Ecosocial approach to music education

ABSTRACT

Collective cultural transformation is needed to save the Earth from the growing effects of the human-caused environmental problems. Music education, too, can take part in preparing future generations with the knowledge and skills needed to address the world's complex challenges and create a more sustainable future. Approaching music education from the perspective of ecosocial sustainability can foster students’ sensitivity to diverse sonic environments and support the overall appreciation of multispecies communities and mutually beneficial ways of interaction in the more-than-human world. Based on the general theory of ecosocial art education, this article presents three practical approaches to music education, which can promote a sustainable life orientation: (1) Attuning to sounds helps cultivate one's connectedness to more-than-human others. (2) Reconnecting with sound memories helps recognise how sonic environments affect and indicate the lives of humans and other beings. (3) Co-composing with the more-than-human world helps to embrace the generative powers of creativity in experiencing interdependence with others.

KEYWORDS:

• Composing
• ecosocial education
• embodiment
• listening
• memory
• music education
• sonic environment

Introduction

Music education does not happen in isolation from other human activities. Education is never neutral (Giroux 2010); thus, music education, too, inevitably reflects society's values. Music education's previous practices influence how music is interpreted in its present and future forms. However, education also has the potential to transform the music field's values and the politics of its aesthetics for future generations. The norms and practices of music are constantly negotiated in and by education.

In recent years, ethical considerations related to social justice issues have started to interest music education scholars, and there have been studies, for example, from the perspective of race (Hess 2021; Howard 2022), LGBTQ (Garrett and Spano 2017; Panetta 2021), ability (Churchill and Laes 2020; Courtis 2021), and gender (Onsrud, Blix, and Lunde Vestad 2021; Trollinger 2021). By breaking down dualistic and hierarchical understandings of being human (such as assuming and privileging maleness, whiteness, and able-bodiedness, see e.g. Martusewicz, Edmundson, and Lupinacci 2015), the mechanisms and structures of inequality in music education practices have been increasingly dismantled (Ilmola-Sheppard et al. 2021). Students previously excluded from goal-oriented music education – for social, cultural, economic, or regional reasons – now participate in more accessible music education in various educational institutions and contexts (Juntunen and Kivijärvi 2019). For example, the G Songlab initiative supports young people's transformative music engagement and equal access to music education by encouraging them to independent, creative songwriting (Kuoppamäki 2024). In addition, the inclusive Resonaari Music School invites differently-abled students to study music with special support while still following the requirements of the Finnish National Curriculum for Education in the Arts (Kivijärvi and Kaikkonen 2015). These are just a few examples of the possibilities of how music education can respond to the call for a more socially just transformation in society.

In addition to diverse social challenges, climate change, nature loss, and soil, water, and air pollution pose severe threats to societies. Complex environmental issues have slowly convinced scholars from diverse fields that a collective cultural transformation is needed to save the Earth and humanity (Foster, Mäkelä, and Martusewicz 2019; Martusewicz, Edmundson, and Lupinacci 2015). Even though the current era is referred to as the time of ecological crisis, it is critical to understand that it is, in fact, a crisis of modern culture (Plumwood 2002): humans living in post-industrial societies have been unable to adapt their culture to the planetary boundaries (Steffen et al. 2015). Thus, it has been recognised that every sector of society – including music and music education – must participate in cultural change.

In this article, we present three practical approaches to music education which can promote a cultural transformation toward a sustainable life orientation. With this concept, we refer to a new interpretation of reality and a more holistic and responsible way of living than the prevailing fragmented worldview and unsustainable model of living (Foster, Salonen, and Sutela 2022a; Keto and Foster 2021; Salonen and Åhlberg 2012; Sutela 2023). Therefore, it is a broader concept than a sustainable lifestyle. A person – who recognises the interdependence between humans and other forms of life, experiences belongingness to the web of life and is willing to act responsively to solve the complex ecosocial problems of everyday life now and in the future – has internalised the sustainable life orientation as a life-defining way of human existence.

