[9] From a computational perspective, IoMusT refers to local or remote networks embedded with devices capable of generating and/or playing musical content.
[1][2][3] Thanks to the technological advances that have occurred in the last decades, its use has spread to several areas of performance, assisting in medical analysis, traffic control and home security.
Keller and Lazzarini,[13] use this term in ubiquitous music (ubimus) research, while Turchet et al.[14] define IoMusT as a subfield of the Internet of Things, where interoperable devices can connect to each other, aiding the interaction between musicians and the audience.
"[10] In short, these objects are entities that can be used for musical practice, can be connected in local and/or remote networks, and act as senders or receivers of messages.
[17] That said, the hardware challenges are clear, and these include the processing capacity, as well as the storage and power consumption of musical things, which must be good enough to withstand artistic performances, while not making these objects expensive or unergonomic and unwieldy.
[17] Possible solutions to these problems include the use of common IoT elements in music practice or the assignment of networking capabilities on behalf of traditional audio objects.
While not intended to replace the traditional model, it contributes to music creation and its social interactions, promoting creativity and the exchange of cultures.
[20][21] Among its main characteristics are: low latency, where the sounds produced should be heard almost instantaneously; synchronization, to prevent long delays from hindering interaction in the environment; interoperability through standardization, which allows different devices to communicate over the network; scalability, which makes the system comprehensive and allows distributed participation among users; and easy integration and participation, aspects that ensure that users have no difficulty in finding devices on the network, and can connect or disconnect from it whenever they want.
[22] As for the challenges in this area, they can be illustrated by the requirement for high bandwidth and ordering in the transmitted stream, and sensitivity to delay in the delivery of data packets.
[24] In this context, interactive art emerged, characterized by allowing the viewer a degree of active involvement in the show, either by walking among the installations and sculptures, or by producing sounds, images, and movements.
[25][26] The architecture of these environments is designed to handle different types of signals, ranging from audio and video to those produced by the human body, such as heartbeats.
Although its original proposal is focused on music production, current technological developments have opened new social and cognitive dimensions to this field, leading it to become increasingly interested in educational and artistic topics.
These aspects encourage the development of technologies for music creation, especially those that make use of common objects and spaces in the daily lives of those involved in the process.
Among the advantages observed from this are easy distribution (no installation required) and maintenance, platform and architecture independence, security (the browser can prevent plugins with incorrect behavior from affecting the system), and emergence of new types of collaboration.
It aims to provide numerous services, ranging from file storage to intercommunication between music applications, offering an unprecedented level of participation and performance.
[31] Despite all the advantages listed above about using cloud computing, its centralized mode of operation creates a lot of service load on the network, in particular on costs and bandwidth resources for data transmission.
In this way, objects present in the environment not only consume data and services, but also perform computational processing, decreasing stress on the network and significantly reducing latency in message exchange.
They must be able to fulfill three main goals: assign mobility to the user, that is, allow them to use the device in various locations; augment reality, such as generating images or sounds that are not part of the real world; and provide context sensitivity, which is the ability of the equipment to adapt to different environments and stimuli.
These consist of clothing enhanced with sensors and present some advantages over wearable devices, such as more comfort, more natural interfaces for human interaction and less intrusiveness.
From this, electronic devices that are worn next to the human body can be classified according to the location in which they are inserted (wrist, head, feet and so on) and whether they already exist or are still in the prototyping phase.
From this, it is necessary that these networks expand their operation beyond the current state-of-the-art, in order to provide better connection conditions and deal with the three aspects mentioned, in addition to ensuring synchronization and good quality of the representation of multimodal audio content.
With regard to latency, reliability and synchronization, they emerge as one of the main demands in the transmission of audio over a network and in real time, whether local or remote, wired or wireless.
[10] Despite providing advantages, such as the possibility of creation among musicians arranged in different locations around the globe, massive connectivity and new forms of participation by the audience, some problems stand out.
[38] Among the problems cited by the author are: abundance of technology for one part of the population and scarcity for another; establishment of standards and demands by the ruling class; submission of workers to large corporations; retention of economic power and loss of individuality of thought.
[44][45] IoMusT allows rethinking some musical activities, such as live performances and rehearsals, multiplying the possibilities of interaction between the actors involved in these scenarios (musicians, audience, sound engineers, teachers, students, etc.).
[10][46] Meanwhile, people who were unable to physically attend the performance venue can experience the concert using virtual reality glasses or 360° video systems, allowing them to see behind the scenes of the stage and the details behind the musicians.
[10][46] Another possible scenario is a studio that uses IoMusT concepts to record solo artists, duos and small groups as well as orchestras with a variety of instruments.
[10] Music learning is enriched by IoMusT by allowing the use of applications that display the scores to be played, capture audio in real time, and suggest improvements.