Can a musical background and the simple awareness of being “together” transform a solitary work session into a shared, embodied, pedagogically meaningful experience — even through screens? This experiential workshop invites participants to bring their own real task, work for 45 minutes with curated sound environments, and reflect together on what emerged.
This is not a lecture about music, productivity or wellbeing. It is a live, collective auto-ethnographic experience in which participants are invited to observe, document and share what happens to their engagement, focus, presence and sense of belonging when two mediators are introduced into a real work session: sound (curated musical environments) and togetherness (the awareness of working simultaneously with others).
The session unfolds in three phases.
Phase 1: Framing (15 minutes).
I share the simple rules of the experience, introduce its pedagogical rationale, and we begin the work session together. Participants will have received asynchronous pre-session materials including a brief orientation document and a short entry questionnaire exploring their habitual relationship with sound, music and focused work.
Phase 2: Working together (45 minutes, depending on session format).
Participants engage with their own task — studying, writing, designing, planning, reading, creating — while I provide, live, a curated sequence of sound environments: a phase of white/brown noise; a phase of original ambient music produced by me as musician and producer; and a phase in which participants are free to choose their own background sound. During this time, participants are also invited to take part in periodic micro check-ins through a simple dedicated app: at a frequency they choose themselves (every 5, 10 or 15 minutes), they respond with a brief signal — “I am here, I am working, I am on track” — or, if they wish, a word or emoji capturing their state. Participants may also choose not to be interrupted at all, opting out of the check-in entirely and simply working in uninterrupted immersion — this too is part of the experience, and a valid choice. These check-ins serve a double function for those who use them: self-monitoring (metacognitive anchor) and collective pulse (I am part of a “we” that is working right now, together, even if apart).
Participation is possible in two modes. Individual: each person works on their own task, knowing they are sharing the time and the sound environment with others. Group: small teams who have a shared task (a co-authored document, a collaborative project, a joint file) work on it together within the session, experiencing the sound environment as a shared space of production.
Phase 3: Restitution (30 minutes).
Participation in this phase is entirely voluntary. Those who wish to stay are invited to share, verbally and orally, what they noticed during the 45 minutes of work: through voice, through conversation, through the simple act of putting into words what was lived in silence. The conversation explores how the sound environment and the sense of shared presence affected (or did not affect) their experience of working. Those who prefer not to stay for the oral restitution can still contribute through the post-session questionnaire, which will be made available asynchronously for deeper individual reflection.
The pedagogical aim is twofold. First, to make visible how a sound-musical mediator can function as an experiential anchor — operating in the space between engagement, motivation and wellbeing — in digitally mediated work and learning. Second, to explore how the awareness of being part of a “we” constitutes a distinct relational mediator, one that can sustain presence and belonging even in a fully remote, screen-mediated setting. Both mediators are examined not as productivity tools but as dimensions of a pedagogy that takes embodied experience, care and metacognitive awareness seriously.
At its core, the session asks: can the transformation of a lived moment into an explicit, documented, shared experience happen through screens — and if so, what role do sound and togetherness play in that transformation?
Proposed Session Duration: 90 minutes (15 + 45 + 30)