We base our ecologically and socially aware music education proposal on the strand of educational philosophy, which we call ecosocial approach (Foster, Mäkelä, and Martusewicz 2019; Keto and Foster 2021; Keto et al. 2022; Martusewicz, Edmundson, and Lupinacci 2015; Pulkki, Dahlin, and Värri 2017; Pulkki, Varpanen, and Mullen 2021; Salonen and Åhlberg 2012) and more specifically, the theory of ecosocial art education (Foster, Salonen, and Sutela 2022a). The ecosocial approach is one of the starting points of formal education in Finland, and its conceptualisation has also increased significantly in Finnish educational philosophy in recent years (see, e.g. Keto et al. 2022; Pulkki, Varpanen, and Mullen 2021; Salonen and Åhlberg 2012). The ecosocial approach is based on the idea that both social and ecological problems, for example, racism and climate change, have common roots that can be traced back to the modernist understanding of the world. Modern societies’ emphasis on consumerism, individualism, rationalism, and instrumentalism has created an unsustainable way of living (Martusewicz, Edmundson, and Lupinacci 2015). The human-caused ecological crisis has also exposed the dominant cultural narrative of human exceptionalism, which sets humans separate from and superior to nature (Plumwood 2002; Martusewicz, Edmundson, and Lupinacci 2015). This myth has explicitly allowed humans living in modern societies to exploit natural resources without regard for the consequences. Since the problems result from how humans live and what they value, addressing them requires a fundamental narrative shift and a new cultural paradigm that values ecological sustainability and social justice.

Even though socially inclusive practices have increased in music education, it is still often shaped by an individualistic and anthropocentric worldview. For example, music education may focus on improving students’ playing and singing skills through contemporary music styles and intercultural and popular music (Wilson 2022). Furthermore, when teaching mainstream Western pop music in classrooms, music educators may unconsciously pass on consumerist values through songs and music videos that romanticise an exclusive lifestyle – everything that sustainably-conscious life and education seek to break away from. However, in recent years, there has been a growing interest in environmentally conscious approaches in music education research, for example, from the perspectives of eco-literacy (Jorritsma 2022; Shevock 2018; Shevock and Bates 2019), sustainability and ecology (Varkøy & Rinholm 2020; Guo, Su, and Yue 2020), and eco-social orientation (Sutela 2023). These scholars suggest practical ideas for music educators, such as choosing appropriate repertoire to play, reuse, recycle, and appreciate old instruments or using the sonic environment and sustainable development themes in composition and improvisation (Shevock 2018; Sutela 2023; Titon 2020).

Besides the scholars of music education, music researchers, too, have explored the relationship between music or sound and nature (Barclay 2013; Torvinen & Välimäki 2019; Vadén and Torvinen 2014). For example, ecomusicology, soundscape, and acoustic ecology researchers have criticised the research done inside classrooms or concert halls; they stress that music researchers should be exploring the resonance of the entire ecosystem, especially interconnections between sounds, people, place, and the whole animate and inanimate world (Allen 2013; Paine 2017; Pedelty 2011; Titon 2020).

In daily pedagogical practices, the role of music educators in the lives of children and young people is notable: they have an opportunity to guide students to become engaged, responsible, and active citizens in and through music. At the same time, this responsible task calls for researchers and educators to rethink what matters in music education: what sounds are included or excluded and whose knowledge is recognised in music education (see Buchborn et al. 2022).

This article is a continuation of our theoretical work on defining ecosocial (art) education (Foster, Salonen, and Sutela 2022a; Sutela 2023; see also Foster, Mäkelä, and Martusewicz 2019; Keto et al. 2022). We have previously created a general theory for arts education, which aims to support sustainable life orientation and can be applied to visual arts, dance, music, and drama pedagogy (Foster, Salonen, and Sutela 2022a). Even though we present a theoretical proposal of ecosocially oriented music education in this article, we draw the ideas and provide examples from our practices as multidisciplinary art and music educators. We have experience working with diverse participants and audiences. Foster has focused on issues such as pedagogical recognition, ecosocial justice, interspecies empathy, and otherness, including gender identity and (dis)ability, in her multidisciplinary artistic and educational research projects. She is particularly interested in humans’ holistic embodied relations to the Earth. Sutela has investigated the possibilities of Dalcroze-based music education among students with special needs and is currently engaged in a research project focusing on the music education of deaf students. She has also led a multidisciplinary composing project aiming to raise awareness about climate change. Her research interests focus on equity and marginalised and multispecies bodies in music education and sound practices.

