Contemporary practices of sonic interaction and soundscape-based music creation are transforming the relationships among listening to place, musical praxis, and digital technology. From the perspective of acoustic ecology, the soundscape is approached as a network of relationships among place, human activity, environmental listening, memory, and the cultural meanings of sound. Ubiquitous music ecologies extend this perspective towards an ecosystem of people, technologies, spaces, sonic resources, and creative decisions, within which music-making is constituted as a distributed and environmentally situated practice. On this basis, SoundRoutes is designed and developed as an original post-digital environment for soundscape creation and participatory engagement. SoundRoutes connects field recordings, spatially activated sound points, and collaborative listening routes through GPS geolocation, digital mapping, extended-reality practices, three-dimensional spatial audio, and facilities for creative transformation of sonic material. Through this integration, listening is organised as an embodied, mobile, socially shared, and creative practice, revealing new forms of interaction with sound, space, and place within an emerging post-digital environment.

This article presents the design of Pierce XRLab, a two-year standalone curriculum developed for middle school students (Grades 8–9) at Pierce – The American College of Greece. The curriculum approaches XR both as an academic subject and as a medium for fostering interpretation, critical media literacy, creative production, and responsible participation. Across the two grades, students revisit key concepts: Grade 8 establishes an experiential and interpretive foundation, while Grade 9 extends this work towards critique, identity, ethics, and design-oriented production. The curriculum follows a spiral structure in which learners return to core ideas as they move from first-person experience to interpretation and, subsequently, to design-oriented practice. To support feasibility in school settings, the curriculum emphasizes equity, safety, and usability through minimal, cost-effective setups and standardized routines that integrate digital XR experiences with physical-world activities. Its pedagogical framework draws on constructivist and constructionist perspectives, embodied cognition, and experiential pragmatist learning, positioning XR as a cultural medium for meaning-making and knowledge construction that shapes perception, attention, representation, and social participation. Learning is organized into four principal strands: embodied engagement; representation and illusion; culture and identity; and experience design, critique, and ethics. Assessment is conceived as predominantly formative and artifact-based, making use of experience logs, critical briefs, and design projects to document students’ interpretations and design choices. Finally, the curriculum is designed with transferability in mind, allowing for adaptation across public and private educational settings despite differences in infrastructure, device availability, staffing, and other contextual conditions.

Songwriting is a form of musical creation that connects language, melody, rhythm, and performance, offering a learning framework in which musical knowledge is constructed through action, collaboration, and the meaningful interpretation of experience. In primary school, this practice has particular pedagogical significance because it can employ voice, play, imagination, and collective action as central means of participation and expression. The purpose of this study was to investigate the place of songwriting in primary music education in Greece, focusing on music teachers’ perceptions of its pedagogical value, their implementation practices, the challenges they report encountering, and the forms of support they consider necessary. The study adopted a mixed-methods design, beginning with quantitative mapping using a questionnaire and followed by qualitative exploration through semi-structured interviews. The quantitative phase involved thirty-two music teachers, while the qualitative phase employed purposive sampling for an in-depth exploration of experiences and meaning-making. The findings indicate a highly positive assessment of the pedagogical value of songwriting, with social and emotional benefits prioritised more strongly than purely musical outcomes. Despite this high level of recognition, classroom implementation appears to remain largely occasional and fragmented. Analysis was organised around three thematic categories: pedagogical perceptions and perceived benefits; implementation practices and the teacher’s role; and challenges and support needs. The most frequently reported practices include collaborative lyric writing and improvisation, with teachers acting primarily as facilitators, guides, and curators. The principal difficulties concern structural constraints, especially limited time and equipment, while participants also expressed a strong need for institutional support, practice-oriented professional development, and stronger collaborative networks or communities of practice. Overall, the study indicates that songwriting is recognised as a pedagogically powerful practice in primary education, while its more systematic integration into everyday school practice depends on appropriate institutional and methodological support.

The rapid development of technology in contemporary society is reshaping educational contexts and increasing the need for innovative teaching practices. STEAM has emerged internationally as an approach that promotes the creative integration of the arts within interdisciplinary learning frameworks in connection with science and technology. This study investigates the attitudes and perceptions of music teachers in Greece regarding the implementation of STEAM in music education. Its purpose is to examine teachers’ familiarity with STEAM, their views of its pedagogical value and of the skills it can cultivate, and the conditions they consider necessary for integrating music into an interdisciplinary learning framework. The study adopts a mixed-methods approach, combining quantitative mapping of trends with qualitative interpretive exploration of experiences and examples of practice. Fifty-five practising music teachers from primary and secondary education, music schools, and conservatoires participated in the study. Findings indicate that teachers associate STEAM with creativity, interdisciplinary collaboration, experiential learning, and the combination of digital tools with physical materials. Despite relatively low levels of familiarity with the model, participants strongly recognise its benefits and pedagogical value and express willingness to use it in the future. Multiple linear regression showed that intention to implement STEAM in the future was predicted primarily by perceived benefits, while familiarity and implementation conditions made weaker, statistically non-significant contributions. Professional development, material and technological support, available teaching time, and the strengthening of a collaborative school culture emerged as critical conditions for implementation.

This paper presents the formation of the Music Education 4.0 framework, which emerged as a local theory from a three-year Design-Based Research initiative conducted in a private elementary school in Greece. Through iterative cycles of design, implementation, analysis, and redesign, the study aimed to develop a coherent, human-centered, and post-digital perspective on music learning that integrates emerging and immersive technologies, artificial intelligence, and the pedagogical principles of STREAM education. Cross-cycle analysis identified four interconnected dimensions of learning that accounted for students’ engagement and development—creative autonomy, collaborative problem-solving, computational thinking, and sensory-emotional immersion. These were underpinned by transversal mechanisms of learning through artifacts, embodied engagement, meta-narration, and mediated collaboration, which together functioned as analytic categories and design drivers for subsequent iterations. Building on these mechanisms, a coherent set of actionable design heuristics was established, including participatory co-creation and role rotation, multimodal making for public audiences, scaffolded progression with gradual fading, authentic tasks and process documentation, artifact-based assessment through co-created rubrics, and the cultivation of critical post-digital literacy. Grounded in constructivism and constructionism, sociocultural theory, cognitive apprenticeship, pragmatism, conceptual change, and creative learning, Music Education 4.0 articulates a coherent set of design principles and practical heuristics for curriculum design, assessment, and classroom orchestration. The framework reconceptualizes the learner as an active agent and the teacher as a designer-researcher, positioning physical-digital hybridity as a catalyst for inclusive participation and deeper musical understanding. In conclusion, the paper highlights implications for curriculum development—through the integration of making-centered, STREAM-aligned learning sequences—teacher education—through design inquiry and reflective iteration—and school-based innovation—by emphasizing scalable design patterns. It further outlines directions for the continued validation and contextual adaptation of the framework, contributing to broader discourses on participation, inclusion, and social cohesion in contemporary music education.

Digital audiovisual texts constitute a complex multimodal form of discourse in which polysemic narratives and conceptual representations are articulated simultaneously through sound and image. Music, lyrics, and visual elements communicate meaning both as relatively autonomous materials and through their interaction. Their analysis and interpretation therefore represent demanding semiotic processes involving dense combinations of visual and auditory codes. In educational contexts, such study can foster critical and multimodal literacy, encouraging students to engage reflectively with diverse social and political issues in contemporary life. This presentation focuses on gun violence through Evan, a video created in 2016 by the US non-profit organisation Sandy Hook Promise to draw attention to warning signs associated with school violence and armed aggression. The narrative conceptual video was selected because of its strong social, political, and ethical dimensions in relation to contemporary issues. The analysis considers written linguistic discourse, visual elements, auditory-linguistic material in the form of song lyrics, auditory-musical elements, and other sonic material. At the non-diegetic level, the video incorporates an excerpt from Johnny Met June, written, composed, and performed by Shelby Lynne. In this multimodal text, critical media literacy, connected with critical pedagogy, can support students in reflecting critically on issues of rights, identity, safety, stereotypes, isolation, exclusion, and freedom from fear. Analysis of the codes focuses on contextual variables, forms of communication, and asymmetries emerging from the semiotic organisation of the text, while the broader interpretation highlights the values and dilemmas constructed within its cultural and educational context.

Contemporary technologies and digital media are reshaping the ways in which students experience, learn, and produce music, creating new multimodal musical literacies and new expectations of individual instrumental lessons. Their use, however, is often limited to replacing or simply enhancing existing practices without producing meaningful transformation of the learning experience. This presentation identifies areas for substantive integration of digital media and proposes a framework for designing activities with clearly defined teaching objectives, sensitivity to individual learning pace, and an inclusive orientation. Areas of integration are organised around listening, performance, creation, music production, movement, object-making, understanding of musical concepts, and assessment. Technology is thus approached as a facilitator of a hybrid learning process, and the discussion culminates in the question of how instrumental pedagogy can move from technological enhancement towards a genuine paradigm shift.

This presentation seeks to define and clarify the framework of STEAM education within contemporary music pedagogy by examining the transition from STEM towards a more holistic and interdisciplinary approach in which the arts function as an equal domain of knowledge and creation. Different degrees of integration among disciplinary areas are discussed, together with the contribution of the maker movement, constructionism, and design thinking to the development of authentic learning experiences. Particular emphasis is placed on the music classroom as a laboratory for making and experimentation, where musical praxis is connected with computational thinking, the physics of sound, engineering, technology, and mathematics. Through cycles of design, prototyping, testing, feedback, and redesign, students are invited to create meaningful musical artefacts and address authentic problems while cultivating creativity, collaboration, critical thinking, and multiple literacies.

This presentation introduces STEAMusEdGPT as a specialised generative-AI assistant designed to support the planning of STEAM music-education scenarios. The tool can be used during stages of ideation, organisation, differentiation, and reflection, providing suggestions that can be adapted to different age groups, learning environments, and technological infrastructures. Indicative functions are presented for formulating musical objectives, connecting activities with individual STEAM domains, generating experiential and maker-oriented tasks, and redesigning scenarios in response to user feedback. Particular emphasis is placed on the teacher’s responsibility to evaluate the pedagogical appropriateness and accuracy of AI-generated suggestions. Issues of transparency, intellectual property, bias, and data protection are also discussed. STEAMusEdGPT is presented as a tool for supporting professional judgement and instructional design within a critical and human-centred framework of music pedagogy.

Music Schools in Greece provide students with opportunities to participate in a variety of musical ensembles, which are defined in the current curriculum according to their structure and repertoire. Regardless of the orientation of a student orchestra, research highlights the added pedagogical value of integrating informal music-learning processes into ensemble settings in order to strengthen creativity, collaboration, and students’ active participation in learning. Such approaches include collaborative practices and peer learning (Schiavio et al., 2020), the conductor functioning as an equal member of the ensemble (McCaleb, 2022), playing by ear (Varvarigou, 2016), student selection of repertoire, learning without notation (Green & Baker, 2013), and free improvisation (Wright & Kanellopoulos, 2010). Despite the pedagogical value of these informal processes, comparable practices do not appear to be incorporated into the “String Orchestra–Symphony Orchestra” ensemble, which is classified under “Instrumental or Other Musical Ensembles” in the current regulatory framework (Government Gazette 2858/B/2015). By contrast, informal approaches are explicitly described and encouraged in ensembles such as “Contemporary Orchestra (Popular Music)” and “Expression and Creation Ensembles”, while the ensemble examined here remains oriented primarily towards formal modes of music education. This study investigates the views and experiences that emerge from the practical implementation of informal music teaching and learning processes within an ensemble performing Western art music. Its broader aim is to examine the development of students’ musical skills and the strengthening of active engagement, motivation, and musical expression through improvisation, collaboration, peer learning, and the use of non-conventional notation. The teaching intervention was conducted at a Music School in Central Greece from October 2024 to January 2025 within the “European Music Orchestra” ensemble and involved twenty-five students with different levels of musical experience and playing different instruments. Data were collected through semi-structured student interviews, field observations by the teacher-researcher, and observations by a critical-friend teacher who participated in the orchestra as a musician. The findings indicate positive outcomes from integrating informal practices into a formally organised ensemble context, particularly in relation to students’ autonomy, creativity, familiarity with their instruments, and motivation, as well as improvements in musical skills and self-confidence.

Songwriting in music education—the creation of original songs—draws on the creative processes of popular-music artists. It offers possibilities for democratic, experiential, and participatory forms of learning in which children act as creators within open and supportive environments (Allsup, 2003; Wright & Kanellopoulos, 2010). Research has demonstrated its pedagogical value in promoting creative thinking and supporting students’ well-being. At the same time, the process of creating original songs contributes to the development of twenty-first-century skills, including collaboration, autonomy, and social interaction, within an experiential learning framework (Pérez-Núñez et al., 2024). As a means of cultural inclusion and artistic expression, songwriting connects musical creation and expression with students’ identities (Burnard & Dragovic, 2015). The purpose of this study is to investigate the experiences and attitudes of Grade 4–6 primary-school students who participated in songwriting processes within a music club at an experimental school in Attica, Greece. The study focuses on the influence of songwriting practices on the development of musical skills, creativity, collaboration, and children’s psychosocial well-being. It also identifies challenges related to heterogeneous levels of musical experience, initial shyness and performance anxiety, and the limited material and technological resources of the school setting. The teaching intervention lasted fifteen weeks and involved twenty children with different levels of musical experience. Activities included musical and lyric-writing brainstorming, improvisation, call and response, group rehearsals, and the creation of a portfolio containing the group’s songs. The process concluded with a public presentation of the original songs as an authentic experience of connection with the community (Choi et al., 2025). Data were collected through observation, semi-structured interviews with the children, informal discussions inside and outside the classroom, and portfolios of musical artefacts, including songs, lyrics, and recordings. Analysis highlighted the pedagogical value of songwriting as a strategy that strengthens self-confidence, autonomy, musical skills, and collaboration. The findings also revealed benefits extending beyond musical creation, supporting a holistic learning experience and children’s well-being.

