Design Sprints and Direct Experimentation: Digital Humanities + Music Pedagogy at A Small Liberal Arts College

In this essay, we detail the pedagogical collaboration between a digital humanities librarian, a professor of music and digital media, and a second-year music student that took the form of a design sprint. The product of the design sprint was the Mapping Sentiments through Music (MStM) application. Using this project as a case study, we argue that both digital humanities and music education share a commonality: both disciplines can incorporate elements of design thinking to be successful. As a result, our efforts center direct experimentation with a team, and foster design thinking by promoting descriptive exchange, creative problem solving, and the creation of emergent rather than explicitly delimited meanings. We conclude with several remarks on overlaps between music and design pedagogy, and on librarian-faculty collaborations.