Music in the key of iPhone

Long front page story  — by Claire Cain Miller and Miguel Helft in the December 4, 2009 New York Times — short: "... the Stanford Mobile Phone Orchestra, with its avant-garde compositions and electronic renditions of popular songs like Led Zeppelin’s 'Stairway to Heaven,' is trying to push the frontiers of the four-decade-old field of computer music."

More: "Ge Wang, the assistant professor of music who leads the two-year-old Stanford group, says the iPhone may be the first instrument — electronic or acoustic — that millions of people will carry in their pockets. 'I can’t bring my guitar or my piano or my cello wherever I go, but I do have my iPhone at all times,' he said.... Professor Wang said he would like to democratize the process of making music, so that anyone with a cellphone could become a musician."

And: "In the future, Professor Wang said, a music ensemble could be made up of any group of people playing music together, no matter where they are physically.... Professor Wang has talked to the San Francisco Symphony about a joint performance, with traditional and iPhone instruments, and he hopes to someday host a concert with musicians and amateurs from across the globe playing their iPhones all at once."