Editorial: Towards a Meaningful Instrumental Music Education. Methods, Perspectives, and Challenges

Abstract

Learning music is a complex, fascinating process that spans an impressive variety of meanings and experiences. The contributions that feature in this Research Topic bring together insights from a range of complementary perspectives to examine in detail how these layers of significance are part of, and shape, instrumental music education. To better capture the richness of such work, the present collection of articles is conceived around the following five themes: (i) body and action, (ii) technology, (iii) lived experience and meaning-making, (iv) pedagogical implications, and (v) beyond themusical instrument. It should be noted thatmany overlaps can be observed between the five topics, as insights developed in one specific area, as it often occurs in both the sciences and the humanities, may find a home (and be further developed) in other scholarly areas. For example, the analysis of lived experience has important implications for technology-enhanced learning and the modes of engagements one can develop with its tools and concepts; similarly, the study of action, movements, and gestures may stimulate novel pedagogical insights to transform existing learning paradigms and cultivate corporeal practices situated beyond music-only territories. Accordingly, while in what follows we examine each theme separately, we also highlight continuities and similarities emerging across manuscripts and topics.