Immersive digital environment to enhance accessibility and engagement with traditional music

Abstract

This study integrates an immersive digital environment to enhance accessibility and engagement with traditional music. Sri Lankan traditional music types such as bullock-cart songs, boatman songs, kamath gee, and watch hut songs were used as musical forms for this study. The proposed VR application provides an immersive educational experience for contemporary audiences. Given the intangible nature of these traditions and their declining practice, the application aimed to bridge the generational gap by leveraging VR technology to recreate these cultural expressions in their original context. The VR environment was designed using a structured design pipeline. Evaluation was conducted to assess the usability, cultural authenticity, and educational effectiveness of the developed VR application. The results demonstrate the potential of the application as an innovative tool for intangible cultural heritage preservation and transmission.