School bullying constitutes persistent and systematic victimisation expressed through verbal and/or physical actions and can produce serious emotional and social consequences (NASEM, 2016). It is a complex educational issue requiring collaboration among all stakeholders—students, teachers, parents/guardians, and policy-makers (Kokkidou & Mygdanis, 2024). The multidimensional nature of bullying is associated with individual and social factors both within and beyond school, making its dysfunctional effects particularly difficult to address (Osher et al., 2010; Olweus, 2009). The purpose of this study is to explore, analyse, and interpret the perceptions, attitudes, and experiences of teachers working in Music Schools in Central Greece regarding school bullying. Its broader aim is to formulate proposals for preventing and limiting aggression and for responding effectively to multiple victimisation. The qualitative study draws on semi-structured interviews with fifteen practising teachers who teach either individual instrumental lessons or group theory classes in Music Schools. Particular emphasis is placed on the pivotal role of music teachers in preventing and responding to bullying within the school community, on strategies for managing victimisation, and on effective practices for strengthening intervention (Epelde-Larrañaga et al., 2020). The interviews revealed significant thematic categories concerning music teachers’ personal experiences and their observation and understanding of victimisation incidents within their schools.

Technological developments continually transform the ways in which people interact with music, generating new forms of expression, creation, and learning (Mygdanis & Kokkidou, 2021). Children of the digital age acquire expanded digital-musical experiences from an early age (Leong, 2012), which they increasingly expect to encounter in the music classroom (Tobias, 2017). The new possibilities and challenges emerging in teaching and learning contribute to the perspective of Education 4.0, in which emerging technologies shape learning frameworks that differ substantially from conventional ones (Halili, 2019). This study examines the development of learning environments through the lens of Music Education 4.0 by designing and implementing interdisciplinary ST(R)EAM scenarios in primary education. Its broader purpose is to investigate students’ experiences of immersive technologies—virtual and augmented reality—and artificial intelligence (AI) within music teaching and learning. The practical intervention was conducted in a music club at a private school in Athens, lasted twenty-five weeks, and involved twenty-three students in Grades 3–5. The activities combined music-production practices, coding, the maker movement, immersive technologies, and AI. The study adopted the qualitative methodology of Design-Based Research, focusing on the design, development, implementation, and evaluation of interventions in authentic contexts (Barab & Squire, 2016). Data were collected through semi-structured interviews, observation records, informal discussions, and student portfolios. The findings highlight the added value of designing and integrating practices and strategies informed by the Music Education 4.0 perspective. Students demonstrated strong interest and enthusiasm in participating in the activities. The resulting learning environment strengthened their musical and technological skills while cultivating twenty-first-century competencies such as critical thinking, collaboration, creativity, and problem solving. Overall, the findings underscore the importance of developing and implementing technological-music-pedagogical scenarios that contribute to innovative learning environments reflecting contemporary digital and multimodal musical literacies. At the same time, accessibility requires critical consideration. Although the scenarios examined did not demand advanced technical infrastructure, the integration of emerging technologies may limit wider implementation unless openness and adaptability within the music classroom are ensured.

This study examines the design and implementation of educational scenarios developed with Synth4kids, an innovative music-education software environment designed for preschool education. Synth4kids provides an intuitive setting that supports musical creativity, inclusion, and differentiated instruction through emerging and assistive technologies. The intervention consisted of twelve weekly sessions, each lasting approximately 45 minutes, with four boys aged four to six at Baby Maestro Cyprus. Sessions were structured to integrate assistive technology (AT) and emerging technology (ET) features available through Synth4kids. In line with Universal Design for Learning principles, the educational activities were designed to enhance musical engagement through personalized, play-based, and interactive experiences. The findings indicate that the early integration of assistive features such as gaze control, motion tracking, tactile interfaces, and chromesthesia-related visual mappings can enhance accessibility, creativity, and social participation among learners with diverse profiles. The incorporation of Synth4kids into music teaching and learning illustrates how assistive technologies can support agency, autonomy, and collaborative creativity while contributing to pedagogical approaches that promote equity and engagement. Overall, the study suggests that the thoughtful use of digital technologies can support a more inclusive and dynamic early-childhood music-learning environment.

The rapid development of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and immersive technologies (XR) offers new possibilities for transforming music education, particularly in the areas of inclusion and accessibility. This presentation proposes a pedagogical framework that draws on these technologies to make music education more experiential, multisensory, and open to diverse modes of expression.

The evolving landscape of digital technology has transformed musical engagement, creating new opportunities for expression, creativity, and learning. In this context, music education is undergoing a significant transformation that challenges established teaching models and expands the possibilities for participation and creative practice. This study explores the design and implementation of “Digital Little Music Makers,” a music-education proposal grounded in a constructionist perspective and integrating music production, maker practices, coding, artificial intelligence, and immersive technologies (VR/AR). It examines the pedagogical implications of these approaches through a practical intervention conducted over 30 weeks at Pierce – The American College of Greece. The study focuses on how technologically mediated making can support musical creativity, active participation, collaboration, and the development of new musical and digital literacies within an elementary school context.

School violence and bullying constitute a systematic form of multiple victimisation expressed through verbal, physical, and online attacks, with serious psychosocial consequences. As a complex dysfunctional phenomenon, it requires coordinated action by all parties involved—students, teachers, school leaders, parents/guardians, and policy-making bodies. This qualitative study focuses on exploring, analysing, and interpreting the attitudes and perceptions of music teachers working in music schools in Central Greece regarding manifestations of school violence and bullying. Its primary aim is to develop proposals for the prevention and reduction of school violence. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews with sixteen practising music teachers who teach either individual instrumental lessons or group theory classes. The study examines the pivotal role of music education both as a means of prevention and as a factor capable of influencing conflict dynamics. The findings revealed critical themes concerning music teachers’ experiences in observing and understanding bullying incidents within the school community. Participants emphasised meaningful communication with parents/guardians and the strengthening of the school community as a supportive network for addressing incidents of school violence and bullying and for designing intervention strategies. The results highlight the value of a positive school climate that fosters students’ empathy. A clear need also emerged for targeted professional-development and awareness programmes incorporating forms of musical expression, with the broader aim of identifying possibilities for preventing bullying and addressing exclusion. Listening first and foremost to those directly involved is essential if schools are to function as environments that promote safety, mutual respect, emotional well-being, acceptance, and students’ social development.

This presentation examines remix as a central practice of contemporary digital culture and explores how pre-existing material from Greek song is re-inscribed, recomposed, and circulated within new technological and cultural contexts. The analysis focuses on remix, mashup, sampling, and digital-processing practices, as well as on the ways in which production and sharing platforms reshape relationships among creator, work, and audience. Particular attention is given to intertextuality, musical memory, creative appropriation, and shifts in the concept of authenticity. Questions of authorship and copyright arising from the reuse of musical material are also discussed. From this perspective, remix culture is approached as a field in which Greek song acquires new meanings, functions, and audiences, reflecting broader transformations in music production, circulation, and listening under post-digital conditions.

Integrating acoustic ecology strategies into music education offers a productive framework for understanding and engaging with sound in everyday life. This perspective can be extended through contemporary technologies, creating new opportunities for creativity and learning. This study investigates the development and integration of STEAM educational scenarios that reflect ubiquitous acoustic ecologies to enhance primary music education. The study, conducted at Pierce – The American College of Greece, involved fifth- and sixth-grade students over a 15-week period. The programme was structured around the STEAM model and incorporated hands-on activities that promoted collaboration, project-based learning, and inquiry-based learning. Elements from existing practices, such as soundwalks, were used and expanded based on contemporary digital and multimodal literacies. Students engaged with technological tools and practical activities that connected music with environmental sounds. The findings demonstrated numerous advantages for students, including increased participation and interest in music and the development of self-regulation, creativity, innovation, and ecological awareness. The integration of technologies such as 3D printing and artificial intelligence further enriched the educational experience. This research underscores the potential for integrating ubiquitous acoustic ecologies into primary music education to provide enriching and meaningful learning experiences, opening new pathways for music education and student development.

The use of games in education has demonstrated considerable pedagogical value, particularly for cultivating students’ creativity and critical thinking. Games can create learning environments that encourage active participation, collaboration, and exploration through experimentation. By integrating games into educational settings, students can engage with complex concepts in more experiential and interactive ways, thereby supporting deeper understanding. This paper presents the design and development of DJ Ostomachion, a music-educational software application. Inspired by Archimedes’ Ostomachion, the application simulates one of the oldest known mathematical puzzles while simultaneously functioning as a musical sampler containing pre-recorded sound samples. Each of its fourteen geometric pieces offers eight different audio samples that change according to the position in which the tile is placed. In this way, students can create different visual configurations based on alternative solutions to the Ostomachion while also composing and producing their own music. The application additionally supports recording functions, enabling children to build their own personalised sampler. DJ Ostomachion was designed with primary education in mind. Its aim is to provide a playful, interactive, and enjoyable learning experience while establishing an interdisciplinary connection between mathematics and music. Through game-centred practices, students explore geometric concepts such as symmetry, spatial reasoning, and transformations while developing creativity through musical composition and improvisation. The presentation focuses on ways in which the application can be integrated into both mathematics and music teaching, offering practical strategies for strengthening collaborative learning and problem solving.

The continuing evolution of technology is reshaping physical and digital musical worlds, creating new opportunities for expression, interaction, and education. The proliferation of digital media has contributed to a shift towards expanded learning experiences that extend beyond conventional teaching environments. This research examines the design and development of learning environments in line with the Music Education 4.0 perspective. The primary purpose was to examine the incorporation of immersive technologies (virtual, augmented, and mixed reality) and artificial intelligence through educational scenarios that align with the transdisciplinary ST(R)E(A)M framework (Science, Technology, Reading/Writing, Engineering, Arts, Mathematics), in elementary school music education. The research methodology followed a qualitative Design-Based Research approach. The findings indicate that children demonstrated a keen interest and willingness to participate, while developing a range of musical and technological proficiencies. More broadly, the study contributes to ongoing discussion of how emerging technologies can be integrated effectively into music classrooms through innovative pedagogical strategies and frameworks.

The “Little Musicians DIY Orchestra” initiative, implemented at Pierce – The American College of Greece, combines STEAM principles with the Universal Design for Learning (UDL) framework to foster inclusion, creativity, and collaborative learning in fourth-grade classrooms. Over an eight-week intervention involving four Grade 4 classes, the programme employed practical strategies to enhance students’ musical and social skills through small-group DIY orchestras. The design emphasised multiple means of engagement, representation, and expression, aligning with UDL principles. Activities incorporated differentiated instruction, adapting tasks to students’ abilities, preferences, and prior knowledge to ensure progress at their own pace. Collaborative learning promoted teamwork, communication, and mutual support, while formative assessment—including ongoing observation, peer feedback, and written reflection—guided instruction and encouraged self-regulation. Data collection included semi-structured interviews with 20 purposively sampled students, teacher-researcher observations organised using observation keys, informal discussions, and written materials, including portfolios documenting musical and technological creations. The study examined how student-led orchestras can support creativity, collaboration, and participation in an inclusive environment. This research explored how implementing UDL principles fosters an environment where all students—regardless of learning differences—actively engage in music-making. It highlights the role of instrument choice (physical or digital) in enhancing creativity and self-regulation, as well as the contribution of collaborative orchestra-building to social skills such as teamwork and mutual respect. The findings are intended to inform inclusive educational practices by illustrating how music can bridge differences and empower learners in a dynamic, supportive setting.

Recent technological advancements continue to reshape the ways in which people experience music, creating new possibilities for musical expression, interaction, and learning. Children growing up in the digital age encounter an expanding range of musical experiences and preferences. As digital media transform perceptions of musical praxis and generate new forms of meaning-making, music education faces significant challenges in designing learning environments that respond to these developments. This research investigates the emergence and development of learning environments within the framework of Music Education 4.0. Its main objective is to design and implement teaching scenarios aligned with the interdisciplinary ST(R)E(A)M framework (Science, Technology, Reading/Writing, Engineering, Arts, and Mathematics) in primary education. The study focuses on the experiences of fourth- and fifth-grade elementary school students and examines the integration of immersive technologies—virtual, augmented, and mixed reality—and artificial intelligence into these learning environments. The intervention was carried out at a private elementary school in Athens, Greece, over a period of twenty weeks. Twenty students, evenly distributed between the fourth and fifth grades, participated in the study. The qualitative methodology draws on Design-Based Research, emphasizing the design, development, implementation, and evaluation of an educational intervention in authentic teaching and learning settings. Four data-collection techniques were employed: semi-structured focus-group interviews with students, observations by the teacher-researcher, informal discussions within and outside the classroom, and analysis of the children’s music-technological creations. The anticipated contribution of the research is to broaden understanding of how Music Education 4.0 teaching scenarios can be designed by integrating immersive technologies and artificial intelligence within an ST(R)E(A)M context. At the same time, the use of Design-Based Research opens new methodological perspectives for research in music education.

