Sketching music together: Mixed groups exploring melodic similarity and contrast using a digital tabletop

In this article, we investigate whether and how a purposely built digital tabletop musical instrument (DTMI) can help groups of novices and casual users to explore music composition. Working together in small groups around the DTMI, our participants explored how the musical concepts of melodic similarity and contrast can convey narrative through musical structure. We build on our previous work that investigated a one-to-one learner–tutor scenario and expanded it to groups of peers. Similarly to our previous study, we adopted an exploratory and primarily qualitative approach, involving 24 participants divided into eight groups of three each, sampled from the general population via flyers and word of mouth. We structured the sessions as a series of open-ended discussions of the notions of similarity and contrast, starting from a general point of view, leading up to the task of inventing a short story and composing a melody to describe it. Although the two studies may appear superficially similar, the group element represents a fundamental difference, as we found. The combination of technology and group setting was instrumental in helping less experienced participants discuss music with more experienced participants by using a simplified yet expressive representation of music that could be used to discuss complex aspects of melody and composition.