Effects of virtual reality training on musical performance-related physiological responses: A mixed-reality physiological study

Music-based interventions have gained increasing attention as effective approaches for supporting social and motor development in children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). This synthesis literature review examined the effectiveness of music-based interventions in enhancing social skills, motor skills, and engagement outcomes among children with ASD. Guided by the PRISMA 2020 framework, a systematic identification and screening process was conducted, resulting in the inclusion of nine peer-reviewed journal articles published between 2021 and 2025. A qualitative thematic analysis was employed to integrate findings from participant observations, parental perspectives, therapist reflections, and descriptive intervention data across the selected studies. Three overarching themes emerged: enhancement of social interaction and communication, development of motor skills through embodied musical engagement, and increased engagement, attention, and emotional regulation. The reviewed studies indicated that interventions such as piano instruction, improvisational music therapy, Orff-based approaches, and technology-assisted music programs contributed to improved social responsiveness, motor coordination, and sustained participation in children with ASD. Parental involvement and adaptive intervention delivery further supported positive outcomes. Overall, the findings highlight the value of music-based interventions as engaging, flexible, and developmentally appropriate strategies for supporting multiple developmental domains in children with ASD, and emphasize the need for continued qualitative research to explore long-term impacts and implementation practices.

ABSTRACT This article describes the successful collaboration between a music and business librarian to provide information literacy to music entrepreneurship students. We explore the unique needs and challenges of music students interested in business and entrepreneurship. We discuss our approach to these sessions, learning objectives and the sources and strategies needed to successfully complete their assignments and pursue ventures in the future.

Mental-health-oriented interventions increasingly require structured, scalable, and nonpharmacological formats that can strengthen psychological functioning without reducing clinician oversight. This study examined whether a therapist-led, AI-assisted classical piano intervention could produce stronger process-level psychological gains than matched therapist-led piano instruction without adaptive AI feedback among young adults diagnosed with mild-to-moderate anxiety or depression. A randomized controlled mixed-methods design was used with 120 Mandarin-speaking participants aged 18–30 years assigned to either an AI-assisted condition or a non-AI control condition. Over a 10-week program, both groups completed weekly 90-min supervised sessions, and pretest/post-test changes were assessed in resilience, mindfulness, and music-related emotional processing. Quantitative data were analyzed using 2 × 2 mixed repeated-measures ANOVA and follow-up tests, while post-intervention interviews from a stratified experimental subsample were analyzed using interpretative phenomenological analysis. The findings showed significant improvement in both groups; however, the AI-assisted condition demonstrated larger gains across all three primary outcomes, together with a steeper trajectory of weekly musical performance development. Engagement indicators within the AI-assisted group were positively associated with psychological improvement. Qualitative findings reinforced this pattern, with emotional release, increased self-awareness, and stronger motivation to continue practice emerging as the most frequent themes. The study suggests that AI can contribute meaningfully to music-based intervention in supervised contexts, not as an autonomous agent but as an adaptive feedback layer. From a practical viewpoint, the model provides a viable framework for structured mental health-focused practice in various contexts.

BackgroundMusic students often combine demanding academic training with part-time work, creating work-school conflict that may hinder motivation, engagement and well-being. However, little is known about how such conflict functions in performance-based programs where practice intensity and collaboration are essential.ObjectiveThis study examines how work-school conflict affects academic engagement and school burnout among music students, focusing on the mediating roles of need satisfaction and need frustration and the moderating roles of intrinsic and extrinsic career goals.MethodsA two-wave survey design was employed to reduce common method bias. In the first wave, 316 music students from universities in Beijing completed measures of work-school conflict, student engagement and school burnout. One month later, 297 matched respondents completed measures of need satisfaction and need frustration. Established instruments and a translation-back-translation procedure ensured measurement reliability and validity. Hierarchical regression analyses and bootstrapping were used to test the mediating and moderating effects.ResultsWork-school conflict reduced need satisfaction and increased need frustration. Need satisfaction partially mediated the link between conflict and engagement, whereas need frustration fully mediated the link between conflict and burnout. Intrinsic career goals intensified the negative association between conflict and need satisfaction, while extrinsic goals showed no moderating effect.ConclusionsWork-school conflict is related to music students' academic adjustment through dual motivational pathways. Conflict is negatively associated with autonomy, competence and relatedness and elicits pressure that frustrates basic needs. Intrinsic career goals influence how students interpret conflict, underscoring the need for supportive educational environments that help balance employment with musical and academic development.