Recent technological developments have substantially changed the ways in which people engage with music. Children growing up in the digital age encounter an expanding range of musical experiences and genres, while digital learning environments and software designed for preschool education continue to develop. Integrating contemporary technologies into music education creates new opportunities for multimodal musical engagement, imagination, and the understanding of musical concepts, while also introducing pedagogical and practical challenges. Research indicates that digital media can support positive learning outcomes even among preschool-aged children. In this context, virtual instruments and digital music games have expanded possibilities for listening, performing, creating, and receiving visual and interactive feedback. Technologies such as sensors, tangible interfaces, smart textiles, and virtual reality applications can further enrich music learning by enabling forms of interaction that would otherwise be difficult to realize. Although the role of technology in early childhood education has been studied for more than two decades, music education has been slower to adapt to the contemporary digital context, and many teaching approaches still draw primarily on models developed before the widespread use of digital media. This presentation examines an educational intervention designed to integrate digital media into preschool and early-primary music education through Synth4kids, an educational music software environment based on a virtual synthesizer. The activities followed a project-based perspective, emphasizing creativity through active participation in authentic scenarios, and were aligned with Renwick’s concurrent learning spiral theory. They were designed to be adaptable within and beyond the classroom, reflecting the interaction between formal and informal learning environments. The research findings indicate the development of a technology-rich learning environment in which children participated actively and enthusiastically in authentic music teaching and learning situations. Their engagement was associated with transformed learning experiences and the acquisition of new musical and technological skills.

The sounds surrounding us significantly impact our daily lives, influencing the ways we interact with the environment. Advancements in technology have revolutionized our relationship with music and sound, leading to the emergence of new and diverse forms of expression, creation, and learning. Research on soundscapes within acoustic ecology has contributed to a deeper understanding and appreciation of sound, particularly within its environmental and contextual settings. This study proposes the design, development, and practical application of an interdisciplinary approach that integrates music with maritime studies to create immersive learning experiences reflecting ubiquitous acoustic ecologies. The intervention took place at Pierce – The American College of Greece Elementary School and focused on fifth- and sixth-grade students. It utilized hands-on activities based on the STEAM model, which emphasized collaboration, inquiry-based learning, and project-based learning to create authentic and meaningful music learning environments. The findings revealed that the activities provided novel experiences for the students, who were eager and enthusiastic participants, developing new musical and technological skills while broadening their learning experiences and enhancing their creativity and ecological awareness.

Rapid technological developments in recent years have transformed the ways in which people engage with music, creating new forms of expression, creation, and learning. Within this context, artificial intelligence has become an integral part of everyday life, exerting a substantial influence on both music teaching and learning and on practices of musical creation. This paper discusses findings from the use of artificial-intelligence tools in creative and compositional strategies in primary school music education. More specifically, a ten-week intervention was implemented with a group of twenty-four children in Grades 3–5 at the elementary school of Pierce – The American College of Greece. The teaching scenarios emphasised the integration of emerging technologies into music production and creation. Grounded in the interdisciplinary STEAM model, the activities were extended through artificial-intelligence elements drawing on different disciplinary fields. Data were collected through participant observation, informal discussions with the children, focus-group interviews, and written formative evaluations. Students appeared to embrace the activities enthusiastically, particularly those involving artificial intelligence, which encouraged them to explore new modes of expression and creation. Preliminary findings indicate that the use of such tools can foster participation, improve understanding of musical concepts, and support the development of creativity and computational thinking. At the same time, students demonstrated considerable awareness of potential challenges associated with artificial intelligence and adopted a critical stance, particularly regarding issues of transparency, reliability, and ethics. Overall, the findings provide important indications of the potential role of artificial intelligence in music lessons while simultaneously highlighting new possibilities and emerging challenges for the field of music education.

The use of new technologies is continually transforming the ways in which people interact with music and is creating new forms of musical learning. Children growing up in the contemporary digital era acquire technological and musical experiences from an early age and increasingly expect to encounter these experiences in the music classroom. Within this evolving educational environment, the integration of technology-centred teaching activities has become increasingly important. This presentation focuses on the design, development, and practical implementation of an original web-based music-educational software application inspired by the life of Maria Callas. The application was designed to introduce students to her artistic work and interpretive approaches while cultivating listening skills. It was implemented through a four-week teaching scenario on opera with Grade 4 students at the elementary school of Pierce – The American College of Greece. Data for evaluating the educational software were collected through participant observation by the teacher-researcher, semi-structured focus-group interviews with students, and informal discussions outside the classroom. The activities appeared to attract students’ interest and promote active engagement, while the students themselves proposed improvements both to the software and to the ways in which it could be integrated into learning activities.

The sounds that surround us exert a significant influence on everyday life and shape our interaction with the environment. Technological developments have transformed the ways in which we engage with music, generating new and expanded forms of expression, creation, and education and fostering a different understanding of sound within the framework of ubiquitous acoustic ecologies. The aim of this study is to design and implement an innovative music-education proposal drawing on ubiquitous acoustic ecologies to connect music and maritime studies. The intervention was implemented at the elementary school of Pierce – The American College of Greece with Grade 5 and Grade 6 classes. It included practical activities grounded in the STEAM model, with an emphasis on collaborative learning, discovery learning, and project-based learning in order to create authentic music teaching and learning experiences. The findings indicate that the activities offered students new experiences and encouraged active and enthusiastic engagement. Students developed new musical and technological skills while also strengthening their creativity and ecological awareness.

The rapid development of technology in recent years has transformed the ways in which people interact with music, creating conditions for new forms of musical creation, expression, and learning. Children grow up in digital environments and acquire technological skills that are intertwined with their musical experiences, which they increasingly expect to use in the music classroom. Music educators therefore need to reflect on and reconsider how digital media are integrated into teaching and learning processes in response to students’ needs for participation in technology-mediated pedagogical activities. This paper discusses the findings of a pilot intervention with a group of twenty children in Grades 3–5 at the elementary school of Pierce – The American College of Greece. Over a thirty-week period, music-education scenarios grounded in the interdisciplinary STEAM model were implemented through music-production practices, ubiquitous music computing, coding strategies, the maker movement, and collaborative DIY practices. The findings indicate that the young students embraced the activities enthusiastically and participated actively and creatively in the learning processes. The new learning environment appeared to strengthen their musical and technological skills, generate new experiences, and open further possibilities for music education.

The rapid evolution of emerging technologies over recent years has transformed the ways in which people interact and engage with music, expanding opportunities for musical creation, expression, learning, and education. Children grow up in digital environments and acquire technological skills that are intertwined with their musical experiences and that they may later expect to use in the music classroom. From an expanded educational perspective, digital media and emerging technologies can support the development of new technological-musical learning environments. Current research has indicated their positive potential for cultivating musical creativity and fostering equity in music classrooms. Accordingly, music educators need to reconsider how digital media are incorporated into teaching and learning in relation to students’ needs for participation in technology-mediated pedagogical activities. This presentation discusses the results of a pilot intervention at the elementary school of Pierce – The American College of Greece, involving eighteen children from Grades 3–5 in innovative technological approaches to music learning. Over a period of twenty weeks, music-education scenarios were designed and implemented drawing on music production techniques, ubiquitous music computing, the Internet of Musical Things, STEAM and maker practices, and collaborative DIY activities. The primary aim was to investigate how these practices could cultivate students’ musical creativity and to examine the knowledge, skills, and experiences they acquired. Particular attention was given to understanding how students participated actively in the teaching and learning processes. Findings from observations, semi-structured interviews, informal discussions, written formative assessment, and portfolios revealed that students embraced the activities enthusiastically and engaged in music-making as active agents. Overall, participants reported that the learning environment enhanced their engagement and transformed their experiences, suggesting new pathways for music education within the emerging digital musical landscape.

Technological developments over recent decades have transformed the ways in which children interact with sound and music, offering new and extended forms of expression, creation, and learning. From a ubiquitous computing perspective, this digital environment can provide opportunities for constructing a broader framework of sound perception, musical praxis, and creative development. The development of cross-platform digital environments and the growing variety of hardware and software have contributed to an emerging context of ubiquitous acoustic ecologies. The aim of this research is to implement educational scenarios in music lessons from the perspective of ubiquitous music ecologies through a pilot study with children aged 7–9 in a conservatory setting in Greece. The activities were designed according to a STEAM project-based learning approach and incorporated cooperative learning, transdisciplinary connections, game-based and playful learning, augmented reality, and authentic problem-solving experiences. Analysis revealed four emerging thematic categories related to the development of auditory perception, musical creativity, computational thinking, and the shaping of digital and physical musical worlds. The results of the educational intervention highlighted the role of the ubiquitous music ecologies perspective in the design of the activities and indicated that it broadened students’ musical experiences and horizons.

Within contemporary digital culture, video games are often an integral part of children’s and adolescents’ lives. They are among the most popular forms of entertainment, influencing aspects of players’ everyday experience while also contributing to cognitive, motor, emotional, and social development. As in other audiovisual media such as film and animation, music and sound play a decisive role. From the earliest video games, and despite initial technological limitations, developers placed considerable emphasis on sound accompaniment in order to enhance imagery, narrative, and characterisation. Today, composers seek to create music that contributes to the distinctive identity of a video game. The use of video games in music lessons can provide new opportunities for musical learning and motivate active participation, making lessons more engaging while supporting the development of musical and technological skills. At the same time, the design of video-game-based teaching scenarios requires careful consideration of ethical issues. In particular, age appropriateness and equitable student access are crucial factors in the effective integration of video games into school music education. This presentation proposes ways of using video games in music teaching and learning. Through related activities, students can identify the functions of music, reflect on the role of sound in game narratives—including place, time, culture, gender, and ethnicity—develop active listening, performance, and music-creation skills, and design and construct their own video games using visual programming. The proposed activities are open-ended and adaptable to a range of music-learning environments, providing opportunities for further creative extension.

Rapid technological development in recent years has transformed the ways in which people interact with music. Children growing up in the contemporary digital era are immersed in environments that continually broaden their experiences and musical preferences. These developments have led to the design of digital learning environments and software aimed at early childhood, promoting an educational framework that differs substantially from conventional approaches. Music education, however, does not always appear to align with this new digital educational context, continuing to emphasise instructional models developed decades ago that, unsurprisingly, did not originally incorporate activities involving digital technologies. This paper discusses findings from an educational intervention integrating digital media into preschool and early primary music education through the music-educational software Synth4kids. The findings indicate the emergence of a new technology-centred learning environment in which children engaged meaningfully and participated actively and enthusiastically in authentic music teaching and learning situations. These experiences contributed to the transformation of their musical learning and to the development of new musical and technological skills.

In recent years, there has been increasing interest in applying eye-tracking methodologies to musical processes such as perception, cognition, and engagement, particularly in music reading and music-making (Fink et al., 2018). During the last decade, eye-tracking tools have also been developed to support musical expression among people with disabilities (Hornof, 2014). Much less research, however, has examined their role in music education and in students’ engagement with music. Eye-tracking practices can provide extended multimodal forms of learning (Jarodzka et al., 2017), and their use in music lessons may support new musical experiences, deeper understanding, and the development of creativity. Synth4kids is an original interactive educational application created by the author for music lessons with students aged 5–8. It combines elements from traditional music-pedagogical approaches—Dalcroze Eurhythmics, the Kodály Method, and Orff Schulwerk—with emerging educational technologies, including ubiquitous computing, IoT, augmented reality, QR codes, and camera tracking, thereby extending possibilities for music-making—including performance, production, and arranging—as well as for teaching and learning (Mygdanis, 2021). One of the most prominent features incorporated into the latest version is eye-tracking capability via a webcam. This presentation emphasizes the practical application of Synth4kids’ eye-tracking function in two music classes in Greece and Cyprus with students aged 6–7. The educational interventions took place simultaneously, using eye-tracking practices as the primary methodological tool. Music-pedagogical activities focused on cooperative and inquiry-based teaching and learning, interdisciplinarity, and game-based learning. The ultimate aim was to investigate how eye-tracking practices at these ages can support meaningful understanding of abstract music-theoretical concepts and the development of creativity. The results may shed light on the ways in which eye-tracking techniques can enhance music teaching and learning with young children and contribute to the formation of a technologically enriched music-education context with new orientations.

