Collaborative composition in educational settings

Historically, composition has been a process that takes place individually, and it is only recently that its research horizons have been broadened by considering group processes (Fautley, Reference FAUTLEY2005). The compositional process is characterised by its multidimensional nature, where musical, aesthetic and psychological aspects are joined in an artistic action. The complexity of the compositional process requires the composer to make a specific plan but to remain flexible while applying and revising the plan (Sloboda, Reference SLOBODA1985). In group composition, the scenario is even more complex, as composers have to manage both working and social dimensions during collaborative activities (Burland & Davidson, Reference BURLAND and DAVIDSON2001; Burnard & Younker, Reference BURNARD and YOUNKER2008).

Collaborative compositional tasks have been examined in educational contexts, with particular attention given to their social and communicative dimensions (Burland & Davidson, Reference BURLAND and DAVIDSON2001; McCarthy et al., Reference MCCARTHY, BLIGH, JENNINGS and TANGNEY2005; Hewitt, Reference HEWITT2008). In music education, compositional activities are useful for enhancing group creativity, encouraging the expression of children’s musicality and supporting social skills and cooperation within the class. Collaborative tasks, such as songcrafting, stimulate students to define group objectives and negotiate individual ideas in a shared musical product (Muhonen, Reference MUHONEN2016). Discussing and collectively assessing musical proposals are core abilities that could be acquired through collaborative tasks: children may learn that group work leads to a refined and elaborated musical product, strengthening the cohesiveness and cooperation among participants (McCarthy et al., Reference MCCARTHY, BLIGH, JENNINGS and TANGNEY2005). The development of the social dimension is important for promoting students’ ‘transversal’ skills and for creating positive and effective interpersonal relationships with peers (Burland & Davidson, Reference BURLAND and DAVIDSON2001).

Students’ interactions are focused on reaching specific compositional goals and planning, conducting and assessing group activities. Group composition supports in-depth critical reflection of actions and decisions through the evaluation of proposals and feedback by other group members (Biasutti, Reference BIASUTTI2018); here, flexibility is an essential requirement, as the social dimension implies the constant negotiation of actions and outcomes within the group. Although constant negotiation in compositional activity requires great effort from group members, it allows the creation of a more refined product than individual work (McCarthy et al., Reference MCCARTHY, BLIGH, JENNINGS and TANGNEY2005).

Several aspects of the management of social interactions have been studied in educational contexts, such as interpersonal relationships and the distribution of leadership (Burland & Davidson, Reference BURLAND and DAVIDSON2001; Burnard & Younker, Reference BURNARD and YOUNKER2008). Social interactions during collaborative educational compositional activities are focused on the achievement of common goals and may include the use of tools, the rules of the group and the division of work (Burnard & Younker, Reference BURNARD and YOUNKER2008). The division of work is connected to the relationship model of the group: vertically linked relationships are usually organised hierarchically, with leaders and followers, while horizontally linked relationships are characterised by an equal distribution of leadership. The management of interpersonal exchanges depends on the personal and professional features of the group participants, which result in multifaceted interactional patterns (Hewitt, Reference HEWITT2008).

The development of students’ musical and social skills is one of the main benefits of collaborative compositional activities, and it would be interesting to understand how the teacher can facilitate the learning process, encouraging both musical creation and social exchange (Muhonen, Reference MUHONEN2016). Technology and online tools can support music educators in structuring group activities for creating music (Thorgersen, Reference THORGERSEN2012) and motivating students to be engaged in collaborative creative tasks.

Online collaborative music making and music education

Online collaborative music making is an emerging research topic that has attracted scholarly attention in music education. Research has provided evidence that online settings can successfully support the management of collaborative activities in music composition (Biasutti, Reference BIASUTTI2018). From a global perspective, multimedia tools allow people to communicate and collaborate despite physical distance, and websites and software for online collaborative musical activity are becoming accessible and intuitive (Gibson & Dovey, Reference GIBSON and DOVEY2006; McCarthy et al., Reference MCCARTHY, BLIGH, JENNINGS and TANGNEY2005), enabling people from several countries – and with different levels of musical expertise – to work collaboratively. A high level of creativity is involved, as people expand on current ideas to give rise to a product that did not exist before (Webster, Reference WEBSTER2002). In addition, virtual spaces allow musicians to co-create in musical communities, to share their expertise and to exchange ideas and best practices (Partti & Westerlund, Reference PARTTI and WESTERLUND2013; Salavuo, Reference SALAVUO2006; Waldron, Reference WALDRON, Bartlett and Higgins2017). Online communities are focused on specific musical tasks (Partti & Westerlund, Reference PARTTI and WESTERLUND2013), which implies a high level of motivation on the part of the participants that are engaged in musical activities (Salavuo, Reference SALAVUO2006).

