Shape Song sought to investigate the relationship between cross instrumental control (ie multiple musicians controlling the parameters of a single instrument) and musical engagement in a network music environment. Network music is a field of research concerned with how geographically separated musicians can make music together in real time. Inside the application, each musician controls a stick figure which represents their synthesizer. The body part colors of the stick figure control synthesis parameters, and everyone can change anyone's stick figure colors. Therein lies a major aspect of the cross instrumental control. Each participant also has control over squares and circles which correspond to percussion instrument patterns and background lines, respectively. Lastly, every participant can control the intensity slider which adjusts the background brightness and the cutoff frequency of a low pass filter.

The three conditions in the study allowed for no cross instrumental control, some cross instrumental control, and complete cross instrumental control. In these three conditions, the second condition fared the best overall. It fostered the greatest amount of musical engagement, enjoyment, and connection. Participants routinely commented that the first condition was too constraining while the third condition bred an environment akin to absolute chaos. Interestingly, this implies that a balance between individual control and chaos is necessary to create enough interest and excitement without becoming overwhelming.