The framework of ecosocial art education

Complex planetary crises have driven humanity to a situation where understanding the linkages between social and ecological realities has become crucial (Foster, Salonen, and Sutela 2022a). Consequently, perspectives that approach the social and ecological problems as interconnected have increased significantly in educational philosophy in recent years (Foster, Mäkelä, and Martusewicz 2019; Keto and Foster 2021; Keto et al. 2022; Martusewicz, Edmundson, and Lupinacci 2015). In this educational thinking, which we call the ecosocial approach, the dominant worldview that values rationalism, individualism, instrumentalism, and consumerism, over well-functioning ecosystems and social justice, is challenged (Martusewicz, Edmundson, and Lupinacci 2015). It also proposes alternative ways of thinking and living more respectful of diversity, responsibility, and care (Foster, Mäkelä, and Martusewicz 2019; Foster and Turkki 2021). Most importantly, the ecosocial approach recognises that human culture is deeply interconnected with and dependent on the natural world.

The concept of ecosocialization (Keto and Foster 2021) was coined to describe how human socialisation always happens in multispecies communities where numerous different life forms are in reciprocal relation. Ecosocialization is inevitably happening without conscious effort or, for example, educational interventions, but modern humans are alienated from recognising the phenomenon. Taking perspectives of ecology and phenomenological philosophy, the theory of ecosocialization refers to those socialisation processes by which a human individual shares a common life with other organisms. As a parallel process to socialisation, ecosocialization occurs in the interaction of various agents, including humans and other species. So, from the perspective of ecosocialization, the socialisation environments must first be always understood as multispecies. Secondly, in ecosocialization, the interaction is based on holistic, embodied participation in and as part of the world. Thirdly, through the concept of ecosocialization, it is possible to recognise the human readiness to form empathetic and positive relationships with other living beings as well. To sum up, ecosocialization implies that humans are not separate from nature but part of it. Therefore, recognising the multispecies interaction is essential because it helps to form ecosocially sustainable communities (Keto and Foster 2021: also Foster, Salonen, and Sutela 2022a; Foster, Mnemo ZIN, Keto, and Pulkki 2022b; Keto et al. 2022).

Ecosocial education is based on the ecosocial interpretation of socialisation processes. So, it recognises that humans also need particular capabilities to interact with other species. Ecosocial education challenges the assumption of the independence and primacy of humans, knowledge, and communication in relation to pre-objective reality (also Abram 1996; Merleau-Ponty 2003). Thus, ecosocial education must extend beyond reason and language to the unknown and ineffable (also Vadén and Torvinen 2014). That is why various arts-based practices are encouraged in ecosocial education (Keto et al. 2022).

Ecosocially aware arts-based practices are based on a holistic relationship with the world: the artistic experience combines sensory, emotional, and cognitive ways of knowing (Foster, Salonen, and Sutela 2022a). Furthermore, holistic, embodied practices can be used to learn how to participate better in a multispecies community and to build an empathy-based relationship with other species (Foster, Salonen, and Sutela 2022a; Foster, Mnemo ZIN, Keto, and Pulkki 2022b; Keto et al. 2022). Exercises that cultivate ecosocial inclusion include, for example, sensory walks, place-based performances, and multisensory environmental experiments (Keto et al. 2022; also Pulkki, Dahlin, and Värri 2017). However, any art practice does not automatically produce the experience of ecosocial inclusion. Witnessing diversity as such – including the loud sound experiments of children, urban noise, and sounds of other species – without valuing and controlling the other is essential for mutual and inclusive interaction and participation (Keto and Foster 2021).

Arts education, including music education, can be used to adopt a sustainable life orientation. Sustainable life orientation means, not just embracing a sustainable lifestyle, but deeply understanding the interconnectedness between humans and all living beings and feeling a genuine sense of belonging to the intricate web of life (Keto and Foster 2021). This orientation forms a base for committing to take responsible action to address the complex environmental and social challenges of today and tomorrow (Salonen and Åhlberg 2012). Three specific dimensions for arts education that support ecosocially aware sustainable life orientation have been identified theoretically but are firmly based on artistic-pedagogical practice: embodiment, imagination, and care (Foster, Salonen, and Sutela 2022a). First, arts education integrating holistic embodied relations to the world tunes to reinterpret the existential questions of humanity and consciousness (also Albright 2019; Fraleigh 2015; Varto 2008). Second, arts education that combines sensory, emotional, and cognitive ways of knowing encourages imagination and leads to acknowledging otherness and possible worlds (also Bertling 2015; Varto 2008). Third, arts education focusing on mutual care is based on and aims at noticing and appreciating the diversity of life (also Hamington 2004; Thompson 2015) (Foster, Salonen, and Sutela 2022a).

