Laptop Computers in Concert

While the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) continues its strategy of suing college students and others in an attempt to halt music sharing and preserve the industry's power over how music is recorded and distributed, technology continues to march on. Computers and the Internet not only provide new means for recording and distributing music produced by traditional means but they are also a means by which music can be created, performed and distributed.

In November 2007 Apple Computer Corporation teamed up with the music department of York University in England to assemble one of the world's first orchestra's composed entirely of laptop computers. Fifty students, using laptops, from the York University music department were assembled to create the World Laptop Orchestra. Apple Computer Corporation arranged for the orchestra to be assembled and perform three concerts during the month of November 2007. Dr. Ambrose Field, who is both an award winning composer and a member of the university's music department, was responsible for assembling and directing the 50 student orchestra. Unlike traditional orchestra's which consist of musicians playing different musical instruments, the student musicians in the World Laptop Orchestra all used laptop computers.

There is nothing new about using computers to produce music. As a young child I remember my Mother taking my brothers and sisters and I downtown to see Santa Claus and do Christmas shopping. My Father worked downtown and was to join us after work but, after parking the car, we stopped by to visit him at, what was then the main office of the Lincoln Rochester Trust Company, the city's largest bank. After introducing us to his co-workers, he took us down the hall to the bank's new computer department - a large, climate controlled room full of multi-million dollar IBM main frame computers. The men in the department greeted us and pointed out the different computers and what they did. My Mother was amazed at the check sorting machine which sorted checks by customer so that they could be included with the customer's statement and mailed back to them. In seconds the computer completed a job which had taken her most of a day a few years before when she worked in the check processing department and had to sort the checks by hand.

But the real power of these computers, for us and the workers in the department, came when one of the workers turned on a small transistor radio on a table near by. The only sound coming from the radio was static. However, that soon changed as another employee inserted a large stack of punch cards into the computer and pushed a button which caused the computer to quickly begin sucking the cards, one at a time but in very rapid succession, into itself at the end where the cards were stacked and depositing them into a neat stack on a tray at the other end of the computer. As the cards went through the computer the radio began playing Christmas carols. As anyone who has every worked in a large organization knows, the introduction of new technology brings out the creativity in employees who soon find a myriad of non-work applications for the new technology. My Father explained to us that the computer, like all pieces of electronic equipment, generate an electronic signal that can be picked up by radios if the radio is tuned to the same frequency as the signal.

The cards being run through the computer were known as keypunch cards. Before the advent of the personal computer, keypunch cards were the main method by which data was entered and stored for computing. Employees, known as keypunch operators, would use a typewriter like keyboard to type information which resulted in small holes being punched on cards in a row and column format. The location and order of the holes represented the data on the card. The people in the computer department of Lincoln Rochester Trust, in addition to typing customer data on cards (which was their real job) also figured out how to type data on other cards in a format such that, as they passed through the computer and the computer read the data the electronic signal generated by the computer's processing the data on the card would generate a tone playing the desired Christmas carol.

When I was a child musicians wrote and performed music, IBM and other computer companies produced computers and banks accepted deposits and made loans. Everything was neat and compartmentalized. Today, thanks to the PC revolution, the Internet and competition from Globalization these lines are being erased and no one is surprised that a company like Apple Computers is also a major player in music production and distribution as well as producing and selling computers.

The World Laptop Orchestra at York University performed three live concerts during November of 2007. All three were streamed live over the Internet by the University. While the University's website indicates that an archive of previous musical performances is being planned, to date the archive is not yet available and the only place I have found access to the music from the concerts is this video clip that accompanies the November 16, 2007 article that appeared in the Yorkshire Post.