other purposes, in that a cassette player can also record, and a vinyl record can be used as an "instrument" to create something new, as with the scratching phenomenon of the late 1980s [60]. Perhaps the MP3 pirates and software hackers have shown the industry that music distribution on the Internet is a viable prospect - why would there be thousands of illegal MP3 sites if people didn"t download music files from them?

The recent change in the nature and demographic of the Internet from a mainly military/academic network to an entertainment medium is in keeping with a number of technical innovations which has preceded it, one example of which is broadcasting . Broadcasting was not inevitable, nor was it inherent in the technology used to create it, but was, a result of collaborations and developments between governments and industrial and cultural organisations.

Music software companies are also realising the potential of music-making in the digital age. One of the most innovative composition programs is Koan, designed by SSEYO, endorsed by Brian Eno and recently included in the Millennium Dome as a Millennium Product [61]. The Koan music program enables the user's computer to automatically generate music, based on a set of parameters keyed into the computer. Most of these parameters are controlled by the user at the target computer, making the music fully interactive rather than pre-recorded, as is the case with most music on the Internet, changing the traditional creator / audience relationship by integrating both aspects using the computer as a mediator. Koan is a Zen term for a mystery or puzzle with no logical conclusion, a term suited to the "composition" methods of the Koan system since the use of random, changing events means there is no logical "solution" to the music generated.

Koan music can be thought of as being comparable to a ball bearing travelling down a guide or chute. Each time the ball bearing makes its journey it will travel a different path, but the available paths are constrained by the chute. In a similar way Koan music is governed by an envelope of possibilities…Each time a Koan piece plays it will have certain boundaries set by the author, outside which the music will not go. All this means that the music can be different each time.

Tim Cole, co-founder SSEYO [62]

 Since Koan music compositions are only lists of parameters (similar to MIDI instructions) rather than recorded sounds, they travel around the Internet as very small files – usually around 7Kb, but sometimes as small as 1Kb – and can play for up to eight hours. Considering that a sixty-second, 16-bit digital audio (.au) file consumes 10.1Mb (around 10342 Kb), the Koan music system is a new development in Internet music technology, allowing users to listen to Koan compositions while browsing through a particular web-site, or while downloading large files which may take some time.

According to Richard Middleton, "The rise of the "mass" as a cultural phenomenon has qualitative effects, encouraging socialisation of production, collectivisation of reception and a new social and aesthetic meaning to the music itself"[63]. This is true of the Internet in two main ways – the instant availability of music on a global scale, and online collective music-making.

The growth of the music industry in the late 20 th Century led to the globalisation of popular music, allowing a single artist to make their music known in several continents within a short time frame. Michael Jackson has become one of the most famous pop icons in the world, his name is recognised in more countries than any other modern cultural icon, yet, like most artists, his material has been carefully targeted at specific territories at specific times – it is common for singles or albums by American artists to be released in the USA before travelling the world. Similarly, British artists are promoted and marketed within the UK market before attempting to "break" other territories such as the USA, Europe and Asia. The Internet has made the world a much smaller place, musically, and since the latest Madonna album could be purchased on the Internet before its commercial release in the UK, the immediacy of cyberspace will eventually have a dramatic effect on the structure and marketing techniques of the music industry, the availability of its products, and the method of music consumption by audiences world-wide.

As far as amateur music-making is concerned, the advent of real time audio, streaming technologies and improvements in audio quality and data transmission has allowed a new kind of collective music-making in the digital age. DRGN (Distributed Realtime Groove Network) software, developed by Res Rocket, enables musicians from all corners of the globe to interact in the creation of live, studio-quality music in real time over the Internet, using a multimedia computer and a General MIDI instrument or soundcard . This new concept in collective music-making develops further the production and performance practises offered by electronic and digital technology. New bands can now be created without the need for band members to be present in the same room, or even on the same continent [64].

DRGN 's user interface consists of five separate windows that allow users to communicate and to interact musically.

Chat window for Res Rocket's DRGN software

Individual musical parts are created and placed into the arrangement window (see diagram, below) by each user. The arrangement window, which uses blocks to represent sound samples is a familiar interface to any musician who has used a digital sequencing program such as Cubase or Performer . Each horizontal row on the arrangement window represents a track that belongs to an individual musician. Musicians use a transport window to control their individual samples, tempo, loop points etc, again, just like any digital sequencer. Sequences of music can be recorded using a MIDI keyboard, a guitar, or even the alphanumeric keys on the computer's keypad.

DRGN arrangement window and transport window (bottom right of picture)

What this means is that while the abundance of music production software on the Internet allows almost anyone to create music and therefore, some would argue, flood the market with a potentially endless stream of amateurish rubbish, making music creation available to those who have not been given the opportunity to make music before may result in the discovery of some of the greatest musical talent of our generation. This may be interpreted as a sweeping statement, but without the Beatles" (mis)use of the recording technology available to them, their legend and contribution to the recording industry would surely have been somewhat less than it actually is today.

Digital technology not only democratises the music-making process, making it available to almost anyone with a computer, it also opens the possibilities for those already working within the industry. One day, there may be no need for manufacturing plants, where vast amounts of money are invested in pressing vinyl, duplicating cassettes and cutting CDs. In the future, there may be no need for physical carriers of this kind, and music can be bought from and distributed to the consumer's home, track-by-track, on-demand and as needed. This music will be promoted on online radio stations or music video channels, from record company web-sites and directly from artist sites, where there will also be biographical and additional discographical information, and perhaps even some interactive games and feedback opportunities.

Before music is purchased, it can be previewed through one of many companies who are selling the songs, or through one of several music and genre guides, who will offer expert advice on buying music, as will the online CD retailers. Alternatively, a consumer may wish to read reviews of a particular CD in a digital magazine, and perhaps even listen to a few soundclips before buying the song directly from within the same page.

Since all this is possible today, there is no doubt that the Internet has had a substantial impact on the music industry, and as record companies adapt to digital distribution, streaming media, and electronic commerce, software programmers are developing the next wave of Internet music and multimedia technologies, which will once again revolutionise the way we create and consume music.

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