Ecosocial arts education assumes that multispecies interaction and human participation in the more-than-human world (Abram 1996) happens holistically through and in the lived body (Merleau-Ponty [1945] 2008), which is also oriented and open in its relation to the multispecies ecosocial world (Keto and Foster 2021). Stemming particularly from Merleau-Ponty's (1968, 2003) later thinking and ecophenomenological (Abram 1996; Bannon 2011) theories, the ecosocial approach to arts education does not only aim to dissolve the mind–body divide but also self–other and subject–object dichotomies. Instead of individualist, instrumentalist, and anthropocentric thinking, the ecosocial perspective assumes a holistic and relational view of reality (Bannon 2011), which accepts that meaning is not found in subjects or objects but between them (Vadén and Torvinen 2014). Working in silence and opening up to the presence of being – in music, forest, or any other environment – can liberate arriving at the meaning of experience as such without constantly striving for what it should be (Foster, Salonen, and Sutela 2022a).

In a modern world where rational interpretations of reality are emphasised, visual arts, dance, theatre, or music education can help one perceive a world one was unaware of before (Foster, Mäkelä, and Martusewicz 2019). Above all, artistic practices have potential to aid in actively experiencing, imagining, and doing otherwise (Foster 2019). Ecosocially oriented arts education acknowledges that we cannot know what the world will be like in the future – however, the direction we want to go as a society and as citizens must be envisioned. A more sustainable future is only possible if we can first imagine a more responsible relationship with the world (Berry 2012).

Curiosity, creativity, and the joy of imagining desired futures through artistic experiences and expressing them with images, movements, or sounds further for others to experience lie in the heart of ecosocially oriented arts education. Ecosocial arts education can give meaning to the diverse realities and relations where rational explanations and verbalisations fall short. Art can help to relate more empathetic to the realities of others, which one would otherwise have no idea ( Slote 2007). To genuinely care for the other means that the otherness of the other is recognised as having intrinsic value. The complex ecosocial issues in the Anthropocene are signs of problems of interaction between humans and other living beings (Keto et al. 2022). Thus, expanding the circle of care to the more-than-humans world is essential. The awakening of care for others is linked to empathic bodily experience and imagination (Foster, Salonen, and Sutela 2022a). Furthermore, care based on specifically embodied empathy (see Aaltola 2018) helps to adopt a sustainable life orientation. It is essential to focus on sensual presence where all life is indistinguishably intertwined. Instead of ownership, production, and evaluation, ecosocially oriented arts education encourages perceiving, witnessing, and mutual sharing of experiences (Foster 2019).

Practising ecosocial music education by attuning, reconnecting, and co-composing with the sounds of the more-than-human world

Music education can be practised from various perspectives in the era of complex social and ecological problems. Particularly, understanding the connections between the lives of humans and other species has become critical. For example, it still needs to be better acknowledged that the sounds of multispecies habitats, too, can be a powerful indicator of environmental change and biodiversity loss (Roe et al. 2021). Recognising the dramatic changes in soundscapes could motivate people to care more about natural environments and their conservation (Lumber, Richardson, and Sheffield 2017). Furthermore, it is critical to recognise that the sounds of the environment form a set of dynamic relationships. For example, sounds can indicate the density and diversity of species, the air temperature, and the abundance of vegetation (Paine 2017). Thus, in the context of environmental crises, it is crucial to increase critical knowledge by recording, measuring, and analysing sounds of the environment and their changes over time using technological devices and software and specific objective indicators. However, it is equally important to research sonic environments from the perspective of phenomenology: how one perceives, experiences, remembers, and interprets sounds and sonic environments. In other words, music and sounds can be objectively analysed but also subjectively experienced.

Following the general theory of ecosocial art education, we recognise that music education also starts from and aims to engage with embodiment, imagination, and care (Foster, Salonen, and Sutela 2022a). Embodiment refers to the idea that an individual is not separate from their lived body and environment but constantly interacting and co-creating (sonic) reality between relational living beings. Imagination is the ability to envision (or compose) alternative ways of being and doing that are more ecologically and socially responsible and empathic. Furthermore, care refers to the attitude and practice of respecting and nurturing all forms of life. Based on these key concepts of ecosocial art education, we present three practical approaches to music education, which can promote a sustainable life orientation: (1) Attuning to sounds helps cultivate one's connectedness to more-than-human others. (2) Reconnecting with sound memories helps recognise how sonic environments affect and indicate the lives of humans and other beings. (3) Co-composing with the more-than-human world helps to embrace the generative powers of creativity in experiencing interdependence with others.

