The transmission of Guqin music, an ancient Chinese cultural tradition, is undergoing profound changes due to digital technology and artificial intelligence. This study examines the intersection of traditional Guqin pedagogy and digital innovation through a posthumanist framework, analyzing how digital tools influence preservation, accessibility, and authenticity. The research in Anhui Province employs ethnographic methods, including interviews with Guqin masters, students, and digital platform developers, to explore the integration of algorithmic learning, virtual performances, and online education. The findings reveal opportunities and challenges: while digital platforms enhance accessibility and engagement, they also disrupt embodied learning practices central to Guqin mastery. This study advocates for a hybrid educational model that merges traditional mentorship with digital augmentation, ensuring cultural sustainability without eroding the Guqin’s philosophical and artistic essence. Future research should further investigate the long-term implications of digital mediation in Guqin education and explore its broader cultural significance.

This study explores the posthuman and pedagogical potential of Elunchun folk songs—an Indigenous musical tradition rooted in the forested ecologies of Northeast China—as a means of fostering aesthetic awareness, cultural empathy, and relational learning in music education. Drawing on qualitative methodologies, including ethnographic fieldwork, song analysis, and interviews with five key informants, the research centers on the song “Elunchun De Hui Yi”, which embodies the Elunchun community’s multispecies worldviews, ancestral memory, and adaptive resilience. The analysis reveals distinct musical elements—such as pentatonic modal frameworks, flexible rhythmic structures, and lyrical natural imagery—that challenge Western-centric models of music pedagogy. These findings situate Elunchun folk songs not only as tools for aesthetic development but as carriers of Indigenous epistemologies that resist erasure in the face of modernization and cultural assimilation. The study advocates for their integration into contemporary educational frameworks through culturally sustaining pedagogy, digital preservation, and intercultural dialogue. In doing so, it contributes to broader posthumanist conversations on the ethical reconfiguration of music education and the recognition of Indigenous knowledge systems as vital to a pluralistic and decolonial educational future.

Baxian folk music, centered around the Suona instrument, remains a vital element in the ritual fabric of Zhuang wedding ceremonies in Fengshan County, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, China. This ethnographic study investigates the cultural, symbolic, and performative roles of Baxian music while also exploring its precarious status in an era shaped by rapid technological, economic, and sociocultural transformations. Drawing on fieldwork observations, interviews with tradition bearers, and archival research, the study reveals that Baxian music operates as both an artistic form and a vessel of collective memory. However, the oral-based transmission of this intangible heritage faces threats from modern media, generational disinterest, and shifting socio-economic dynamics. In response, the study proposes a hybrid model of preservation, merging traditional pedagogies with digital tools, educational integration, and algorithmic dissemination. By reframing Baxian music within a posthumanist discourse, the research highlights the entanglements of human and non-human agencies in sustaining cultural continuity, offering an inclusive and adaptive framework for its revitalization.