Collaborative composition has also had an impact in music education research (Biasutti, Reference BIASUTTI2015, Reference BIASUTTI2018; Partti & Westerlund, Reference PARTTI and WESTERLUND2013) because collaborative online music making can link formal and informal music education settings (Green, Reference GREEN2009). In virtual learning contexts, collaborative compositional activities are mainly directed by communicative exchanges of two different codes: verbal and musical. While language is used for managing social interactions and organising compositional activities, the musical code is essential for sharing ideas and feedback about the current musical progress (Biasutti, Reference BIASUTTI2015; Partti & Westerlund, Reference PARTTI and WESTERLUND2013).

It is also relevant to examine the processes and phases in which collaborative compositional tasks are structured. The learning activities of adult musicians during the composition of a rock piece through online collaboration were analysed in a pilot study (Biasutti, Reference BIASUTTI2018), which found that the participants interacted using synchronous and asynchronous tools to develop the composition project. The following five learning activities were identified as: experimenting, listening/evaluating, constructing, playing and technical issues.

Summary of the theoretical background

An analysis of previous studies highlighted the importance of the social dimension of collaborative composition in music education, revealing that the management of interpersonal relationships plays a central role in defining strategies, objectives and stages. The interactions are focused on the organisation, the management of the task (Biasutti, Reference BIASUTTI2018), the discussion of the compositional process and the products. Social variables affecting collaborative composition include the characteristics of the group (Hewitt, Reference HEWITT2008), the leadership model (Burnard & Younker, Reference BURNARD and YOUNKER2008) and the level of interpersonal relationships (Burland & Davidson, Reference BURLAND and DAVIDSON2001). Two main styles of communication have been highlighted as follows (Biasutti, Reference BIASUTTI2015; Partti & Westerlund, Reference PARTTI and WESTERLUND2013): one based on verbal interactions and the other on the musical manipulation of the compositional product. While interventions in the musical piece are based on the direct application of compositional strategies (and the consequent feedback from the other members), verbal interactions are focused on sharing and negotiating the different stages of the musical task (Biasutti, Reference BIASUTTI2018). There is a need to investigate how a lack of personal acquaintance may affect the management of a collaborative compositional task in a virtual environment, where communication may occur only through multimedia devices. The current study examines the organisation of compositional activities and the learning strategies adopted during a collaborative online task.

Group 1

Group 1 comprised of two male composers, with a similar level of expertise in electroacoustic music composition: they were both college students, with academic curricula based on musical composition. They showed many similarities, related not only to some of their demographic characteristics (gender and age) but also to their academic and professional backgrounds. The two composers actively participated in several international electroacoustic music artistic events. The group managed the compositional process in a mixed way, alternating synchronous meetings – Moodle chat and Skype meetings – with asynchronous activity – Moodle Forums and OhmStudio software. With the OhmStudio platform, they often worked and communicated asynchronously, as reported in the final interview: ‘Most of the time was asynchronous (…)’, although they also held some synchronous sessions. They worked with continuity except for occasional interruptions mainly due to academic and job commitments. They made a regular plan of their activity, as they explained in the interview ‘This regularly scheduled time allowed us to work consistently and in a collaborative way’. They successfully completed their task in a six-month period.

Both composers shared equal roles in planning and making decisions in a collaborative process. Neither of them was definitely the leader, as they stated in the final interview ‘We moved between leading and following. Sometimes we would be working on the same section, other times on different sections. I would say there was no concretely defined roles’ and ‘There was no hierarchy to the project or defined roles’. Their communication model was based on a horizontal relationship (Burnard & Younker, Reference BURNARD and YOUNKER2008), and their relationship was based on democratic cooperation.