Attuning to sounds

Music and sounds can be described from hearing sensations and listening perceptions. Hearing is the physiological attending to sound; listening is a focused, concentrated approach toward sound (Mamlok 2017). Thus, listening is an active process, whereas hearing is passive. Hearing is the ability to perceive sound by detecting vibrations through the ear; listening, on the other hand, is the ability to pay attention to details or the entire sound field and interpret it meaningfully (Elkoshi 2021). Listening is also phenomenologically described as a mysterious process since it is not the same for everyone, although it is connected to the hearing of objectively measurable sound waves. In perception, sensory stimulation is translated into organised experience based on prior knowledge, expectations, and attention (Merleau-Ponty [1945] 2008). The concepts of hearing and listening can also be further problematised by studying the experiences of people who cannot hear well: the process of listening is not limited to auditory perception, but it instead is a more holistic embodied experience that includes the intertwinement of sound vibrations, emotions, and interaction (Holmes 2017). Thus, the meaning of listening to music or any sound cannot be objectively measured but only subjectively experienced.

Listening practices in music education are ways of engaging with music but also, more broadly with sonic environments (Adams et al. 2008; Elkoshi 2021; Song et al. 2022). Active listening practices in music education typically involve analysing musical details, like form, tempo, or pitch. Furthermore, it includes developing critical responses and judgments by comparing musical pieces, performances, and different styles or variations of music, but also an ability to connect musical pieces to historical, cultural, and social contexts (LaBelle 2020). Diverse listening practices involving attentive and mindful practices and critical and creative thinking can help develop perception skills, imagination, creativity, and an overall appreciation of music and sound. These kinds of listening practices also can potentially improve students’ emotional and social (Mamlok 2017) – and ecosocial (Foster, Salonen, and Sutela 2022a; Keto and Foster 2021; Keto et al. 2022) – competencies.

With the concept of attunement, we refer to attending to music and sound as a phenomenological asubjective experience, which is relational, something that exists between a subject and an object. The meaning of an asubjective experience cannot be returned to the qualities of a musical piece or sound, nor the psychological state of the listener. In contrast, the meaning of music or sound is born in the intertwinement of the subject and object, sound and its receiver. (Vadén and Torvinen 2014).

The asubjective experience is an (eco)phenomenological concept, but similar ideas have been described by a new materialist, Karen Barad (2007), with the concept of intra-action, which refers to an agency as not an inherent property of a human individual but as a dynamism of various forces. Furthermore, Jane Bennett (2010) has developed the idea of agency in matter, beyond humans. Attuning suggests adjusting to something to achieve a harmonious state. It can also refer to the process of establishing a connection with someone. In ecosocial music education, following the theories of ecophenomenology and posthuman new materialism, this someone can be a human but also another animal, plant, object, environment, or atmosphere. So, we use the idea of attunement to sound to describe ways of being with others in a mutual exchange in the more-than-human world. Thus, attunement to sound means recognising the interdependencies in the sonic world and engaging in a reciprocal exchange between relational, vibrating bodies (See also Brigstocke and Noorani 2016; Kanngieser 2015).

Deep or mindful listening describes a type of listening that involves paying attention to all sounds inside oneself and in the whole sonic environment (Oliveros 2005). Similarly, attuning to sounds involves focusing on the present moment without judgment. For example, we regularly guide a simple attuning to sounds exercise with music students, in which the focus is first on attending to what is heard in oneself and then what is heard in the space. Then the exercise continues what is heard outside the space and what is again possibly heard outside the building. The purpose of this practice is to perceive the sound environment starting from oneself and expanding outwards. We have noticed through our own practices with diverse groups of – not just music but also dance and other arts – students that these kind of attuning practices also help noticing how sounds affect bodily sensations, feelings, and thoughts. The practice can also involve making sounds with one's voice or instruments in response to what one hears. Similarly, to other mindful practices, attuning to sounds fosters a sense of connection, creativity, curiosity, and openness, enabling concentration, self-awareness, empathy, and well-being (see also Pulkki, Dahlin, and Värri 2017).

