New paths to music-making

This project explores how early music-making can become more accessible, social, and confidence-building for beginners, especially children aged 9–12. Creating music, rather than performing or analyzing it, can be inaccessible for young novices. Many young beginners feel lost when faced with open-ended creative tasks, unsure where to start, and quick to compare themselves to professionals. Existing tools frequently isolate users and lack the structure or social context needed for creative agency. In response, this project proposes a board game-inspired tool that enables collaborative composition using physical pieces and paper templates. The tool offers an alternative way into music-making, acknowledging that different users engage in different ways and experience different barriers. Designed to grow with the user, it supports both playful experimentation and deeper creation, even allowing users to co-create at different levels of complexity. A low-tech approach combined with sustainable materials and open-source design ensures long-term accessibility, adaptability, and ownership.