Technological developments in recent years have transformed students’ musical experiences, generating new forms of musical expression, creation, and learning. Although there is now substantial evidence concerning the use of digital media in music education, their integration into music lessons appears to remain limited because of insufficient music-technology training and teachers’ hesitation to design technology-based activities (Bauer, 2020). The COVID-19 pandemic brought these issues forcefully back to the foreground, as it became clear that practices used in face-to-face teaching cannot simply be transferred unchanged to digital environments (Schiavio et al., 2021). In searching for new educational material, teachers employed a wide range of digital resources, some of which produced meaningful pedagogical outcomes while others did not. Within this climate of uncertainty, questions emerged concerning the suitability of particular software for music-education purposes. Educational software is a digital technological product designed to support teaching and enhance learning processes (Komis, 2018; Dimitriadis, 2015). Its design follows specific cognitive, instructional, pedagogical, and technological specifications (Tzimogiannis, 2019), combining methodologies, learning theories, teaching models, and approaches on the basis of their compatibility and complementarity (Komis, 2018). The use of a digital resource in teaching and learning is directly connected to the strategies adopted in each classroom and to the pursuit of predetermined educational goals (Tzimogiannis, 2019). Depending on their developmental orientation, educational software can be grouped into distinct categories, including drill-and-practice applications, simulations, multimedia environments, and games (Dimitriadis, 2015). This paper focuses on the design of a model for selecting educational software for music teaching and learning. Drawing on contemporary models of technology integration in education, the proposed dimensions address technological considerations—such as accessibility, compatibility, and cost—content-related issues—including multimodal presentation and the type of digital resource—assessment methods for both students and teachers, connections with contemporary music-pedagogical approaches such as interdisciplinarity, active learning, and collaborative practices, and philosophical and theoretical principles including learning theories and instructional design. These dimensions operate within a complementary framework. The development of the model suggests that the selection and use of digital resources do not automatically improve educational quality, since no digital tool can contribute meaningfully to learning unless it is embedded in an appropriate technological and pedagogical framework. As educational software functions as a cognitive tool (Dimitriadis, 2015), teachers need to be able to integrate digital resources into music-education activities adapted to the specific conditions of their classrooms and situated within suitably designed technological and pedagogical environments, so that their use adds genuine value to music teaching and learning.

In recent years, growing interest among music educators and researchers has focused on the intersection of maker culture and music education. Maker culture is closely connected with STEAM education and emphasizes project-based learning through collaborative and authentic problem-solving. Although such activities are increasingly present in schools, hands-on maker practices have not yet been widely adopted in conservatory settings. This presentation discusses the incorporation of maker culture activities into a music theory class at a Greek conservatoire with four students aged 6–7. The study focused on students’ learning processes and their perceptions of the value of the maker intervention for musical understanding. Over a four-month period, the group participated in hands-on musical activities using the Synth4kids application. Synth4kids is an original web-audio application designed for use in music teaching and learning with young children. It integrates elements from traditional music-pedagogical approaches—Dalcroze Eurhythmics, Orff Schulwerk, and the Kodály Method—with features aligned with current developments in music, technology, and education, including ubiquitous music, the Internet of Musical Things, augmented reality, and QR codes. One of its prominent features is compatibility with the Leap Motion sensor and the Makey Makey interface, extending possibilities for music-making, teaching, and learning through the construction and connection of tangible musical artifacts, instruments, and sound-based interfaces. Activities followed a STEAM project-based learning perspective and provided students with cooperative, interdisciplinary, game-based, and authentic problem-solving experiences. Findings from observation, semi-structured interviews, informal discussions, and written formative assessment indicate that the students embraced the maker culture activities enthusiastically and engaged in music-making as active agents. Overall, participants reported that the new learning environment enhanced their engagement and transformed their musical learning experiences.

People’s relationship with sound is transformed and acquires meaning through its sociocultural context. The growing interest in the concept of the “soundscape” over recent decades has opened new perspectives in music education. Acoustic ecology has consequently contributed to an expanded understanding of music while supporting the development of environmental awareness. Methodologically, it is grounded in active listening, through which sound can be understood as movement, as a medium for creation, and as a means of connecting with the environment and culture. The abrupt transition to distance-learning environments during the COVID-19 pandemic posed challenges across all areas of education. Classroom practices could not easily be transferred unchanged to digital settings, revealing the need to redefine teaching strategies. The development of new approaches and the expansion of existing ones inevitably also transform key concepts of acoustic ecology—such as movement and sound creation—in relation to contemporary digital culture. Extending Schafer’s (1977) observation that the world’s soundscape is changing and that the acoustic environment is becoming radically different from what people have historically known, this tendency can be seen as intensifying in contemporary society alongside the development of new digital literacies. This presentation proposes a sound-pedagogy teaching framework that can be implemented in a range of learning environments with children aged 7–11 through digital audiovisual tools such as SoundBlocks, Sampler, and Scratch and technological interfaces such as Makey-Makey. Its principal aim is to strengthen children’s perceptual abilities through participation in creative activities, including soundscape compositions and audiovisual narratives. At the same time, children become active shapers of both their physical and digital worlds while developing computational thinking within an interactive environment. Possible extensions of the proposal include elements of augmented reality and gamification.

Play is an integral part of children’s everyday lives. Across societies, diverse forms of play occupy a central place within cultural experience. Its importance and value have been widely recognised in relation to children’s cognitive, motor, emotional, and social development. In an era that is increasingly digital, a significant part of children’s lives involves the use of digital applications and, consequently, digital games. In recent years, digital educational games have been incorporated into teaching with increasing frequency. Research in the field generally indicates that their use in formal and informal teaching and learning can increase students’ interest and motivation, encouraging active participation through enjoyment and playful interaction. In this context, the design of a digital educational game is a decisive factor in its effective pedagogical use. Reflecting key characteristics of play as an activity, such games should aim to construct rich learning environments around clearly defined instructional objectives, informed by contemporary learning theories and by the age-related and developmental characteristics of their intended users. This presentation introduces three original digital music-educational games designed and developed around the content of entrance examinations for prospective students of Greek Music Schools. The applications were created within the Music Schools working group of the Greek Society for Music Education in order to provide accessible tools for creative teaching extensions. At the same time, their musical and pedagogical objectives make them suitable for integration into music-education activities in both conservatoire and primary-school contexts.

New technologies are continually transforming the ways in which children interact with music. Within this context, educators need to take into account students’ interest in music-learning activities that incorporate digital media. Technological developments over recent decades have created possibilities for new and expanded forms of music teaching and learning in which the computer and screen are not necessarily the central focus of a technology-mediated pedagogical activity. Digital tools can therefore be integrated into education in ways that increasingly blur the boundaries between physical and digital environments. Augmented reality is a characteristic example of an emerging technology of this kind: it extends and enriches physical reality with audiovisual information while allowing interaction with real-world objects in real time. This workshop presents two original web-based virtual musical instruments for creating rhythmic and melodic patterns with physical objects, drawing on principles of augmented reality. The applications require minimal technological equipment—a mobile phone or a computer with a webcam—and can be used in both distance and face-to-face learning environments in combination with acoustic or digital musical instruments.

The manual Méthode ou Recueil de connaissances élémentaires pour le forte-piano ou clavecin by J. C. Bach and F. P. Ricci is one of the relatively few keyboard-instruction methods published during the second half of the eighteenth century, and it continues to be used in music lessons today. Beyond its historical and musicological significance, its content provides extensive evidence concerning principles of instrumental pedagogy during the period under examination. Over approximately 240 years, the method has been reissued on several occasions, typically as a reproduction of the edition published by LeDuc in Paris in 1786. However, the discovery of an edition published in the Netherlands seven years earlier, under a different title and with substantial differences in content, raises questions regarding the authenticity of the material and the extent of the authors’ involvement in its design. The purpose of this paper is twofold. First, it offers a critical analysis of the instructional material in order to identify, in dialogue with contemporary scholarship, principles and practices of instrumental learning in the eighteenth century. Second, it seeks to clarify the original core of the method and to investigate the reasons for alterations that shaped the content found in later reissues.

Individual and small-group music lessons in home, school, and conservatory settings constitute some of the most common ways in which people learn and interact with music across many countries. In recent decades, numerous strategies and innovative approaches to one-to-one teaching have emerged, influencing instrumental and vocal music teaching and learning. Despite these developments, research has shown that instrumental and vocal teachers often do not use lesson plans, resulting in limited instructional planning. A number of studies suggest that the absence of systematic planning may lead educators to reproduce the ways in which they themselves were taught, while assessment criteria in music examinations may strongly shape lesson content, strategies, and pedagogical approaches. As a result, instrumental and vocal teaching and learning may follow a linear, performance-centred model, while areas such as musical creativity and active listening receive limited attention. To organize lesson content, many music teachers use practice diaries to monitor students’ daily practice, emphasizing preparation, observation, and evaluation. Although such diaries cannot replace lesson plans, a practice diary designed in relation to current literature could broaden instrumental and vocal teaching and learning by encouraging teachers to integrate diverse educational practices and strategies into weekly lessons. Kinaesthetic activities, music composition, research tasks, technology use, parental involvement, and self-evaluation are representative examples. From this perspective, the music lesson can be organized around the praxial triptych of active listening, performance, and musical creativity. The aim of this presentation is to develop a Practice Music Diary Book for use in instrumental and vocal teaching and learning, drawing on current trends, strategies, and methodologies. For this purpose, a literature review will be conducted alongside a comparative study of published music practice diaries. The ultimate purpose is to design a tool that can complement lesson plans and support more effective instructional planning aligned with contemporary educational practices and the needs of twenty-first-century music students.

In contemporary society, characterised by continuous change, teachers need to remain consistently informed about developments in education. The importance of lifelong learning and continuing professional development is increasingly emphasised across all subject areas, including music. Although initiatives for teacher training can be identified in school music education, equivalent provision is far less evident in conservatoire education. In particular, the educational framework has remained largely unchanged for more than sixty years, leaving it increasingly disconnected from the contemporary musical landscape. This paper aims to outline the principal axes for designing professional-development programmes for practising teachers of the Theory of Music course. Through an examination of existing teaching and learning conditions and engagement with contemporary literature, educational needs are identified that can inform the development of professional-development programmes not only for this specific course but for conservatoire education more broadly.

Music videos constitute an exceptionally complex form of text, characterised by polysemic narratives and imaginative imagery. Their analysis and interpretation therefore represent demanding semiotic acts. Images and sounds communicate meaning both as relatively autonomous materials and through their interaction. Music videos convey information through dense and complex combinations of visual and musical codes that enable associations, categorisation, and conceptual representation, although these meanings may remain accessible only to viewers familiar with particular systems of signs. This presentation approaches a model for analysing popular-music videos as a means of developing multimodal literacy in education. The model is based on Kokkidou’s framework (2019, in press), which draws on semiotic tools including codes, conventions, and intertextuality. Robbie Williams’s music video Party Like a Russian (2016) is used as an analytical example. It was selected because of the richness of its visual and musical codes, its dialogue with elements of “high” culture, its cultural representations through intertextual references, and its use of parody. The different semiotic systems of the video work together to construct a satirical stance toward the contemporary Russian oligarchic plutocracy and patterns of conspicuous expenditure at the expense of the wider Russian population. Among its numerous intertextual references, the most distinctive is the sampling of the opening four bars of the well-known “Montagues and Capulets” theme from Sergei Prokofiev’s ballet Romeo and Juliet (1935). Developing multimodal literacy through the educational use of music videos can help students not only interpret and produce their own videos, but also critically deconstruct other audiovisual objects of popular culture and engage with a range of contemporary social and political issues.

In our increasingly multimodal era, music educators need to reconsider which approaches most effectively engage students with music. New philosophical perspectives have emerged, influencing curriculum design and opening new directions for music education. Multisensory music teaching and learning constitutes a methodological approach that supports multimodal learning through multiple senses, extending beyond traditional models that rely primarily on visual and auditory modes. Research in the field emphasizes the value of combining sensory modalities in teaching and learning through continuous interaction with the environment and experience. Educational practices are not limited to verbal communication; they also include speech, writing, drawing, gesture, facial expression, movement, and graphic representation. Music engages a variety of cognitive and bodily processes and is inherently multisensory. In this context, incorporating multisensory activities into teaching and learning can support a deeper and more embodied understanding of abstract musical concepts and symbols. Multisensory activities are also prominent in traditional music education approaches associated with Orff, Dalcroze, and Kodály. Although the music curriculum in Greece supports the use of contemporary methodological tools, school music education has not yet paid sufficient attention to multisensory music teaching and learning. This issue is even more pronounced in conservatory settings, where the curriculum has remained largely unchanged for more than 60 years and is therefore misaligned with current philosophical trends in music education. The aim of this article is to investigate the characteristics of multisensory music teaching and learning through a literature review and to design multisensory music-pedagogical activities for Theory of Music lessons in school and conservatory education in Greece. More broadly, emphasis is placed on the prerequisites for implementation through examples and practical applications.

