The work described here forms part of a project using models of musical ideas within an artificial intelligence and education framework whose goal is to encourage and facilitate music composition by novices. Formal knowledge of the domain (popular music) is too incomplete and fragmented to support a traditional expert-based tutor for precisely…

Presents findings of a qualitative study of musical learning processes. Findings are reported in terms of the nature of strategies used by children as they work with peers to solve compositional problems. Also finds that successful students moved back and forth from holistic approaches to segmented activities. (CFR)