Marvin Blickenstaff: A Life Dedicated in Service to Piano Education

Despite the rapid expansion of online higher education, students’ learning experiences in online music courses remain uneven, especially in terms of engagement, self-regulation, and satisfaction. To address this issue, this study examines how growth mindset influences students’ learning experience in online music courses, with a focus on online self-regulation learning, online learning engagement, and online learning satisfaction. A total of 440 university music students from Yunnan, China, completed the questionnaire, and the data were analysed using SmartPLS 4.0. The results show that growth mindset has a positive effect on online self-regulation learning, online learning engagement, and online learning satisfaction. Online self-regulation learning also increases online learning engagement and online learning satisfaction. In addition, both online self-regulation learning and online learning engagement serve as important mediators between growth mindset and online learning satisfaction. These findings help explain how students manage and participate in online music classes and provide practical suggestions for improving online music teaching.

Music is an essential component of human culture, and vocal music, as an important form of music, carries rich emotions and feelings, possessing unique charm in expressing and conveying emotion. In vocal music learning, solfeggio is a crucial training method that enhances learners’ visual and auditory perception of musical works, as well as their understanding and mastery of elements such as melody, harmony, and rhythm, thereby improving their singing proficiency and musical literacy. In the multi-voice training of solfeggio, “playing and singing” holds unique significance and value as an important training format. This paper aims to explore the significance of “playing and singing” in multi-voice solfeggio training and its application in vocal works. It elaborates on the importance of “playing and singing” in vocal training and compares the differences between vocal works and “playing and singing” in solfeggio classes, laying a foundation for subsequent analysis. The study focuses on two representative multi-voice playing and singing works: the Chinese art song Plum Blossoms in the Snow and the foreign art song Du Ring an meinem Finger. By analyzing the musical characteristics and structures of these two works, readers can gain a deeper understanding of the singing techniques and requirements of multi-voice playing and singing. Finally, the study explores the practical application of playing and singing training in solfeggio within vocal works. By introducing the functions and methods of playing and singing training in solfeggio and using Plum Blossoms in the Snow and Du Ring an meinem Finger as case studies, this paper elucidates the role and significance of playing and singing training in vocal music learning. This study aims to provide references and guidance for music students, helping them better learn solfeggio, vocal music, and playing and singing, thereby improving their musical literacy and singing proficiency.

This study investigated the efficacy of working memory training in enhancing music dictation proficiency among undergraduate musicology and music performance students in Shanxi Province, China. A quasi-experimental design involved 60 students divided into experimental and control groups. The experimental groups received targeted working memory training, while the control groups received conventional instruction. A researcher-designed dictation test was administered at three points: pre-test, post-test, and delayed post-test. Statistical analysis revealed significant main effects for group and time across both majors. For musicology students (Research Question 1), the experimental group showed significantly higher performance than the control group across all phases, especially in melodic and pitch dictation, F(1, 28) = 12.765, p = .001, η² = .314. Among music performance students. The results showed a significant overall main effect of time, F(1.20, 50.52) = 1429.02, p < .001, partial η² = .971, reflecting a strong effect of the training across the three assessment points. Working memory training significantly improved music dictation achievement, particularly in total and melodic dictation, with partial retention after a delay. These findings indicate that working memory training positively impacts auditory-musical processing and sequential memory in music students. By incorporating cognitive training into higher music education, curriculum innovation and pedagogical advancement can be achieved. These implications extend to policy design, instructional practice, and interdisciplinary collaboration between music educators and cognitive psychologists, ultimately fostering effective learning outcomes in music education.

The article examines the problem of cultural content of vocal and choral training of Master’s Degree Students of Music in the context of their readiness for creative self-realization in the conditions of the modern multicultural space. It is established that intercultural educational trends of the modern globalized society require updating the content of artistic (vocal and choral) training of Master’s Degree Students of Music in institutions of higher art education. From these positions it is shown that the importance of the culturological dimension as a methodological base that integrates artistic-value, historical-cultural, communicative and creative-personal components of vocal and choral training of Master’s Degree Students of Music is increasing. It was determined that institutions of higher art education, due to the extensiveness and multiprofile nature of professional training, contain large reserves for the activation of specialized-profile and integrated disciplines of cultural orientation in the system of master’s training. A comparative analysis of curricula, educational programs and methodological documents of the Institute of Arts of Lanzhou University and the Faculty of Arts named after Anatoly Avdievsky of the Ukrainian State University named after Mykhailo Dragomanov was carried out. The comparative analysis allowed to identify common trends and differences in the construction of the educational process, to characterize the strengths and gaps in the organization of vocal and choral education. It was revealed that the cultural content of the content of vocal and choral training should become an important unifying factor, and its component structure was substantiated. It is proven that the cultural content transforms the educational process into a space for spiritual development and professional formation of the individual, creates conditions for its full creative self-realization as a carrier and translator of cultural meanings.

