Week 17 - Changing the domain of Musical Collaboration (END)

Let us return back to February - 

My initial perception of group projects was negative, largely due to the sheer amount of responsibility and effort required in motivating and typically leading a group of peers. This time round it was an entirely different story.

Why might have this been the case? Sawyer (2008) states that 'group flow is more likely to occur when all participants play an equal role in the collaborative creation'. This makes total sense - in reference to my mathematical collaboration I didn't have to worry about motivating members of the group because they already had plenty of self-motivation to do well. There was always something to be getting on with in the project and as Tom rightly pointed out at our online meeting, 'setting anything in stone' would likely have lead to a stultification of the collaborative process and a loss of motivation - especially if a member of the group was left out to figure out what to contribute without support.

Thanks to the support of Peer A, we were able to tabulate all of our meetings into a useful graph that showcases how our time was used in each of the sessions inspired by the work of Clarke, Doffman, and Timmers (2016) where they created similar graphs to show a breakdown of what happened in conversation across a series of workshops.

Two main points spring to mind with these tables:

1. Notice the length of each meeting. At the beginning, where we weren't able to 'play' as much - our sessions were a lot shorter and as the deadline got closer to recording, so did the session length. This probably links in with the motivation element of the project - when there is a clear goal to work towards, there is a willingness to work together and connects well with the 5 principles of synergy mentioned here.

2. It was actually surprising to see how little social time was present in the majority of these sessions. We had a natural tendency to reserve social time for before and after sessions, which made our sessions effective. I was a bit confused at first as to why Meeting 10 had little social time given this happened - but I suppose Peer A took a leaf from the reading of Sansom where 'valuing everything' is a crucial part to being fully aware of the musical ideas that are being presented.

The whole project has gone through a huge transformation: from its inception at the start as a sound installation that was to be performed live to a recorded performance that uses electronics in imaginative formats - it was a blessing in disguise that in the end we shifted our focus to recording rather than live performance. If we hadn't been so flexible with our approach 'keeping doors open', then the final performance could have ended up with an awkward technological delay - the biggest take-away lesson from this entire module.

In terms of my own development, there has been little change in the MBTI result from the beginning of the project to the end. This is not entirely surprising given that Dweck (2008) suggests that changes in personalities are based on changes in our 'in-between' qualities such as belief systems and coping strategies rather than changes in our direct broad personality traits like extrovert/introvert. I wouldn't expect our own belief systems to be changed over a period of 7 weeks and perhaps reflects on the reason why this collaboration probably leans more towards complementary where it's not as transformative for the field and participants.

However, in terms of competencies (looking at Vygotsky's zones of proximal development) - I feel more at ease with using Ableton and relevant equipment (Push II) and of course learnt a thing or two about recording! I perhaps didn't really provide anything new to Peer B with regards to technological development, however I feel my naturally enquiring mind and the problems that arised hopefully developed Peer B's skills in problem solving within his strengths. Meanwhile, for Peer A, I feel I was able to help with his desire to learn western traditional notation and as a result of this he was able to create a beautiful looking score using these concepts, especially in the first movement.

The all-important question, did I/we change the domain of musical collaboration with our BHAG? Of course I/we didn't - and within the timings of this module it would have been pretty much impossible to cram what is usually a process that takes years into 17 weeks. But what we did achieve within the time-frame is impressive and I feel that the BHAG did help towards pushing our limits. We were able to innovate, create and realise a project that we only started working on face to face just 6 weeks ago and we were all so impressed with the professionalism of the final output that we decided to share it out with the world on Facebook and Instagram to celebrate our achievements and receive useful feedback. 

When all members of a group unanimously decide to share their work to the world, especially as young artists (John-Steiner, 2000), then you know that the project has been success and I for one know that it has benefitted my career as a musician for many years to come as my whole view on group collaborations has been turned upside down.

In conclusion, starting my university experience as a purely classical musician - I feel this project has been an excellent culmination of my development as a contemporary composer and performer over the past four years and I am extremely proud (and relieved) to have finished my final Thomas Armstrong module on what has been my most daring, risk-taking and successful project to date.

References

Clarke, E., Doffman, M., & Timmers, R. (2016). Creativity, Collaboration and Development in Jeremy Thurlow's Ouija for Peter Sheppard Skærved. Journal of the Royal Musical Association, 141. p. 135-137

Dweck CS. (2008) Can personality be changed? The role of beliefs in personality and change. Curr Dir Psychol Sci. 2008;17(6):391-394. doi:10.1111/j.1467-8721.2008.00612.x

John-Steiner, Vera, 2000: Creative Collaboration. Oxford: Oxford University Press

Sawyer, K. (2008) Group Genius: The Creative Power of Collaboration. Basic Books.  

A huge thank you to my big moderation team throughout the past 5 months - ensuring the forum rules have been adhered to throughout. Your underpaid services have not gone unnoticed :)