We had a good discussion the other night at the Canvas Creative meetup about a number of things, and local is a big one.

Ableton just posted this interesting article on music making but I think it also applies to any creative practice.
https://www.ableton.com/en/blog/music-making-in-hyper-connected-world

Interested to hear any thoughts on it!

In 2003 I acted on a dream and tried to build a studio to collaborate remotely. I was living in India and felt that the future would be a sort or telecommuting for musicians, where we could do and books sessions online. At best, it was a limited success and at worst, a waste of time.

I feel some aspect of local is still essential for music. That's part of why I organised a SoundCloud community event when I lived in Hong Kong, that drew about 60 local musicians, when I moved to Singapore I organised another similar event (about 45 people). There's a whole bunch of reasons why music thrives on the back of local and a scene.

http://fernandogros.com/2011/02/reflections-on-imusic/
http://fernandogros.com/2012/05/singapore-soundcloud-meetup-the-review/

If I could go back to 2003 I'd still build that simple studio and try to share my music online. But, I would've put more effort into meeting and recording with local musicians. So much of what I did record back then is of little value now. And, I would've played out more. I spent so many hours playing guitar out in the garden, but I guess the peacocks and monkeys that heard me play are all dead by now.

Hey Fernando,
Interesting, thanks for the links/info.

I've spend the last 10 years performing remotely and occasionally in real life (meatspace!) as well, so know well what you mean.

I've experimented with a variety of virtual collab methods, from performing live internationally networked performances as cartoon buskers in SecondLife (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XVHoNhiowVA&list=PLD3F02305D166CEC4 ) to asynch collabs on platforms like Kompoz and others.

They all have their pros and cons, just like RL performances.

One thing I've found performing live virtually (thin emotional bandwidth channel as it may be) is that even having one person listening and chatting on the other end of the wire puts you in a performance mode that's mentally different from playing to an empty room. Mediated performance by avatar is also very different from streaming live video performing as well. Which is very different again from full bandwidth real life gigs.

All good imo, and a lot more room to explore as the tech gets better.

I'd love to get an RL band together again though!

Performance mode is a great phrase, I can see how this might work in virtual environments. Have to confess, I don't have experience with things like second life, though I have done some online collabs and working with live virtual studio projects.