[Discuss] audio conferencing software suitable for performing music?

[worley at alum.mit.edu (Dale R. Worley)]

I did some poking around, and for egalitarian ensembles, it seems like
the upper limit of latency that can be tolerated is 20 to 25
milliseconds.  If I do a traceroute to www.google.com, the first hop
that has a DNS name is hop 5, and it has about 26 msec RTT.

It turns out that a millisecond of delay at the speed of sound is about
1 foot, so it's difficult for a group to be dispersed over 20 feet
apart.  There seems to be an exception in situations where e.g. a chorus
is stationed well in front of or behind an orchestra, because the
audience is in a single direction from both of them, and good conductors
can set proper delays between the groups.

I suspect this also accounts for the lack of plucked instruments in
orchestras (which are necessary to provide un-amplified music in large
halls) -- a group of them can't be synchronized well enough from all of
the audience's positions for the plucking to meld together.  So, much
guitar music, which was popular in early modern music, has been re-set
for violins.

Dale