Mutual Engagement in Social Music Making

Mutual engagement occurs when people creatively spark together. In this paper we suggest that mutual engagement is key to creating new forms of multi-user social music systems which will capture the public’s heart and imagination. We propose a number of design features which support mutual engagement, and a set of techniques for evaluating mutual engagement by examining the minutiae of inter-person communication. We illustrate these techniques through their use in empirical studies, and their use as part of artistic practice to design and evaluate new forms of collaborative music making.