Guaranteeing Equitable Musical Collaboration: Lessons Learned from the Music-Making Activities in Mixed-Hearing Groups

Integrating mixed-hearing groups in musical collaboration presents unique challenges and opportunities for their communication and equal contribution. This observational study aims to explore their collaborative work, focusing on the way for equitable music-making. We observed two music-making workshops to identify the potential and dynamics of their musical collaboration. While the first workshop proceeded in a traditional manner of music-making, the second workshop used an assistive tool with multimodality. Our findings highlight the dynamics in musical collaboration that foster engagement and bridge interaction gaps. In turn, sensory inclusion with multimodal music-making promoted role transition in mixed-hearing groups and their equal contributions, leading to the embracing of diverse cultural perspectives. Based on the insights derived from the observations, we propose a design guideline and future research directions for harnessing group dynamics and building equitable musical collaborations for an inclusive environment for mixed-hearing groups.