One of the most influential factors in student musical development is feedback. Teachers must think deeply about how to shape their communication with students to provide feedback that can promote student growth while minimizing discouragement and disengagement. Special care needs to be taken when providing feedback to historically marginalized…

Although musical inhibition is well known in music education, it has not been studied extensively. This may result in misdiagnosis of student experience. In this paper, we examine how teachers have described the ways they help students overcome musical inhibition. Using a basic qualitative research design, we conducted semi-structured interviews…

In this article, I provide advice to music educators on how to intervene when they witness acts of overt interpersonal discrimination as well as more subtle forms of discrimination, including microaggressions. Many music educators have identified systemic barriers to inclusion and stressed the importance of choosing and creating culturally…

Self-determination theory is a large-scale theory of human motivation that originated from research on intrinsic and extrinsic motivations and expanded to include research on work, organizations, and other domains of life (Deci et al., 2017). The three tenets of self-determination theory include: autonomy, competence, and relatedness. The purpose…

Music education is a social act oriented around interactions between people in public spaces. These spaces provide opportunities for what Hannah Arendt calls natality, which we interpret as new and unexpected actions that arise in a shared space. Drawing from a range of ideas and experiences of Arendt, bell hooks, Joan Baez, Martha Nussbaum, and…

Empathy enables successful communication and connection between teachers and their students, yet few studies have investigated its specific use in teaching singing. Addressing this gap, we interviewed voice teachers to discover how they articulate their pedagogy in terms of empathic practices and observed one-to-one lessons for evidence of the…

This study explores the complexities of caring for students in a music studio lesson. In this study, we engaged four experienced string teachers in in-depth semi-structured interviews to explore their understandings of caring for their students in studio music lessons. Caring and compassion are concepts that have received greater attention in…

This phenomenological study explores the lived experience of music teacher educators with diverse musical soundscapes. I define a soundscape as the aural vista always present in one's consciousness. This study is grounded in the phenomenological underpinnings of Hans Georg-Gadamer, Martin Heidegger, Maurice Merleau-Ponty and Max van Manen, as well…

Access to high-quality early music education programs may mitigate the effects of poverty on the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis, but fundamental questions remain about the role of early educators in conveying these benefits. In the current study, we measured the basal or resting cortisol levels of 76 children (M[subscript age] = 4.17…

Collegiate music students are at a unique intersection which may put them at an increased risk for mental health challenges and illnesses: the intersection of creatives and emerging adults. Research suggests that mental health in the United States is continuing to decline. However, there is little research and discussion about how collegiate music…

Stereotypical assumptions associating high levels of giftedness and outstanding performance with maladaptive behavioral characteristics and personality traits (cf. disharmony stereotype) are rather prevalent in the school context as well as in the musical domain. Such preconceptions among teachers can influence student assessment and corresponding…

A framework of cultural humility includes three main tenets: (1) commitment to lifelong, critical self-reflection; (2) recognition and mitigation of power imbalances; and (3) accountability to individuals and institutions. In this article, I aim at applying the concept of cultural humility to frame my analysis of musical diversity in music…

Non-major music students are an integral part of university music departments, as they both bolster the department's enrollment numbers and bring diverse perspectives to the ensembles, lessons, and classes in which they participate. Although most non-majors focus their time on ensembles, a few choose to include lessons as part of their experience.…

The purpose of this study is to uncover and comprehend the current state of pre-service music teachers' use of self-regulated learning skills in instrument education, as well as the obstacles they face and the techniques they use to develop these skills throughout their instrument education. The data were obtained from participants' experiences…

Within the field of music education, previous literature has examined numerous features of relationships between students and teachers, but survey instruments measuring these relationships from the student perspective are lacking. Accordingly, two studies were conducted to develop and evaluate a new survey instrument measuring students'…