Their compositional objectives were defined by ‘brainstorming’ ideas, where they decided the main topic of their work. The current socio-political national (USA) and international events were considered, and a satirical approach was adopted. Focusing on these ideas, the composers exchanged some source material, manipulated it and defined the structure of their project, as they reported as follows: ‘We then began experimenting with some material we brought and quickly decided to use sound samples….’. They collaboratively decided on their objectives, the digital sound techniques and the upcoming individual tasks for developing the compositional project. They then worked independently on the sound tracks, as they reported in the activity diary when describing a session at an intermediate stage of the project: ‘We both worked independently’. The composers started from recorded materials, using techniques such as granulation and sound distortion to obtain a noisy effect. They also merged sounds from different sources, looking for a chaotic sound space. The musical idea that guided their work was the progression from recognisable sound events to noise and vice versa. At the end of each individual work, they collaboratively monitored the progress, reviewed the output when needed and decided which further actions should be taken, as stated in the following passage: ‘We now have a better idea of how the piece might work and will continue individual work until next Thursday’. Each step of the compositional activity was determined in advance, and they coordinated their individual work (‘Today we focused on making long noise files’). They showed effective organisation of the work, sharing and maintaining regular communicative exchanges with each other. They also managed to create a good interpersonal relationship and a positive climate, as they often used humour and warm-up chatting (‘What happens if we put a group of electroacoustic composers in rooms with only ok internet access … they stop being polite and start getting real’). Their interpersonal interactions were not limited to the compositional task; they also chatted, told jokes and talked about current events (‘Aside from this, we discussed current movement towards right wing support in European countries such as Belgium and Austria’).

Group 2

Group 2 included three experienced composers (two male and one female) with different artistic backgrounds: two were conservatory students specialising in musical composition, and the third was a professional musician who was also an active electroacoustic composer. During the project, the composers worked mainly asynchronously, using the Moodle forum and updating each other about the latest steps of their activity through e-mail messages. They worked with continuity and completed their task successfully in approximately four months.

The compositional work started with the proposal of a few acoustical ideas, which were developed freely by each group member. The explorative strategy was proposed by one member as follows: ‘I’d rather develop lots of materials and see how you guys sequence, process – or don’t – them’. Group members followed this proposal, as one reported in the final interview: ‘At the beginning of the project, B. brought the idea that we all put one sound on the dropbox … and create variations on the other sounds’. The compositional objectives were not defined in advance but rather emerged intuitively after the first sessions of individual work through a bottom-up process. Starting from an initial musical idea, they generated several variations, mixing them up in the sound track. They worked at their subtasks and uploaded their new tracks directly into the compositional project, offering written explanations of the work done. The whole group then listened and evaluated the musical products, deciding democratically whether to accept or revise them. Their work was realised with fixed media and was based on a collaborative transformation of sound events. The piece was created as variations on one main theme, as stated by one participant in the final interview: ‘I started thinking of the idea of variations’.

During the project activity, each member took on a specific role within the group, in a communicative model based on vertical relations (Burnard & Younker, Reference BURNARD and YOUNKER2008). One of the three participants was positively recognised as the leader by the other participants, as noted in the following messages: ‘Thanks for taking the lead on this project’ and, in the final interview, ‘B. took the reins and began sequencing material. Inspired by her work I then uploaded more materials, which were then used to complete the work’. After the first phase of compositional experimentation, the leader made a structured proposal for organising the whole compositional work. She also monitored the activity, asked for feedback from her colleagues, maintained contact with the researchers for project information (activities, deadlines and material) and reported the progress of the group in the activity diary. One of her colleagues had a more creative role, while the second seemed to be a follower. All the three managed to include a personal touch in their compositional work in which their different artistic experiences emerged. The ‘group leader’ showed a particular interpersonal sensitivity while also maintaining a positive climate within the group when discussing contrasting ideas, as indicated in the following message: ‘I’m sorry you don’t like the title, R.’ This quote highlights that she showed empathy for a colleague who did not totally agree with a group decision. She also often mediated between her two teammates who sometimes argued due to contrasting ideas.

Group 3

Group 3 included three male composers, with similar artistic backgrounds. They were all students, and they practiced many different compositional strategies in electroacoustic composition, such as algorithmic composition, granulation, micro-montage and soundscape recordings. They worked asynchronously, using the Moodle forum as their main tool for communicating ideas and discussing the activity. They alternated periods of intensive work with breaks lasting a few weeks, and they completed the project work in seven months.

The compositional work started with a planning phase in which members did some preliminary research to find ideas for their compositional task, as they reported in the following passage: ‘We do some combined research to plan a work in three movements’. Then, the composers defined the objectives of their activity and the characteristics of the piece they wanted to create, as reported by one member in the final interview: ‘The first step was to establish what we wanted to do as a group and what the final composition would be like’. They planned a structured task to reach the compositional goals. As one member said in the final interview, they focused on ‘Deciding a theme, planning and delegating’, which highlights a top-down compositional process. Composers started recording sounds, manipulated them with granular synthesis and created ascending and descending pitch patterns sonifying specific sounds.