This research is concerned with the innovative use of AI in cross-cultural music learning, more particularly in the creation of a multimodal learning model that combines audio identification, image analysis, and text understanding. The research is conducted with undergraduate music students from various ethnic backgrounds, and the teaching materials include a wide range of cultural music pieces. Sequence identification and semantic modeling are applied in the system to realize personalized recommendations and feedback interventions. As for model development, note recognition and cultural semantic decomposition are activities performed with a hybrid RNN-Transformer architecture. To perform a detailed analysis and to continuously adjust the performance, emotional expression, and cultural knowledge during the learning process, a teaching feedback mechanism and a cultural adaptation algorithm are implemented in the system architecture. The experimental data indicate that the learners’ control of their rhythm, expressiveness of their emotions, and mastery of the culture have been facilitated to a considerable extent by the system’s high recognition accuracy and the useful feedback offered. The experiment reveals that the cultural backgrounds of students play an important role in their learning, and hence teachers are given the opportunity to develop different teaching strategies according to the variations in culture. The developed system, as a technically robust model and application paradigm for cross-cultural music education, has shown great adaptability in the spheres of teaching logic, technical execution, and educational outcomes.

ABSTRACT Although the use of traditional music in preschool piano instruction is rarely operationalized into specific pedagogical characteristics and visible learning indicators, it can serve as a culturally grounded repertoire for early childhood education. Using a three-stage design, this study investigates how traditional music can be incorporated into preschool piano instruction: (1) a stakeholder survey of parents and preschool teachers, (2) a structured analysis of traditional repertoire to identify instructionally salient features, and (3) a three-month classroom implementation in which children’s responses and developing skills are repeatedly observed and rated. The results of the survey show that parents (74%) and educators (89%) strongly support integration. According to the teacher evaluations and repertoire analysis, rhythmic variation, imaginative (figurative) perception, emotional involvement, and musical consonance stability were the qualities most valued for preschool use. Learning classical compositions with related text and lyrics was also linked to stronger musical associations and higher perceived comprehension than working with melody only material, according to descriptive classroom observations. Determining which aspects of traditional music educators value most and how to incorporate them into preschool piano exercises is where the study’s practical worth resides.

ABSTRACT Students in higher education music institutions (HEMIs) struggle with a variety of health-related issues. However, qualitative explorations of their perspectives around their own health, particularly in Eastern Europe, are missing. This study explored students’ accounts of health and wellbeing in an Eastern European HEMI context. Forty-three semi-structured interviews were conducted with undergraduate, postgraduate, and recent graduates of HEMIs. Transcripts were analysed via template analysis. Identified themes span from individual behaviours to music education, the educational infrastructure, social support, the musicians’ role in society, and ideology. One of six themes is reported in this paper: The institutional culture: competition, bias, and constraints, with its three sub-themes: (1) Navigating individualism and institutional networks; (2) Authority and bias in educational relationships; and (3) Elitism and narrow focus in HEMIs. Students’ accounts of abuse, discrimination, and neglect depict environments steeped in competition, bias, and exclusion – directly challenging assumptions that higher music education is supportive or meritocratic. These practices shape professional identity while eroding wellbeing. To our knowledge, this is the first comprehensive qualitative study to examine musicians’ broader views of health and wellbeing in Eastern Europe.

Introduction: virtual reality has shown promise in sports skill training and art education, but cultural differences (collectivism in china vs. individualism in the us) may moderate adolescents' gains in "fine motor control" and "artistic expression"—a gap this study addressed. Objective: this study aimed to explore the dual effects of vr-assisted piano instruction on adolescents' musical expressiveness and fine motor skills, and verify the moderating role of sino-us cultural differences, focusing on 13–17-year-olds from china and the us. Methodology:a 2×2 cross-cultural quasi-experiment (teaching method: vr vs. traditional; cultural group: chinese vs. american adolescents) was used, with 240 participants. over 12 weeks, pre-test, mid-test, and post-test data were collected, analyzed via two-way anova and hierarchical regression. Results: the findings filled gaps in existing research, which were siloed in single domains and unclear on cultural moderating mechanisms, supporting sports-art interdisciplinary "technology-empowered skill acquisition". Discussion: The findings addressed limitations of existing research, which had remained siloed in single domains and unclear on cultural moderating mechanisms, providing support for interdisciplinary "technology-empowered skill acquisition" in sports and art. Conclusions: this study confirmed vr-assisted piano instruction had dual improvement effects, with cultural orientation as a key moderator; it provides theoretical support and practical references for integrated music-motor teaching.