This paper presents findings from a research study exploring the use of digital technologies to engage young children in music learning and music-making. Specifically, children aged 4–5 attending a nursery setting in Greece participated in a series of pedagogical activities designed to scaffold their understanding of musical concepts over a four-week period. These activities incorporated the use of Synth4kids, a web-based virtual instrument for children designed to support music learning through kinaesthetic tools and functions. Synth4kids, which makes use of the tablet’s sensors (touch screen, tilt sensor), was deployed in connection with Leap Motion, a hand-tracking sensor providing children with additional options. Specifically, Leap Motion offers extended ways of embodied interaction in the process of music-making (e.g., changing pitch or dynamics through movements of the hands in space). Children were supported in using these digital resources through playful experimentation, music games and story-making, and their engagement was observed and video-recorded. The research draws on the theory of multimodal social semiotics, which conceptualises music as a semiotic resource and as one mode among many in the communicational ensemble. Using multimodality as its overarching framework, the study sought to investigate how young children’s musical learning might be supported by the deployment of digital media, and enriched through the purposeful rhetorical orchestration of the resources of music along with other modes of communication (e.g., movement; (moving) image; gesture; speech) so as to fulfil pedagogical purposes. This was pursued, among other means, by fostering interdisciplinary connections with other (curricular) knowledge as well as with children’s out-of-school interests and experiences of digital and multimodal literacies. The presentation discusses instances of young children’s multimodal learning in order to trace the ways in which digitally mediated music-making opens up possibilities for communicating creatively through sound, both in the production and interpretation of music, while developing a deeper understanding of abstract musical concepts.

Rapid changes in contemporary society have transformed traditional musical experiences, requiring the development of new digital and multimodal music literacies (Kokkidou, 2016). In particular, new media and technologies have changed the ways in which children engage with music, broadening existing music-making practices and creating new ones (Aaron et al., 2016). Music education should therefore provide students with rich experiences and opportunities to explore new digital-musical environments (Webster, 2012). Scholars in music education advocate responsive pedagogical approaches that create meaningful connections between formal music studies and students’ everyday experiences and musical preferences, in line with the needs of contemporary postmodern society (Kokkidou, 2016). Music Theory courses constitute a compulsory part of conservatory curricula in many countries. However, their teaching and learning aims are not widely agreed upon, and teaching practices vary not only between educational institutions but also among teachers working within the same conservatory (Rogers, 2004). Despite significant changes in music pedagogy during recent decades, music theory classrooms often remain restricted to traditional didactic models (Mygdanis & Kokkidou, 2018a). Music teachers tend to emphasize scales, key signatures, chords, Roman numerals, and related terminology (Rogers, 2004). As a result, lessons may become overloaded with rules, while musical meaning is associated primarily with these procedures (Kuoppamäki, 2010). Current literature emphasizes the role of Music Theory classes in the development of children’s musicianship (Kuoppamäki, 2010), shifting attention from the description of acoustic elements toward social interaction through music (Westerlund, 2003), so that children can shape their own musical lives (Regelski, 2008). In this context, a contemporary Theory of Music curriculum should encourage informal approaches to teaching and learning, use alternative methodological tools, integrate new technologies (Mygdanis & Kokkidou, 2018a), and connect theory with practice in support of musical meaning-making (Kuoppamäki, 2010). Live coding is increasingly being incorporated into music classrooms as a teaching practice (Aaron, 2016), with positive effects on music teaching and learning (Freeman & Magerko, 2016), musical creativity, and deeper musical understanding (Mygdanis & Kokkidou, 2018b). It is compatible with informal forms of music learning (Kokkidou, 2016) and can be used across a wide range of musical genres and settings—from classical, jazz, and popular music to laptop orchestras—with possibilities limited largely by the skills of the musician-programmer (Aaron et al., 2016). The aim of this article is to present live coding practices as a new approach to Music Theory classrooms. Emphasis is placed on the advantages and prerequisites of their integration through examples and practical applications with Sonic Pi, a creative coding language designed with music education in mind (Aaron, 2016; Mygdanis & Kokkidou, 2018b). Finally, we propose music-education activities oriented toward musical creativity and active, critical listening, drawing on interdisciplinarity, cooperative learning, and experiential teaching and learning. These practices can support the development of new musical literacies and contribute to students’ understanding of contemporary digital music culture.

Culture is often regarded as an elusive concept. It becomes recognisable through the shared historical experience and language of a social group and encompasses, among other things, achievements, systems of ideas and values, symbols, institutions, and forms of behaviour and communication. For Bauman (1999), contemporary culture can be described through tensions between invention and preservation, continuity and discontinuity, innovation and tradition. UNESCO’s definition (1982) describes culture as the set of distinctive spiritual, material, intellectual, and emotional features of a society. It extends beyond the arts and literature to include ways of life, fundamental human rights, value systems, traditions, and beliefs. Every pedagogical act has cultural dimensions realised through interaction between the individual and society and contributes to the shaping of behaviour (Rolling, 2011). In this sense, the school functions as an agent of values and culture, promoting ideologies and transmitting cultural meanings from one generation to the next. This process is mediated through the official curriculum: a set of designed experiences and planned activities intended to have educational consequences for one or more learners (Eisner, 2002). In relation to the music curriculum, it is widely recognised that children acquire not only knowledge and skills but also develop forms of musical-social thinking within a cultural dimension (Bates, 2017). This study investigates the ways in which the concept of culture, understood as a measure of experience, emerges within the Greek Music Curriculum for the “New School”. The study adopts a qualitative approach and uses semiotic text analysis based on Christodoulou’s (2012) model. Its broader aim is to clarify what culture signifies within school music education in Greece and how the concept is connected to the educational values embedded in the music curriculum.

Every pedagogical act has a cultural dimension that is realised through the interaction between the individual and society, contributing both to the shaping of behaviour and to changes in personal and social environments (Rolling, 2011). Pedagogy can therefore be understood as a political, social, and educational vision. Contemporary pedagogies and curricula place increasing emphasis on social values and, to a certain extent, reflect what each society considers important for students to learn. Historically, schools have functioned as carriers of values by promoting ideologies and transmitting cultural meanings from one generation to the next. In the context of current conditions of uncertainty, contemporary schooling is called upon to cultivate values that support a just and inclusive society and to offer students diverse learning experiences that enable them to value and defend solidarity and democracy, both in the present and as active and responsible citizens in the future. These aims can be supported through the official curriculum, which underpins educational processes and encompasses the range of school experiences and planned activities intended to have educational consequences for learners (Eisner, 1994). Within curricula, the “teaching” of values is not confined to a particular subject but permeates the full spectrum of school life and extends beyond it (Kokkidou, 2015). According to Bates (2017), students in music education do not merely acquire knowledge and skills; they may also develop what he describes as musical-social thinking. This paper presents and discusses findings from a qualitative comparative study of four official music curricula—those of Greece, Sweden, Japan, and Singapore—with a particular focus on social values. The curricula were selected as examples of European and Asian educational systems and are not analysed as isolated phenomena, but as components of broader social wholes that reflect complex political, educational, and sociocultural patterns. The methodological tool is semiotic text analysis based on Christodoulou’s (2012) model. The broader aim of the study is to deepen understanding of what music education means within a society and how it is shaped by that society.

Musical cultures spread over time to new places, borrow elements from other cultures, and undergo processes of change. Although attention to authentic forms continues to be of considerable value, in the contemporary musical environment the notion of authenticity has itself been transformed, and what is regarded as authentic may often represent the radical innovation of an earlier generation. Throughout its historical development, Western art music has borrowed and adapted elements from other musical cultures. Today, popular music in turn creatively appropriates elements from Western art music through the emergence of musical hybrids. From a postmodern perspective, the boundaries between high and low culture, autonomous and commercial production, have also been destabilised, challenging fixed hierarchies of musical value. Musical hybrids can therefore be understood, in a broader sense than direct borrowing, as practices that break with inherited traditions within a cosmopolitan musical environment. This presentation examines the borrowing of elements from Western art music within popular-music culture. More broadly, it considers whether such borrowing is legitimate or exploitative, whether the essential character of borrowed material is preserved, and whether musical hybrids can ultimately claim a distinct form of autonomy.

Music education is a continuously evolving field. Over recent decades, new philosophical perspectives have emerged, influencing school curricula and opening new horizons for music education. Multisensory music teaching and learning represents a methodological approach that, unlike conventional learning models largely confined to the visual and auditory domains, promotes multimodal learning through the engagement of multiple senses. Human beings gather information from their environment through the combined operation of the senses and through emotional, behavioural, cognitive, and psychomotor processes of the brain. Research in the field emphasises the importance of engaging as many senses as possible in learning, which takes place through experience and continuous interaction with the environment. Educational practice is likewise not restricted to verbal communication but extends across multiple modes, including speech, writing, drawing, gesture, facial expression, movement, and graphic representation. In a broader framework, multisensory teaching and learning can be connected with Gardner’s (2011) theory of multiple intelligences, according to which learners approach concepts in different ways and from different perspectives. Musical practice and learning engage a range of brain processes and are inherently multimodal. Through multisensory activities combining auditory, visual, bodily, and psychomotor domains, students can develop a deeper and more embodied understanding of abstract musical ideas, concepts, and symbols. Traditional music-pedagogical approaches such as Orff, Dalcroze, and Kodály also place emphasis on multisensory activity, although smell and taste are generally absent. The purpose of this presentation is to investigate, through a review of the literature, the characteristics of multisensory music teaching and learning and to discuss the design of multisensory music-education activities. More broadly, it seeks to clarify the conditions under which such activities can be integrated into school music lessons through examples and practical applications.

In today’s digital era, the rapid development of music technology has transformed the ways in which people interact with music. The contemporary digital-cultural environment shapes children’s musical preferences and contributes to the development of new forms of musical literacy. The incorporation of digital media into music lessons can provide new approaches to teaching and learning while extending existing practices. However, despite rapid social, cultural, and technological change, music education has not paid sufficient attention to the integration of music technology into teaching processes. This is particularly evident in kindergarten education, where traditional music education methods, designed decades ago, do not incorporate new technologies and tend to emphasize musical instruments and genres that may be absent from children’s contemporary digital-cultural environment. The aim of this article is to propose an educational approach for incorporating digital and virtual instruments into music teaching and learning for kindergarten-aged children. For this purpose, music-education activities have been designed using Synth4kids, an original music-making web application developed for music lessons, as the principal methodological tool. The activities emphasize the development of improvisation, sonic experimentation, kinaesthetic experiences, experiential learning, and cooperative teaching and learning, reflecting the needs of contemporary musical and multimodal literacies within the current digital environment.

Today, children grow up in digital environments that shape their musical experiences. Traditional music-pedagogical methods, however, were designed many decades ago and do not incorporate contemporary technologies or the use of electronic sounds and instruments, leaving a significant part of children’s musical preferences underrepresented. Various virtual instruments have been developed over time, but most function primarily as representations of acoustic instruments, without explicit music-pedagogical foundations and without fully exploiting the affordances of contemporary technology. The aim of this paper is to present Synth4kids, an original web-based music application designed for children aged 5–8. Synth4kids is a virtual synthesiser oriented towards music teaching and learning that incorporates elements derived from traditional music-pedagogical approaches, including Dalcroze Eurhythmics, the Kodály Method, and Orff Schulwerk. The application is compatible with all major operating systems and makes use of tablet-device sensors to provide new kinaesthetic experiences. It can be used alongside acoustic instruments, offering expanded possibilities for sound experimentation, improvisation, and children’s first encounters with the principles of electronic music.

Musical creativity can be understood both as an ability and as an intentional, active process that results in a product that is new, at least in relation to the individual who creates it. Research has demonstrated that musical creativity can be taught, making its systematic integration into pedagogical practice increasingly important. At the same time, the sociocultural and educational context substantially influences the design and implementation of creative musical activities in the classroom. Contemporary literature has shown that digital media and music technology can contribute to the development of students’ creative skills while simultaneously transforming established modes of music teaching and learning. This study focuses on the cultivation of musical creativity through Creative Coding, a form of computer programming oriented towards the production of expressive musical outcomes rather than the primarily functional goals associated with conventional programming.

Recent years have witnessed rapid developments in distance education, shaping a pedagogical framework whose philosophical orientation differs substantially from conventional education. Within this context, Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) have emerged as a new and widely adopted model. Their expansion has been rapid, and the majority are now offered by academic institutions through dedicated platforms. While some regard MOOCs as an educational innovation with the potential to transform education, others express concerns, particularly regarding the absence of clearly articulated pedagogical models. Despite these debates, MOOCs have become established within distance higher education, making the active participation of libraries increasingly important, just as it is in face-to-face academic courses. This development creates new challenges and opportunities for libraries, which must adapt to a continually evolving online environment. Research has nevertheless shown that the integration of libraries into MOOCs has not yet produced the desired outcomes because of the specific nature of these courses, copyright issues, accessibility, and the constantly changing framework in which they operate. As a result, MOOC designers often avoid active library involvement and instead rely on websites, blogs, and instructors’ notes as educational resources. A similar situation can be observed in music-related MOOCs. This presentation investigates ways in which music libraries can adapt to and participate in the content of a MOOC and seeks to clarify the limitations and concerns that arise, with the aim of enabling music libraries to assume a more active role within this continuously developing online educational environment.