The participants of group 3 took on similar roles, sharing and distributing the leadership in a horizontal model (Burnard & Younker, Reference BURNARD and YOUNKER2008). They paid attention to strategic aspects: they started planning the working strategies and defining the compositional objectives, as indicated in the following quote: ‘That way we would end up with a three section work with each of us working in three separate ways’. Although they were well organised in terms of activity management, they sometimes demonstrated difficulties in keeping in touch with each other (this was one of the main causes of their breaks). These difficulties may have occurred because they planned each individual task in detail but did not define a specific time schedule. As one participant reported, ‘We simply decided to take a movement each, so not much organising had to be done, other than planning for ourselves to create each movement’. In general, the working environment was perceived as positive, and their communicative exchanges were characterised by a good climate.

Final composition model

Considering the activities performed by the three groups, the following model could be proposed as:

1. 1. context definition;

2. 2. planning/organising;

3. 3. experimenting/generating;

4. 4. constructing and

5. 5. evaluating.

In the context definition phase, the participants discussed the context in which the piece could be developed, explicating the surrounding ideas. In the planning/organising phase, the aims of the activities were defined or emerged, and a general framework of how to develop the piece was discussed. The design of the activities was implemented, defining the objectives, the way of working and the general organisation. The discussion involved a constant negotiation of goals, roles and responsibilities, with a great involvement of individuals’ social competence. This recursive phase occurred several times for redefining the aims and organisation of the activities (e.g., when something was not working). The experimenting/generating phase was characterised by the creation of musical events, through the elaboration of sound material and/or recorder tracks in an attempt to discover musical ideas to use in the piece. When constructing, the events were assembled and mounted in a coherent way. At this stage, a compositional grammar was generated. Finally, in the evaluating phase, the sound material was listened to and discussed. This was a recursive phase that occurred several times to assess specific sections or the whole piece and ensure constant monitoring of the task progresses.

The five phases could be seen in the working process of all the groups. However, the model assumed a personalised structure for each project team: while group 1 mainly followed the general model structure, group 2 started with an experimenting phase, leaving the definition of the context until after the conclusion of the musical ideas generation. Group 3 repeatedly alternated between the constructing and evaluation phases until the end of the project, which was characterised by an overall evaluation of the musical product.

Differences and similarities among groups

The main features of the collaborative compositional activity of each group were examined and compared using the following previously described indicators: working approach, relational model, members’ roles, leadership, organisation and compositional process. Indicators and examples of quotations are reported in Table 2.

Table 2. The Main Indicators and Examples from Participant Quotations

Participants interacted exclusively in a virtual environment to manage all phases of the compositional task. Verbal interactions were linked to the compositional activity that took place in the OhmStudio working space. Each group showed a communicative style connected with a specific working modality, according to their personal characteristics and organisation possibilities. Group 1 often adopted synchronous communicative exchanges (Skype meetings and chat) to create a close interpersonal relationship, sharing the leadership of the project equally. Conversely, groups 2 and 3 preferred asynchronous communication, probably due to time zone differences and personal commitments.

A main difference between groups involved the definition of specific roles and the management of leadership. Groups 1 and 3 shared a relational structure similar to the ‘horizontal relationship model’ (Burnard & Younker, Reference BURNARD and YOUNKER2008). Conversely, the relationships in group 2 were based on a hierarchical structure, where one member demonstrated a leading role during the online activity. Group 2 was the most heterogeneous of the three, not only in terms of professional expertise but also demographic characteristics (gender and age). This was the only group with a female composer, and one member was significantly older than the other two.

There were some differences in the organisation and the compositional process regarding the strategies used for starting and planning the activities. The composers in group 1 defined the project goals in a preliminary stage – before starting the compositional task – choosing their musical objectives after discussing and negotiating several ideas through a sort of virtual brainstorming. Members of group 3 also dedicated time to searching for themes and topics that could be used as musical cues for composing their piece. Group 2 adopted a more inductive process for defining the objectives; however, a different bottom-up strategy emerged as follows: participants started experimenting with variations and sound manipulations of a musical event with the aim of having musical objectives emerge gradually. The main features of the indicators for each group are reported in Table 3.

Table 3. Main Indicators of the Collaborative Compositional Process for Each Project Team