A sound walk is another practice that we have used with diverse participants – music and dance pedagogy students but also various other groups – to help attune to the more-than-human world (see also Westerkamp 2017). The purpose of the exercise is to focus mindfully on sounds, which is done by slowing down the walking and engaging with the practice without talking. In addition, the practice can be done in pairs to further assist in shifting the focus from visual to aural sensations: one walks eyes closed, and the other guides the walk eyes open. The aim is to pay attention to sounds as they are, without imposing any meaning or interpretation on them (see also Oliveros 2005). No special musical skills are needed to participate in this exercise, only a willingness to commit to the practice and be open to the experiences that it generates. The participants of sound walks, both in our artistic workshops and participatory performances, have described how attuning to sounds by simply slowing down the walk and focusing on the sonic environment can help to become aware of human interconnectedness with other living beings. A sound walk is also a form of activism, as it challenges the dominant listening modes and concepts of music shaped by social and cultural norms of modernity (see also Foster 2019). Attuning to sounds as they are, can help appreciate the diversity and complexity of the sonic environment and support a sense of belonging with the more-than-human world.

Active listening is typically directed to particular hearing events; attuning to sounds moves beyond the sound's immediate location, source, and structure to include all sounds and the acoustic context as an intersection of diverse sonic relations (see also Paine 2017). Thus, attuning to sounds becomes meaningful in relational body awareness rather than in the analytical mind (see also Pulkki, Dahlin, and Värri 2017; Vadén and Torvinen 2014). Furthermore, attuning to the whole sound field in a particular moment and space can help to cultivate one's connectedness to others – humans, other animals, plants, buildings, and natural or urban surroundings (see also Barclay 2013) – by allowing one to experience the world in a more immersive and intimate way (Foster, Mnemo ZIN, Keto, and Pulkki 2022b).

Reconnecting with sound memories

Sounds are part of memories that are carried in the lived bodies. Sound memories are deeply connected to place and affective states (Harris 2015). Individuals and communities carry rich multisensory and emotional knowledge in their lived (sonic) experiences. Reconnecting with sound memories can thus bring back feelings and even other sensory (like smell, taste, tactile) cues that have been experienced (Harris 2015), for example, in childhood (also Foster, Mnemo ZIN, Keto, and Pulkki 2022b).

Sounds surround human individuals already before birth (Woodward 2019). Thus, it can be interpreted that humans have an innate capability to tune for sounds and music (Sacks 2006). The earliest auditory experiences depict what one sounds like and thus is (Stein 2007). Various sounds and sonic environments one is surrounded by throughout life play a fundamental part in forming one's identity. It has been reported that sounds and musical memories can also open a window into the mentality of a person with dementia (Fornazzari et al. 2006). Furthermore, listening to music from the youth may evoke nostalgia and, thus, increase a sense of self-continuity and optimism by fostering social connectedness (Sedikides, Leunissen, and Wildschut 2022). Indeed, sound memories inhabit us, but we are often unaware of them. In other words, we are fundamentally (eco) socialised by (sonic) environments (Foster, Mnemo ZIN, Keto, and Pulkki 2022b; also Keto and Foster 2021), even though we are not necessarily conscious of these vital connections. Thus, the question is, how could we better recognise these embodied memories and base music education on these relations?

Connecting with sound memories can be practised (see Harris 2015). It can be done, for example, by first attuning to the sounds of the environment and then discussing these perceptions and experiences. We have noticed in our own pedagogical practices that the attunement exercises can help the students better engage with their auditory perceptions and, that way, awaken their embodied memories too. When the students are prepared to connect with the memories rising from the body, they can be, for example, guided to recall their favourite place from childhood. In an exercise, by sitting in silence and eyes closed, it is possible to allow childhood sounds, atmospheres, and emotions to arise to the surface. A childhood object or place that one had forgotten may be brought back to memory in precise detail. Through this exercise, it is possible to notice that sound memories are often very concrete: the clock ticking in grandmother's house, the school bell ringing, the birds calling, sounds of the sea, or vehicles passing by. Connecting with the childhood's sound memories helps form a coherent sense of self: even though I am not the same as I was as a child, it was still me who perceived all those sounds.