Today, children grow up in a digital-cultural environment that shapes their musical experiences. However, traditional music-education approaches (Dalcroze, Kodály, Orff, etc.), designed many decades ago, do not incorporate new technologies or electronic sounds and instruments into their content. As a result, a significant part of children’s musical preferences remains unrepresented. Numerous virtual instruments have been developed for use in music teaching and learning. However, most reproduce acoustic instruments (pianos, glockenspiels, etc.) without fully exploiting the affordances of digital technology. The aim of this paper is to present Synth4kids, an original music-making application designed for children aged 5–8. Synth4kids is a monophonic web-based synthesizer based on analogue synthesis. It is designed for music lessons and incorporates elements of traditional music-education approaches (movable Do, pentatonic scale, various timbres, etc.). It is compatible with tablets and computers and can be used independently or in conjunction with orchestral and Orff instruments. Furthermore, it makes use of tablets’ tilt sensors and touch screens, enabling new kinaesthetic experiences. Overall, it offers opportunities for extended sound experimentation, improvisation, and musical interaction among students.

In our increasingly multimodal era, it is widely recognized that music educators need to reconsider which approaches most effectively engage students with music, what it means to teach music in a multimodal context, and what changes in pedagogy, curricula, and methodology are required. Whereas traditional notions of music theory focus primarily on reading and writing music through standard notation and musical symbols, multimodal activities allow for new forms of musical understanding and learning. In Greece in particular, music theory courses, as well as the broader curriculum followed by conservatories, are not fully aligned with current philosophical trends in music education. In practice, the only official source is the “Royal Decree 11/11/57 (Ref. 229),” which provides brief guidelines without specifying teaching and learning aims. Educators therefore rely on a limited number of textbooks to structure their material and lesson plans. This situation may negatively affect students’ achievement and reduce their interest in music. In this article, we argue that multimodal music teaching and learning can serve as a guiding framework and a new form of instruction for music theory courses at conservatories and other music education institutions in Greece. The proposed framework draws on innovative methodological tools and contemporary philosophical perspectives in music education, identified through an extensive literature review, with particular emphasis on multisensory teaching and learning. Data will also be collected through interviews with music educators to examine current practice and through a pilot programme to be implemented. This triangulation is expected to strengthen the validity and reliability of the research and development process.

The integration of new technologies into school music lessons constitutes a new challenge for music education (Finney & Burnard, 2008) and is of particular importance because contemporary environments for constructing musical experience are increasingly digital and multimodal. Research has shown that the incorporation of new technologies can foster students’ creativity, provide new forms of motivation, and offer opportunities to broaden their horizons and engage more deeply with diverse areas of music. This study focuses on Creative Coding, a form of programming oriented towards the production of expressive outcomes, in contrast to conventional programming whose primary purpose is functional. Integrating Creative Coding into music teaching and learning requires the connection of two disciplinary areas: computing and music. Creativity—particularly composition and improvisation—occupies a central position within environments of real-time or virtual-time interaction. More specifically, the presentation introduces interdisciplinary teaching and learning proposals for the use of Creative Coding through Sonic Pi, a language oriented towards music education and developed by Sam Aaron at the University of Cambridge Computer Laboratory. The broader aim is to investigate the conditions under which Creative Coding could be incorporated as a subject area within the current Greek Music Curriculum, taking into account the existing cultural and educational context.

Curriculum development occupies a central position in efforts to improve schools and educational systems. Within this context, comparisons between educational systems and curricula play an increasingly important role in decision-making related to educational reform at global, national, and regional levels. Such comparisons, however, carry the risk of uncritical, arbitrary, or fragmentary borrowing of educational strategies and solutions from other countries, potentially resulting in the standardisation of curricula. In particular, educational systems that perform strongly in international assessments may encourage policy-makers elsewhere to adopt selected strategies, interventions, and innovations with the expectation of achieving similar results. Contemporary debate increasingly emphasises, however, that cultural context substantially affects the implementation of a curriculum and its wider consequences. There is no “perfect” educational system or “perfect” curriculum; each may prove more or less functional and effective depending on the broader characteristics of the educational system and its fundamental social coordinates. This presentation reports findings from a comparative study of the official Music Curricula of three countries: Greece, Sweden, and Japan. The comparative criteria, informed by contemporary literature, include curricular aims and philosophy, objectives, methodological tools, assessment practices, degree of openness, centralised and decentralised dimensions of implementation, and twenty-first-century skills. The study also seeks to identify practices of policy borrowing and evidence concerning the possible convergence of curricula towards common models. The three countries were selected because their school systems share comparable structural characteristics and because music is a compulsory subject during stages of compulsory education. Sweden and Japan are also frequently identified as countries with effective educational systems. Nevertheless, substantial differences exist among the three contexts regarding the value attributed to school music and broader understandings of music education. Until relatively recently, comparative educational research predominantly examined policies originating in Western contexts. Increasing attention is now being directed towards educational systems in East Asia, many of which occupy prominent positions in international assessments of educational effectiveness. Another important dimension concerns the final shaping and implementation of the curriculum. In Sweden, for example, schools work with local authorities to decide how the core curriculum will be adapted to local needs, taught, and assessed. In Japan, schools can similarly develop local curricula—concerning both content and methodology—within the national curricular framework. Equivalent processes are not found in Greece. The Music Curricula examined are the most recent versions available for the respective contexts: the Swedish and Japanese curricula have been in force since 2011, while the Greek curriculum has been in force since 2014. Part of the Japanese curriculum retains material originally developed in 2006, while revisions introduced in 2011 concern the first three years of primary education. The Greek curriculum extends to 195 pages, the Swedish curriculum to seven pages, the 2006 Japanese curriculum to ten pages, and the 2011 revision for the first three grades to seven pages. This quantitative difference offers an initial indication of the contrasting logics underlying curricular implementation. Preliminary findings suggest that all three curricula are aligned, although to differing degrees and in different ways, with recent research in music education and contemporary philosophical approaches to music curricula. All three adopt spiral forms of development, although they organise and categorise content according to different criteria. Notable differences concern the emphasis placed on interdisciplinarity and interculturality, as well as approaches to assessment. The most significant differences, however, relate to curricular openness and to the social role attributed to music. Although all three curricula stress the importance of teachers’ pedagogical autonomy, the volume and specificity of curricular information indirectly—and in some cases directly—shape the degree of flexibility available in implementation and in adaptation to the particular circumstances of each school, including students’ needs and interests. At the implementation level, flexibility and adaptation are also related to the decentralised procedures described above. The discussion interprets similarities and differences among the three Music Curricula in relation to the distinctive cultural and educational contexts within which they were designed and implemented. On this basis, the study also considers selected practices from Sweden and Japan that could provide points of departure for dialogue concerning future revisions of the Greek Music Curriculum, provided that such discussion takes account of changing educational needs, social transformations, and the cultural composition of contemporary society.

The integration of artificial intelligence (AI) into music education has introduced a transformative paradigm, reshaping established pedagogical approaches and expanding the potential for creative and individualized learning experiences. AI technologies are facilitating new approaches to composition, performance, and music analysis, transforming the ways in which learners engage in musical praxis while offering unprecedented levels of personalization and adaptability to diverse needs. These developments enable students to engage with music learning in new ways, fostering creativity, critical thinking, self-regulation, and collaboration in classrooms through AI-powered tools. However, incorporating AI also presents significant challenges, particularly regarding the ethical implications of generative AI and creativity, AI systems’ reliability and transparency, and the shifting role of educators in an increasingly automated learning environment. Additionally, the use of AI raises critical questions about the potential for bias, as well as the risks of over-reliance on technology in teaching and learning processes. This presentation explores the opportunities AI offers for enhancing music education while addressing the complex challenges that accompany its use. By examining recent case studies and theoretical perspectives, emphasis is placed on how AI can augment pedagogical practices and inspire innovative teaching strategies. The discourse thus extends beyond technological capabilities to encompass broader discussions about the future of education, the preservation of artistic integrity, and the role of educators in guiding students through the increasingly digital landscape in the age of AI.

Technological developments in recent years have transformed the ways in which people engage with music, fostering new digital and multimodal literacies while reshaping forms of expression, creation, and music teaching and learning. These rapid changes are also expected to influence instrumental music pedagogy. Research indicates the added value of digital media across all stages of instrumental learning, from listening and practice to performance and creation. Instrumental lessons now have access to a wide range of digital tools that musicians and teachers of previous decades could scarcely have imagined. The central issue, therefore, is not the selection of technological tools itself, but the ways in which they are integrated into educational practice through a framework that differs substantially from traditional approaches and extends beyond the conventional functions of listening, performing, and creating. This presentation examines ways of using digital media and contemporary technologies in individual and group instrumental lessons, with a particular focus on piano and guitar, aiming both to expand conventional strategies and to develop new ones. Areas of integration are organised around musical activities and their pedagogical functions rather than around the technological characteristics of specific tools. Alongside listening, performance, creation, production, and movement, object-making is introduced as an additional area of practice, while the dimensions of musical-concept understanding and assessment are also strengthened. In this way, emphasis remains on musical praxis itself within a holistic approach in which digital media function as facilitators of instrumental music teaching and learning.

Composition is already established as a core area of learning within elementary general music curricula, while contemporary musical practice increasingly unfolds across post-digital and hybrid environments in which acoustic sound, digital media, code, interfaces, immersive technologies, and generative systems intersect. These developments broaden the processes, materials, interactions, and environments through which composing can be understood and enacted in school music. The purpose of this paper is to propose and critically discuss a pedagogical mapping of contemporary composition practices and techniques through the Music Education 4.0 framework. Drawing on scholarship in composition pedagogy, post-digital music education, and technology-mediated musical creativity, together with documented research and classroom-based applications in which these practices have been implemented and examined across authentic elementary general music settings, the paper organizes them according to modes of compositional practice and thinking rather than specific technologies. These include the transformation and organization of sonic material; creative and computational approaches to compositional problem solving; embodied and interactive composition; spatial and environmental organization of sound; and generative and AI-mediated compositional processes. They are illustrated through sound-based and electroacoustic composition, sampling and remix, creative coding and algorithmic processes, tangible and sensor-mediated systems, immersive and spatial environments, and AI-mediated composition. Through a post-digital and human-centered Music Education 4.0 lens, these practices are considered in relation to compositional agency, creative problem solving, computational thinking in composition, reflective decision-making, iterative experimentation, and critical post-digital literacy. The paper proposes an expanded pedagogical understanding of composition in which students organize and transform musical material while also designing, testing, and critically evaluating the conditions, rules, interactions, and systems through which musical outcomes emerge, retaining responsibility for their compositional decisions.

This site-specific digital project explores the soundwalk as both a creative and pedagogical method for engaging with public space through listening, movement, and sonic documentation. Grounded in the principles of acoustic ecology and linked to the concept of the soundscape, it focuses on the sonic environment of the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Center (SNFCC) in Athens as a setting for embodied exploration and critical awareness. Participants are invited to move through selected areas of the site, including the canal, open pathways, and quieter green spaces, while recording environmental sounds, acoustic textures, and brief auditory reflections. To support this process, a mobile application entitled Niarchos Sound Routes was specifically developed for the project. By integrating geolocation, mapping, and audio-recording functionalities, the application enables participants to document sounds in relation to location, movement, and perception. The walk is approached not as a passive route, but as an active method involving attentive listening, observation, and reflection. The project aims to create a collective sonic map, examine how recorded sounds can be creatively expanded through technological means, and encourage shared reflection on how public space can be experienced and understood through active listening.

This workshop explores the pedagogical potential of transforming field recordings into electroacoustic compositions through the use of handmade digital musical instruments and interactive artifacts. Drawing on principles of acoustic ecology and soundscape studies, it approaches environmental sound not only as recorded material but also as a basis for creative reflection, critical listening, and collaborative music-making. Participants will work with sounds collected during the soundwalk and engage in processes of selection, manipulation, layering, and reorganization in order to create an original electroacoustic composition grounded in principles of acoustic ecology, which will ultimately be performed for an audience. The workshop highlights the educational value of this process by combining listening, technological experimentation, and artistic decision-making. Through the innovative use of controllers, software, and digital interfaces, participants are encouraged to rethink the relationship between environment, sound, and musical expression. In this framework, technology functions not simply as a sound-processing tool but as a pedagogical medium that supports exploration, interpretation, and composition. Ultimately, the workshop aims to cultivate active listening, creative agency, and a deeper understanding of how environmental recordings can be transformed into meaningful artistic and educational experiences.

This workshop explores the role of new technologies and digital media in Music Schools, focusing on both individual instrumental lessons and group-based theory classes. Through indicative examples and pedagogical scenarios, it highlights ways in which contemporary digital tools can support teaching and learning, enhance students’ active participation, and expand opportunities for creative, collaborative, and multimodal musical engagement. At the same time, it examines the pedagogical, technical, and practical conditions required for their integration into school practice, so that technology use responds to the specific needs of different subjects and functions as a meaningful support for music teaching.

This workshop focuses on a holistic approach to piano teaching in Music Schools, centred on connecting the individual domains of the subject within a unified pedagogical framework. More specifically, it proposes organising instruction through the systematic integration of repertoire with technical performance skills, music theory and notation, aural skills, sight-reading, interpretative approaches, and creative piano practices such as improvisation, harmonisation, and accompaniment, in relation to the key organising principles of the current Curriculum. In this framework, the various domains of the subject coexist organically and are dynamically adapted to the needs of the repertoire studied by each student, supporting their overall musical development.

