Compositionism and digital music composition education

Abstract

This article aims to explore the sociomaterial relational activities within digital music composition education via the posthumanist concepts compositionism and assemblage. The study is an attempt at a nonlinear and non-reductivist understanding of educational activities where matter, nature, and culture shape performative practices. Engaging with Latour and Actor-Network Theory (ANT) and its onto-epistemological manifest as compositionism, the explorations also find impetus from posthumanist thinking, Barad’s intra-action, Haraway’s becoming-with, and post-qualitative inquiry. Four Year 9 classes in a Swedish compulsory school took part in the composing activity and the research intervention. During a four-week participation period, the music composition lessons were video-recorded. Sociomaterial transcriptions of the recorded lessons were transformed into assemblage compositions to explore the outcomes and becomings that emerged. What these sociomaterial compositions brings to the fore is the hybridity of digital music composition outcomes in learning activities.