Co-Designing Virtual Reality Musical Instruments and Spatial Layouts for Collaborative Music-Making

Alberto Boem; Stavros Skouras; Gad Baruch Hinkis; Mélodie Mousset; Luca Turchet

Co-Designing Virtual Reality Musical Instruments and Spatial Layouts for Collaborative Music-Making
Image credit: Alberto Boem; Stavros Skouras; Gad Baruch Hinkis; Mélodie Mousset; Luca Turchet

Abstract:

Collaborative music-making in Virtual Reality (VR) presents unique challenges that intertwine instrument design, spatial arrangement, and social dynamics. This paper presents findings from a participatory co-design study investigating rhythmic instruments and spatial layouts for collaborative VR music, conducted entirely within PatchWorld with nine participants from its user community. Through iterative prototyping across two workshops, participants in our study converged on design principles favoring VR-native interactions over approximations of physical instrument. The co-design process yielded two contributions: the Universal Rhythm Box, a collaborative rhythmic instrument whose design parameters were wholly derived from structured participant feedback; and a spatial environment arranged for mixed-skill ensembles incorporating tiered access zones and semicircular arrangements. Our findings suggest that spatial layout and instrument design are inseparable in collaborative VR. We also identify attribution ambiguity as a key challenge in networked ensembles, and provide empirically-grounded guidelines prioritizing visual feedback as a primary expressive dimension for group playing in VR.