This seminar focuses on the changes introduced by artificial intelligence into scholarly writing and on the need for both early-career and experienced researchers to develop evidence-based and responsible practices. It presents ways in which generative-AI tools can support ideation, text organisation, language editing, feedback, and the management of complex research material. Any generated content is treated as material requiring scholarly scrutiny and verification, particularly when it concerns bibliographic references, interpretations of data, or claims that may appear persuasive without sufficient evidence. Issues of academic integrity, authorship, transparency, protection of personal and research data, bias, and inaccurate or fabricated outputs are discussed. Through examples and critical discussion, the seminar develops a framework for AI use that keeps evidence, methodological consistency, and final scholarly judgement under the responsibility of the researcher.

This three-hour workshop for educators presents practical ways of integrating digital tools and new technologies into music education. It includes examples of classroom application, pedagogical approaches, and discussion of both the possibilities and the challenges associated with their use in teaching practice.

This workshop examines contemporary approaches to integrating digital media and new technologies into school music education, with emphasis on their pedagogical use and on the conditions required for meaningful implementation. Indicative practices include music production, digital recording, interactive applications, creative coding, maker activities, and the use of emerging technologies. These applications are connected with active, collaborative, and inquiry-based forms of learning in which students create, experiment, and reflect on musical outcomes. Particular emphasis is placed on selecting tools in relation to clearly defined musical objectives, accessibility, age appropriateness, and adaptation to the actual conditions of the school classroom. Issues of equipment, teacher professional development, data management, and critical use of technology are also discussed. The workshop adopts a post-digital perspective, combining physical and digital media within creative musical experiences.

This workshop focuses on the design and creation of interactive learning objects for music education and on ways of integrating them into teaching practice. It presents design principles for digital games, interactive exercises, multimedia activities, and small applications that combine sound, image, text, and user interaction. Emphasis is placed on connecting each digital object with specific musical objectives, immediate feedback, usability, accessibility, and age appropriateness. Participants examine ways of using these resources for aural discrimination, music theory, creative experimentation, practice, and formative assessment. Criteria for selecting digital tools, technical limitations, and possibilities for reusing and adapting materials are also discussed. The aim is to develop small, flexible, and pedagogically grounded digital resources that can be integrated organically into musical practice.

This experiential workshop explores the possibilities and challenges of using new technologies and digital media in school music education. The content is organised in two parts and combines theoretical framing with practical applications that can be adapted to different educational levels and material or technological conditions. Activities include digital recording and music production, creative coding, interactive applications, maker practices, and multimodal music creation. Participants design ways in which students can listen, create, collaborate, experiment, and reflect while connecting each technological choice

This experiential workshop presents practices for creating educational backing tracks and play-along videos that can support performance, practice, and teaching in music education. The process begins with the instructional objective and the musical adaptation of the material and proceeds to the organisation of accompaniment parts, the selection of tempo and key, digital production, and final export. Approaches to multitrack editing, virtual instruments, and basic mixing techniques are presented for creating functional accompaniments, together with practices for synchronising audio with notation, visual cues, or other supporting material. Particular emphasis is placed on producing different levels of difficulty and versions with or without selected musical parts so that the resources can support differentiated teaching. The workshop connects digital music production with directly applicable needs in school and instrumental music practice.

The seminar A Sea of Sounds uses the marine soundscape as a starting point for creative activities in music, acoustic ecology, and STEAM. Participants explore sounds from the sea and coastal environments as musical material, developing practices of active listening, recording, classification, transformation, and composition. The approach connects music with environmental education, science, and technology through collaborative and inquiry-based activities that can lead to the creation of soundscapes and short sonic narratives. Particular emphasis is placed on the relationship between auditory experience and marine literacy and on cultivating ecological awareness through the creative transformation of sound. The seminar establishes a framework in which the natural environment, digital media, and musical creation are connected within authentic learning experiences that strengthen collaboration, imagination, and critical listening.

Contemporary technology has transformed the ways in which people engage with music, shaping new forms of musical expression, creation, and learning. Digital media are now pervasive and constitute a defining component of musical praxis, expanding established understandings of improvisation and composition. From the creation and production of a piece to mixing and distribution practices, technology plays a central role. In this workshop, participants will experiment with new forms of musical interaction grounded in contemporary digital and multimodal literacies. Through the construction of digital and tangible musical instruments, graphic scores, contemporary compositional practices, and elements of experimental music, the workshop will explore how digital media can open new improvisational pathways and support expanded forms of free musical expression.

This seminar examines the possibilities of using artificial-intelligence tools at different stages of the research process and the methodological and ethical challenges that arise. Indicative uses of generative AI are presented for ideation, the formulation of research questions, organisation and summarisation of material, language editing, development of code or small research tools, and support in processing complex information. The discussion emphasises the need to verify all generated information and to understand limitations including inaccurate or fabricated outputs, bias, model opacity, and inadequate documentation of sources. Issues of academic integrity, intellectual property, data protection, and disclosure of AI use in research are also examined. The aim is to develop a critical and responsible stance based on clear procedures for verification, documentation, and the researcher’s ultimate scholarly responsibility.

This workshop employs coding practices within the STEAM framework. Through hands-on applications, participants are introduced to the Scratch visual-programming language, create their own musical artefacts, and explore ways of integrating elements of programming into their music lessons.

This workshop presents ways of integrating visual programming into music education within the interdisciplinary STEAM framework. Using environments such as Scratch as a starting point, participants explore how fundamental coding structures—sequence, repetition, events, conditionals, and variables—can be connected with musical concepts such as pulse, rhythmic and melodic patterns, form, and variation. Activities are organised as short creative challenges in which code is used for composition, experimentation, and the development of interactive musical objects. The process is grounded in experiential learning, collaboration, and iterative cycles of design and feedback. The workshop also examines the contribution of visual programming to computational thinking when programming decisions are directly connected with specific musical choices. In this way, bridges are created among music, technology, and creative problem solving.

This presentation examines principles for designing STEAM music-education scenarios and the possibilities created through interdisciplinary connections among music, technology, science, engineering, and mathematics. A central issue is the formulation of a shared authentic question or creative problem around which clearly defined musical objectives and meaningful interdisciplinary connections can be organised. A design process is presented that incorporates inquiry, making, experimentation, testing, feedback, and redesign, using digital media, programming, maker practices, and multimodal materials when these serve the learning scenario. Challenges are also analysed, including superficial interdisciplinarity, technical demands, time management, and adaptation to the age-related and learning needs of the group. STEAM is discussed as a framework for creative, collaborative, and inquiry-based music learning.

Video is a complex multimodal form in which sound, music, and images—whether static or moving—communicate meaning through intricate combinations of visual and auditory codes. Different forms of music video are part of students’ everyday lives from early childhood through adolescence and adulthood. Most students encounter music multimodally through listening, viewing, and creative production in informal environments. Within this context, educators are called upon to reflect on ways of integrating music videos into school and into music teaching and learning. In this workshop, participants are introduced to the language of music videos—including performance-based, animated, and narrative forms—and to tools for their analysis. They also become familiar with the free Canva platform, which provides facilities for video production and editing, including scripting, shot design, music adaptation, and effects. These elements are explored through practical examples and creative activities. Finally, the workshop presents steps for designing educational applications that actively involve students in interpreting, creating, and evaluating music videos.

This workshop offers a practical introduction to creating digital musical instruments using the Scratch visual-programming language and the Makey Makey tangible interface. Participants explore how everyday objects and conductive materials can function as controllers for triggering and transforming digital sounds. Through basic programming structures, they organise sonic events, create musical sequences, and design interactive musical constructions, connecting musical praxis with concepts of code and physical interaction. The activity is situated within a STEAM and maker-culture framework in which knowledge is constructed through design, making, testing, and redesign. The workshop highlights the potential of these tools for composition, improvisation, exploration of musical concepts, collaboration, and the development of computational thinking, while keeping technical requirements accessible for school-based applications.

This workshop provides an introduction to creative coding with Sonic Pi and explores code as a medium for musical expression, composition, and experimentation. No previous programming experience is required. Participants are introduced to basic commands and structures and connect them with musical concepts such as pulse, rhythmic and melodic patterns, repetition, variation, timbre, and form. Through progressively structured activities, they create musical sequences, combine synthesised sounds and samples, and experiment with live modification of code. Sonic Pi is approached as a music-educational environment that connects musical creativity with computational thinking, collaboration, and inquiry-based learning. The workshop also discusses ways of integrating creative coding into school and non-formal learning contexts, with particular emphasis on maintaining a clear connection between programming actions, musical intention, and audible outcomes.

This presentation explores music video as a multimodal field of creation within music teaching and learning. Participants examine relationships among image, sound, movement, and narrative and consider how the production of a short video can be organised as a music-education activity. Key stages of the creative process are presented, from developing an initial idea and planning an audiovisual narrative to recording, selecting musical material, editing, and final assembly. Particular emphasis is placed on musical decisions arising from the synchronisation of sound and image, on the development of media literacies, and on the cultivation of creativity, collaboration, and critical thinking. Video production is approached as a flexible activity capable of supporting interpretation, composition, improvisation, and musical storytelling through accessible digital tools.

This presentation aims to discuss the theoretical framework of informal music-learning processes and the ways in which these practices can be adopted under the conditions created by the COVID-19 pandemic and the transition to online music teaching and learning.

Song is inherently multimodal, combining language with musical sound and often generating narratives and imagery for listeners. In music education, it can function as a field of enjoyment, learning, and collective participation. This presentation proposes interdisciplinary and multisensory approaches to song teaching and learning, repertoire enrichment, familiarisation with terminology from popular music and music production, and creative practices involving conducting, repetition, text setting, and the musical arrangement of lyrics. Technological media are also used for song arranging and production, together with tools for analysing, interpreting, editing, and creating music videos. The proposed applications can be used in both face-to-face and distance music education.

Rapid changes in the contemporary digital age are transforming the ways in which children interact with music, shaping their musical experiences and preferences. In this context, teachers need to consider students’ needs for musical engagement through digital media. The workshop proposes the integration of new technologies into music teaching and learning in both formal and informal settings, drawing on the interdisciplinary STEAM model. Through practical activities, participants will become familiar with the Scratch™ visual programming language and the Makey Makey™ interface and explore their use in face-to-face and distance-learning contexts. Working collaboratively, participants will be able to develop musical applications and connect them to improvised electronic instruments constructed from cables, conductive materials, and everyday objects. Integrating these digital tools into the music classroom can broaden approaches to music teaching and learning and support new forms of sound exploration, musical creation, and expression. The proposed activities reflect emerging digital and multimodal musical literacies and respond to the wider cultural conditions of contemporary society.

This seminar proposes ways of integrating new technologies and digital applications into distance music teaching and learning while taking into account the particular conditions that have emerged in online education. Using the web-based music applications Chrome Music Lab, Groove Pizza, and Synth4kids, participants develop Christmas-themed music-education activities that teachers can incorporate into their own educational practice.

Continuous changes in the contemporary digital era are transforming the ways in which children encounter music and are shaping their musical experiences and preferences. Within this context, educators need to take seriously students’ desire for musical activities involving technology. Research nevertheless indicates that the use of digital media in music lessons—particularly with younger children—has not yet developed in ways that fully reflect the demands of contemporary digital society. This workshop proposes an approach to integrating digital media and new technologies into music teaching and learning. Through the development of music-education activities, teachers are introduced to educational software such as Scratch, BandLab, and Sonic Pi; web applications including Chrome Music Lab and Synth4kids; and interfaces such as Makey Makey, Micro:bit, and Arduino, which can be used in both online and face-to-face teaching. Participants also explore how, together with their students, they can design musical applications and construct improvised electronic musical instruments for classroom use alongside acoustic instruments and Orff instruments. These practices are grounded in contemporary forms of musical creation and expression and seek to reflect children’s musical preferences as well as emerging digital and multimodal musical literacies. The workshop is relevant to all levels of school and conservatoire education, with particular emphasis on preschool and early primary settings.

This seminar focuses on the use of Digital Audio Workstations (DAWs) in distance-learning music lessons and on the possibilities they offer for musical creation, production, practice, and collaboration. It introduces core DAW functions including multitrack recording, editing, the use of virtual instruments and samples, the organisation of musical material on a timeline, and basic mixing processes. The approach is connected with participatory and DIY music-production practices through which students can develop individual or collaborative projects in synchronous and asynchronous learning environments. Methods of file exchange and feedback are discussed alongside issues of technical accessibility, network latency, and pedagogical design. The use of DAWs is situated within an active music-learning framework that supports creativity, self-regulation, and the development of contemporary musical and digital literacies.

