Technology could represent an ally in easing the formulation of a bond between music therapist and client. So far, both scholars and therapists have claimed that the implementation of technology could be paramount in transforming the client’s therapeutic process, beyond representing a new and effective methodology for session analysis. This article proposes the implementation of musical technologies within the daily practice of music therapy, the latter understood as the appropriate field for the application of interactive systems technology, which track the user’s movements and transform them into audiovisual and haptic feedback. The article presents an exploratory review of the use of digital instruments, based on motion tracking, in order to develop a new basis for music therapy procedures, and discusses how specific features of digital musical instruments could benefit music therapy sessions. All discussions are set within the framework of embodied cognition. We provide a discussion on how multisensory integration may be used in the treatment of clients with severe cognitive and motor difficulties. We advocate the need for an interdisciplinary approach to the practice of music therapy, and propose future lines of research concerned with the design of multimodal and empowerment-based technologies.Abbreviation: American Association of Pediatrics (AAP); Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD); Digital Musical Interfaces (DMIs); e-motion, colour and music (e-mocomu); Motion composer (MC); Parkinson’ s disease (PD); Soundbeam (SB)

In the current study, we investigate the implementation of a musical workshop in an early childhood education setting. The workshop is based on a shared space for musical creativity (the Active Musical Room) comprising six different musically relevant objects, which toddlers were free to explore and play with. Inspired by Delalande’s Pedagogie musicale d’éveil, the workshop was facilitated by a teacher who developed strategies to help the toddlers’ musical engagement. Data sources for this case study included semistructured interviews with the teacher and school principal, video recordings of each session, field notes and observations made by nonparticipant observers, and questionnaires completed by parents of the toddlers. Categories concerning three interrelated dimensions of interest emerged from our analyses: the decisions of the teacher, the affordances of the objects in the room, and the creative potential of each toddler. Although generalizations cannot be proposed given the nature of the study, our results point to the recursive interplay between the exploratory drive of the toddlers, their sensorimotor ability, and the constraints afforded by the environment in which they are situated (i.e., teachers, objects).

La educación musical actual está atravesando un momento de crisis a nivel global (Aróstegui, 2016). Los modelos curriculares priorizan algunas materias en detrimento de otras consideradas menos importantes o secundarias, como ocurre en el caso de la música. La preocupación desde esta área ha impulsado la publicación de numerosos artículos científicos que abordan la defensa de la educación musical en las escuelas. En este artículo se analizan las aportaciones de las neurociencias presentes en la literatura sobre "defensa de la educación musical" y se discute su solidez como argumento.

El presente artículo analiza la formación musical de los futuros docentes de música de las enseñanzas obligatorias en las universidades de Castilla y León. Forma parte de un proyecto I+D EDU2017-84782 (Profmus) que investiga sobre la formación del profesorado y su impacto en la actual política educativa. Se examinan 8 planes de estudio (5 de Grado y 3 de Máster) y un total de 70 asignaturas: 45 del Grado de Maestro/a (Mención en Educación Musical), y 25 del Máster de Profesorado de Enseñanza Secundaria Obligatoria. Se analizan los contenidos de las memorias de verificación, guías docentes y legislación de la educación obligatoria a través de codificación abierta. Se encuentran ocho categorías de intersección entre los planes universitarios y el currículo de Primaria y Secundaria, en dos dimensiones: contenidos musicales (escucha; interpretación musical; danza y movimiento; contextos musicales y culturales; música y tecnologías) y contenidos transversales (expresión oral y escrita; emprendimiento y creatividad; ciudadanía y diversidad). Los resultados muestran que por lo general los planes de estudio se adecúan a las necesidades formativas de los futuros docentes, aunque se requiere orientar la formación hacia la creatividad, ciudadanía y aprendizaje a lo largo de la vida.

This chapter highlights the importance of the body as a basis for consciousness. The first section addresses primary consciousness as a source of awareness in the perception of ongoing musical material in which the body is involved. The second focuses on higher-order consciousness — our capacity to become self-conscious. It can be argued that both types of consciousness, traditionally studied separately, can be considered as belonging to a continuum, as stated by Merleau–Ponty: ‘all thought of something is at the same time self-consciousness’. Based on this idea of a continuum, it is also argued that primary and higher-order consciousness are both built on bodily input and that the feeling of that body is possible through proprioception. The third section uses ideas from O'Regan and Noë's sensorimotor contingency theory to offer an explanation of how musical consciousness takes place.

Digital musical instruments (DMI) can make musical practice accessible to non-trained persons or to persons with limitations related to their age, gender or musical experience. The present study explores accessibility and participation in a sample of 266 individuals using a device named MotionComposer, a digital instrument based on motion capture. By experimenting with this device during four minutes in two different environments (one causal, the other one more aprioristically determined), we study the kind of participant interaction that takes place. Results show that MotionComposer allows for a statistically significant similar interaction in people of different ages and genders and with different disabilities. However, there are two exceptions that can be accounted for in connection with the causality-randomness of the two environments where the experimentation takes place.