In order to promote children’s collaborative musical creativity in new digital environments, we need a better understanding not only of the sound production capabilities provided by the new digital tools, but also of the interaction affordances involved. This study focuses on the interactional patterns emerging in children’s musical creativity, comparing creative group processes on iPad tablet computers (with GarageBand software) to processes on traditional musical instruments. Both instrumentations were assigned to five groups of four 10–12-year-olds for creating sound landscapes for a “space” movie. The traditional instrument groups’ processes were characterized by peer teaching as well as multimodal, improvisatory negotiations with rapid exchanges between the participants, both kinds of processes involving the intertwining of deictic expressions with hands-on musical demonstrations, and clear signs of group flow. By contrast, the tablet groups relied on solitary, parallel planning processes where possible coordinations between the participants took on a more abstract, conceptual form, at a remove from the actual musical ideas and their interplay. Also, there were far fewer signs of group flow than in the traditional instrument groups. In sum, the tablets did not seem to match traditional musical instruments in terms of their interactional and creative affordances. This may be because the traditional instruments offer richer textures of gestural and tactile qualities, visual cues, and spatial anchoring points for facilitating concrete musical interaction, and because the GarageBand software actually requires some reliance on abstract conceptual labels, channelling the participants’ attention toward pre-planning rather than hands-on musical play. The results are problematized with a view to our decision to treat the tablet computer as akin to a musical instrument rather than as an action environment of its own.

中文翻译：

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传统乐器和平板电脑中的互动能力：儿童音乐团体创造力研究

为了在新的数字环境中促进儿童的协作音乐创造力，我们不仅需要更好地了解新数字工具提供的声音制作功能，还需要更好地了解所涉及的互动能力。这项研究着眼于儿童音乐创造力中出现的互动模式，将iPad平板电脑（使用GarageBand软件）上的创作小组过程与传统乐器上的过程进行了比较。两种乐器都分配给五组，每组四个10至12岁，为“太空”电影创造声景。传统乐器小组的流程具有同伴教学，多模式，即席谈判以及参与者之间快速交流的特点，两种过程都涉及到动听的表演与交际的表达交织在一起，以及群体流动的明显迹象。相比之下，平板电脑小组则依靠单独的并行计划过程，参与者之间可能的协调采取了一种更为抽象的概念形式，而与实际的音乐思想及其相互影响相去甚远。而且，与传统乐器组相比，组流的迹象要少得多。总而言之，平板电脑的互动性和创造力似乎与传统乐器不匹配。这可能是因为传统乐器提供了更丰富的手势和触觉质感，视觉提示和空间定位点，以促进具体的音乐互动，并且因为GarageBand软件实际上需要一定程度地依赖抽象概念标签，因此将参与者的注意力转移到了预先计划而不是动手的音乐演奏上。考虑到我们决定将平板电脑视为类似于乐器而不是其自身的操作环境，结果存在问题。