In the contemporary digital era, music educators need to take students’ musical needs and preferences seriously and design learning activities that make purposeful use of technology (Tobias, 2016), since technology continually transforms the ways in which people interact with music. The integration of digital media into music-education activities expands established practices of music teaching and learning, while classrooms that incorporate such media tend to adopt hybrid approaches that can more readily accommodate contemporary methodological practices (Tobias, 2016). Over recent decades, virtual instruments have emerged as a category of applications that graphically represent musical instruments on a screen. Research has shown that integrating virtual instruments into music education can support the development of performance skills, creativity, and accompaniment techniques, as well as deeper understanding of musical genres, harmonic principles, and orchestration (Ho, 2007). Although they offer new possibilities and may contribute to the development of pedagogical models that differ from traditional approaches (Williams, 2014), their educational use often remains confined to music-theory or aural-skills instruction (Ruismäki, 2013). This limitation is particularly evident with younger children, since traditional music-pedagogical approaches such as Dalcroze, Kodály, and Orff were developed many decades ago and do not include music technology as part of their original content. Consequently, they may not fully reflect contemporary children’s musical experiences and preferences and may emphasise musical styles and instruments that are less familiar within today’s digital world (Williams, 2014). With regard to the philosophy underlying music-application design, although digital media offer substantially expanded possibilities, many applications remain oriented towards traditional developmental models based on familiar user expectations and behaviours (Williams, 2014), resulting primarily in screen-based representations of physical instruments such as metallophones, pianos, and guitars. Synth4kids is an original web-based virtual-instrument application designed for children aged four to eight. It is oriented towards analogue sound synthesis and enables children to encounter principles of electronic music from an early age. In practical terms, it functions as a monophonic synthesiser that incorporates elements drawn from traditional music-pedagogical approaches—including colour-sound associations, the pentatonic scale, movable-do principles, and kinaesthetic experiences—facilitating its integration into music-education activities (Mygdanis, 2018). The purpose of this workshop is, first, to provide a concise presentation of the capabilities of Synth4kids and, second, to design and implement music-education activities using the application within a music lesson. The principal pedagogical aims of the activities are to foster children’s creativity through collaborative music teaching and learning, sound exploration and experimentation, and an emphasis on kinaesthetic engagement. For active participation, attendees are asked to bring an electronic device, preferably a tablet or computer with a screen resolution of at least 768 × 1024 and internet access. Notes and graphic scores will also be provided for selected activities.

This presentation examines the transformative potential of Music Education 4.0 within a post-digital, anthropocentric framework. Instead of perceiving technology as the primary catalyst of change, the framework regards emerging and immersive tools as resources that enhance human agency, musical meaning-making, and culturally and socially grounded learning. From this perspective, Music Education 4.0 revisits traditional pedagogical approaches through immersive, interactive, and reflective learning experiences, aligned with STREAM strategies that promote cross-disciplinary thinking and the development of communication, creativity, and critical judgment. Music Education 4.0 establishes a foundational framework for an extended, adaptable learning ecology in which learners engage with music through embodied participation and iterative experimentation. Students investigate digital music production to compose, remix, and refine musical ideas, while maker-oriented practices encourage hands-on building, prototyping, and redesign of instruments and sound artifacts, thereby enhancing creativity and problem-solving skills. Programming and immersive environments, such as virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR), can further enhance spatial, musical, and conceptual comprehension through situated exploration and interactive scenarios. Concurrently, AI-enabled tools—ranging from generative music systems to personalized assistants—provide timely and responsive feedback and scaffolding, supporting differentiated learning pathways while emphasizing questions of authorship, accountability, and ethical use that are integral to post-digital educational contexts. Participants will explore current developments in the fields of Music, Technology, and Education through the analysis of real-world and authentic case studies and recent research findings. The discussion also considers how post-digital conditions shape both opportunities and challenges in music teacher education. The session further highlights how STREAM strategies can effectively integrate arts and sciences, allowing educators to create comprehensive, context-aware learning experiences that are explicitly centered on human values, critically informed, and adaptable to swiftly changing musical and technological environments.

This lecture examines the philosophy of maker culture and its connection with the interdisciplinary STE(A)M approach in music education. The central axis is learning through making, experimentation, and the creation of musical artefacts that acquire both personal and collective meaning. Practices are presented in which digital tools, tangible interfaces, everyday objects, and programming applications are combined with composition, improvisation, and the exploration of musical concepts. The process is organised around iterative cycles of design, prototyping, testing, feedback, and redesign, with emphasis on collaboration, learner agency, and problem solving. The relationship between the maker movement, constructionist approaches to learning, and contemporary post-digital practices is also discussed. The music classroom is conceptualised as a creative laboratory in which physical and digital materials connect musical, technological, and computational literacies.

Rapid changes in the digital age are transforming the ways in which students engage with music and construct their musical experiences. Within this context, instrumental music pedagogy is called upon to integrate contemporary technologies and digital media not merely as technical additions but as integral components of the learning process. Possibilities range from digital notation and performance recording to music production, creative coding, interactive applications, tangible interfaces, and microcontrollers. The use of these tools can expand modes of musical understanding, strengthen new literacies and twenty-first-century skills, and support active and inquiry-based forms of learning. This presentation examines key areas and modes of integrating digital media into individual and group instrumental lessons, accompanied by examples of practical application.

This presentation focuses on the possibilities and prospects for using Synth4kids, an original software application designed and developed by Yannis Mygdanis to support music-education activities and STEAM learning scenarios in music pedagogy. Ideas and applications across different educational settings are presented, combining digital media and musical instruments within a framework in which the classroom becomes a music laboratory for creativity, collaboration, and imagination and responds to the demands of the contemporary post-digital context. The content draws on long-term research activity conducted both by the software’s creator and by other researchers across diverse music-learning environments, including early childhood music education, special education, primary school, and conservatoire education.

This lecture explores contemporary forms of generative artificial intelligence in music creation and the ways in which they are transforming processes of composition, production, and sonic experimentation. Categories of models and applications that generate or transform musical and sonic material are presented, together with modes of interaction through textual or musical prompts. AI is examined as a collaborative resource for ideation, the generation of alternative versions, the exploration of stylistic possibilities, and the transformation of material. At the same time, the presentation considers the creative responsibility that arises when creators select, evaluate, transform, and organise algorithmically generated content. Particular emphasis is placed on authorship, intellectual property, training data, aesthetic homogenisation, and transparency. Within the proposed human-centred framework, artistic intention, critical selection, and responsibility for the final musical outcome remain at the core of the creative process.

This lecture examines the role of artificial intelligence in academic writing, focusing on its potential to support research and writing processes as well as on the limitations that require critical and responsible use. Indicative applications of generative AI are presented for ideation, organisation of arguments, structural planning, language editing, and feedback on drafts. Its use in understanding and organising research material is also considered, with emphasis on maintaining scholarly judgement and authorial responsibility at every stage. Particular attention is given to the verification of information and bibliographic references, fabricated or inaccurate outputs, bias, data protection, intellectual property, and transparency regarding the use of AI. Academic writing is approached as a process of evidence-based thinking in which the use of digital assistants requires continuous scrutiny, source verification, and explicit responsibility for the final text.

This lecture examines the possibilities of using emerging technologies, digital media, and artificial intelligence in instrumental music pedagogy. It begins from the observation that students’ contemporary musical experiences are formed in environments where performance, recording, production, editing, and online sharing coexist. Applications are presented ranging from digital notation and performance recording to music production, creative coding, interactive and tangible interfaces, immersive technologies, and AI tools. The discussion focuses on the pedagogical added value of these media for feedback, experimentation, self-regulation, creativity, and the development of new literacies. Questions of access, reliability, privacy, and responsible AI use are also considered. In every case, the integration of technology is connected with specific musical and learning objectives within individual or group instrumental lessons.

This presentation examines the transformative potential of Music Education 4.0, a framework that incorporates various technological and pedagogical dimensions—such as music production, the maker movement, programming, virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR), and artificial intelligence (AI)—into a new educational mindset. Music Education 4.0 reimagines traditional music teaching by integrating immersive, interactive, and technology-driven learning experiences. Aligned with the ST(R)EAM model, this approach fosters cross-disciplinary learning and the development of communication, creativity, and critical-thinking skills. Music Education 4.0 establishes the basis for an extended, dynamic, and immersive learning framework. Students engage in digital music production, using software to compose, remix, and refine their musical ideas. Concurrently, the maker movement promotes hands-on instrument creation, encouraging both creativity and problem-solving skills. Programming and immersive technologies, such as VR and AR, enhance spatial and musical understanding through interactive coding and virtual environments. Additionally, AI tools such as generative music models and personalised assistants provide tailored, responsive feedback, making the learning experience more adaptive and engaging. This approach aligns with students’ needs and fosters a deeper exploration of music. Participants will explore current developments at the intersection of music, technology, and education through real-world case studies and recent research findings. The session will also emphasise the role of the ST(R)EAM model in integrating arts and technology and in developing a comprehensive skill set for an evolving musical and technological landscape.

This paper examines Design-Based Research (DBR) as a methodological approach within music education, focusing both on its philosophical and theoretical foundations and on the research practices that make it particularly suitable for the development of educational innovations. It first presents key principles of DBR, including the collaborative nature of design, implementation in authentic educational settings, and the iterative relationship among design, implementation, evaluation, and revision. Through this process, DBR emerges as an approach capable of generating contextually grounded knowledge while also contributing to theory in music teaching and learning. The paper then compares DBR with other research methodologies, including action research, ethnography, and case study, in order to clarify their distinct methodological orientations and the particular pedagogical advantages of DBR. Finally, examples of DBR applications in music education drawn from international literature are presented and directions for future research are identified, highlighting the contribution of DBR to the development of innovative pedagogical practices and to the formulation of new theories of music teaching and learning.

This lecture explores the creative use of music-educational software in preschool and early primary education, focusing on relationships among sound, musical organisation, movement, and simple numerical structures. The content draws on the design and implementation of digital music environments for young children in which listening, experimentation, play, and creation are connected with multimodal forms of learning. Activities are presented in which children manipulate digital sounds and virtual musical instruments, organise rhythmic and melodic patterns, and approach abstract musical concepts through visual, auditory, kinaesthetic, and tactile experiences. Particular emphasis is placed on developmentally appropriate design, the connection between physical and digital worlds, and the construction of creative STEAM scenarios. Technology is thus embedded within activities that strengthen active participation, imagination, musical exploration, and understanding of relationships between music and other areas of learning.

This lecture focuses on the design and development of interdisciplinary STEAM teaching scenarios for music education. It begins by clarifying different forms of connection between music and science, technology, engineering, and mathematics, together with the role of the arts in constructing a coherent learning framework. It then presents a design process in which musical learning objectives are explicitly defined and connected with authentic questions, experimentation, collaboration, and the creation of musical artefacts. Where pedagogically appropriate, examples incorporate digital media, programming, and making practices. Particular emphasis is placed on iterative cycles of design, testing, feedback, and redesign, as well as on avoiding superficial connections among disciplinary areas. The STEAM approach is presented as a framework for experiential music learning, creative problem solving, and the development of collaborative and computational skills.

Rapid changes in the digital age are transforming the ways in which students encounter music and construct their musical experiences. Within this context, instrumental music pedagogy is called upon to integrate contemporary technologies and digital media not merely as technical additions but as integral components of the learning process. Possibilities range from digital notation and performance recording to music production, creative coding, interactive applications, tangible interfaces, and microcontrollers. The use of these tools can expand modes of musical understanding, strengthen new literacies and twenty-first-century skills, and support active and inquiry-based forms of learning. This presentation examines key areas and modes of integrating digital media into individual and group instrumental lessons, accompanied by examples of practical application.

This lecture examines the philosophy of maker culture and its relationship with the interdisciplinary STE(A)M approach in music education. Central to the discussion is learning through making, experimentation, and the creation of musical artefacts that carry personal meaning for students. Practices are presented in which simple materials, digital applications, virtual instruments, programming environments, and tangible interfaces function as resources for composition, improvisation, exploration of musical concepts, and problem solving. The process is organised around iterative cycles of design, construction, testing, feedback, and redesign, strengthening collaboration, learner agency, and computational thinking. The role of the teacher in creating open learning conditions and supporting diverse pathways of participation is also discussed. The music classroom is approached as a creative laboratory in which physical and digital materials are combined to generate authentic musical experiences.

This presentation focuses on the use of tangible interfaces and microcontrollers within interdisciplinary STE(A)M music-education scenarios. Through examples that connect everyday objects, conductive materials, sensors, and digital applications with musical functions, it examines how physical interaction can become a means of producing and controlling sound. The approach connects musical concepts with elements of electronics, programming, physics, and making while keeping musical creation and students’ active participation at the centre of the learning process. Indicative applications using tangible interfaces such as Makey Makey and visual-programming environments are presented, through which students can design simple digital musical instruments and interactive constructions. Particular emphasis is placed on processes of making, testing, and improvement, on collaborative learning, and on cultivating creative and computational thinking through musically meaningful problems with clearly defined learning objectives.

This lecture examines the conditions required for the meaningful integration of music technology into music lessons and presents indicative applications capable of supporting teaching, learning, and creation. The selection of each digital tool is connected with clearly defined musical objectives, students’ needs, and the characteristics of the specific learning environment. Issues of software suitability, accessibility, technical requirements, pedagogical added value, and teacher professional development are discussed. The practices presented range from virtual instruments and digital recording to music production, interactive applications, and creative coding. The discussion is organised around the ways in which digital media can expand forms of listening, performance, and creation, support active and inquiry-based modes of learning, and connect school music education with students’ contemporary musical experiences.