Musicians collaborating online

Musicians collaborating online

With 80 per cent of UK internet users now on broadband, the idea of sharing large amounts of data is fast becoming more appealing. It no longer takes hours to download music tracks - they are ready to play within seconds. And this development has implications in music-making, too: not only can you upload tracks you have made in the traditional way to MySpace and iTunes; you can now collaborate and create music online too.

Ludovico Einaudi, the Italian pianist signed to Decca, recently completed just such a project. From his home in Milan, he used widely available tools and software to share new music with German electronic artist Robert Lippok, who lives in Berlin.

'We started exchanging files and ideas through the internet before meeting to record,' Einaudi explains. 'I could send something and two minutes later Robert was listening to it. Or he sent some electronic loops and I filled in with the piano.'

Einaudi says that though the project was largely improvisation-based, they did apply some musical structure. 'There was a composed idea that was always there,' he says. 'But we didn't fix all the elements, so every time we played it was slightly different.'

'We spent five or six days in a studio and came out with six hours of music. On the first day we already had 10 new pieces'

Lippok, who works solo, with his band To Rococo Rot and with other collaborators, says this system evolved naturally: 'We started to have a conversation on the internet via email and it took us quite a while to get together - almost three years I think. In the meantime I had a feeling that this would be a good way to exchange ideas.

'With Ludovico it was more than easy using the internet because he is a very communicative person,' he continues. 'His response to emails and the stuff I was sending him was very quick.'

The pair began by sending each other MP3s via free file-hosting website YouSendIt.com, and the process had soon generated enough musical sketches to justify a face-to-face meeting. 'In January I went to Berlin,' says Einaudi. 'We spent five or six days in a studio and came out with six hours of music. On the first day we already had 10 new pieces.'

'Before we came together we had already decided which aspects we wanted to use,' says Lippok.

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