The problem of occupational injuries and pain among musicians continues to receive wide attention. However, the limitations of survey tools have limited hindered the in-depth development of occupational health research on musicians across different regions to a certain extent. The aim of this study was to translate the Performance-Related Pain in Musicians Questionnaire (PPAM) into Simplified Chinese (PPAM-C) and to conduct the cultural adaptation and initial validation of the PPAM-C for music students. The reliability and validity of the questionnaire were tested with Chinese music students. A total of 610 valid questionnaires were collected (students' mean age 19.4 yrs, SD 1.146); females accounted for 69.7%. The respondents represented a variety of primary musical instrument types. Exploratory factor analysis (EFA) supported a three-factor structure consistent with the original version: pain intensity, pain interference in general activities, and pain interference in performance. The sample fit was good (KMO = 0.851; Bartlett's test of sphericity, p <0.001). The communalities and eigenvalues showed the robustness of the factor structure. The internal consistency (Cronbach's α = 0.786-0.937) of the subscales was good. The PPAM-C showed significant moderate to high correlations with the relevant domains of the Simplified Chinese versions of the Brief Pain Inventory (BPI), QuickDASH, and SF-36 scales, which confirmed its good convergent validity. The results of demographic analysis further showed that the questionnaire was applicable to music students of different ages, genders, and primary musical instruments. In conclusion, the PPAM-C exhibits excellent psychometric properties and is a reliable tool for assessing pain and its impact on music students' general and performance-related activities in the Chinese context.

AI-driven emotional intelligence in piano education: Deep learning models for expressive performance coaching.

Musical self-concept as a key to unlocking performance potential: Relationships between the impostor phenomenon and performance anxiety among Chinese engaged university music students.

Group and individual piano instruction are the most common piano teaching approaches in Sri Lanka. This research aims to provide a comprehensive understanding of how these techniques help to improve students’ learning skills. The study was based on qualitative data gathered through in-depth interviews from five (05) piano teachers. Teachers were selected using the purposive sampling technique. Thematic analysis method was used to analyse the interview data. The themes included are: (1) advantages and disadvantages of individual piano teaching; (2) benefits of group piano teaching; (3) challenges of group piano teaching; (4) teaching approaches and strategies used under each method and (5) student outcomes. The findings exposed that both the individual and group piano teaching is effective for students’ improvements. According to four teachers, piano teaching develops students’ teamwork abilities, their engagement and academic achievement than individual learning. The findings contribute to the field of music education by illuminating how teacher perceptions shape their instructional methods in both individual and group settings.

During the May Fourth/New Culture Movement, Confucianism's decline fueled the rise of scientism among Chinese intellectuals. However, cultural conservatives, especially the New Confucian School led by Liang Shuming (梁漱溟1893–1988), strongly opposed this trend. Liang argued that blind faith in science led to the devastation of World War I and the erosion of human dignity. He viewed the spread of scientism in China as spiritually harmful, causing societal polarization and undermining cultural traditions. To address this, he advocated restoring Confucian ritual (li 禮) and music (yue 樂) to cultivate moral integrity. This study explores how Liang Shuming applied Confucian rites and music to heal the harm caused by scientific supremacy. It examined his critique of scientific supremacy's impact on Chinese society, his defense of Confucianism during the May Fourth/New Culture Movement, and the role of Confucian rites and music in counteracting uncritical science worship. Finally, the study concludes the relevance of Liang's New Confucian vision to today's science and technology-driven world.

This study explores informal self-directed musical pedagogies in South Africa. Under apartheid, education policies were intentionally designed to marginalise people of African descent, and the enduring effects of these policies continue to influence the structure and accessibility of music education today. Contemporary national music curricula are under scrutiny for lacking innovation, cultural inclusivity, and the sustainable development of indigenous musical traditions. In contrast, there has been a significant rise in autodidactic musical practices, particularly among youth, who are creating successful, locally rooted popular music on global platforms. The study employs an exploratory qualitative methodology, utilising thematic content analysis of academic literature, digital media sources, and semi-structured interviews with five self-taught South African musicians. Framed by Music Mediation Theory, which posits that music serves as a transformative tool that fosters social cohesion and community welfare, the study examines the role of self-directed learning in addressing gaps in formal music education. Findings reveal that informal learning spaces mediated through community, family, and digital tools are the primary sites of musical growth, innovation, and identity formation for many South African youths. The convergence of institutional and informal learning methods offers valuable insights into how music education can adapt to sociopolitical, cultural, and technological shifts.