When sound memories are recollected individually but discussed together, they can be brought to life collectively to generate more memories (Foster, Mnemo ZIN, Keto, and Pulkki 2022b). The music educator can also guide students to lie down or sit in a circle with their eyes closed. Then students can improvise together with their voices a decided – natural or urban, indoor or outdoor – soundscape, and whatever sounds they connect with in these environments. The practice can be taken further by orchestrating the volume or timbre of the soundscape arising from these memories. After the exercise, it can be discussed how they experienced the collective soundscape and what emotions, memories, and thoughts it evoked.

Reconnection with sound memories is similar to memory-based listening (Paine 2017), through which one's imagination is used to return to a place full of sounds that one likes. Concentration on memories and imagination in listening makes the embodiment of sounds concrete (Paine 2017). Reconnecting with sound memories can also be done while walking. By walking with students, music educators can learn more about the places students inhabit and their embodied connections to these places. Sound walking enables students to actively participate in a soundscape while listening and remembering. Students can also take part in archiving soundscapes by using smartphones to record the sounds of their surroundings. Students can find creative and interactive ways to make their sound memories audible and thus better recognised.

It is also possible to connect with sound memories by engaging with diverse sounds from online sound archives, childhood home videos, and music recordings of a particular decade. These archived sound memories can then be compared with the sounds of now, shared with other students, and discussed in depth. Archiving and sharing sound memories support engagement with different places, other people, and the more-than-human world in the present and past (Harris 2015). At best, reconnecting with sound memories can awaken a sense of self connected to others, extend the circle of care to the more-than-human world (Foster, Salonen, and Sutela 2022a), and fundamentally transform how one thinks and (inter)acts with the whole web of life.

Co-composing with the more-than-human world

As long as humans have existed, music has been a significant way to express and communicate with others. Similarly, other animals use sounds in various ways to engage with others (Ullrich 2018). Human communities have used, for example, echoes to improvise with their surroundings, as caves, forests, and waters answered their calls (Rainio et al. 2014). Furthermore, the human voice has been used to communicate with cattle over great distances, as the landscape worked as an amplifier (Stomberg & Tiderman-Österberg 2021). The more-than-human world has been a practical and creative inspiration for humans to improvise with their voice but also horns, stones, sticks, pipes, and handcrafted and modern instruments. In a way, the relational interplay between echoes, natural environments, and voices of humans and other species have created co-compositions for a long time (Rainio et al. 2014).

In our own practices with the students of music and dance pedagogy but also with various other multi-disciplinary groups, we have noticed how students’ attunement to the urban and natural sonic environments can help them understand the interconnectedness between humans and the more-than-human world and how humans influence the sonic environment. Attuning to sounds and reconnecting with sound memories can help students sensitise and awaken to the sounds of their environment and the changes in soundscapes (also Westerkamp 2017). In practice, this can be done through embodied attunement with the sonic environment as students start to perceive rhythm, melody, harmony, and timbre around them (Ervasti, Muhonen, and Tikkanen 2013; Kankkunen 2012). This kind of embodied attunement can free students from the pressure to be ‘creative’ since these exercises simply aim to open the students to a genuine dialogue with their surroundings. For example, students can get inspiration from the sound of waves crashing on the shore or the knocking of a woodpecker as they form a certain regular rhythm. A bird song can inspire to repeat the melodic motif or a rhythmic idea. Wind in the leaves of trees, rain, melting snow crystals, traffic, or construction sites can form a sonic collage that creates an image of colours, moods, or emotions. Sensory exercises and improvisations with trees, leaves, moss, concrete, and asphalt can also guide the attention away from one's inner sensations toward the relationship between self and others (Foster and Turkki 2021). By using the sounds of the environment as partners of improvisation, music becomes an integral part of life, which extends beyond the individual and human-centric approaches to creativity and reality.

The co-composing with the more-than-human world can also be approached by archiving sonic environments by recording (also Westerkamp 2017). After collecting the sound material, the samples can be listened to and reflected together and further considered how they might interact with the human voice and acoustic, electric, or electronic instruments. First, students can take a rhythm or motif recorded in their sound archive and improvise on it. After this, students can discuss which original sound samples inspired them most when improvised and played together. Then, students can start working further on collective creation.

The co-creation in music is interwoven with the principles of attuning to sounds and recollecting the sound memories discussed in previous sections. In other words, successful co-composing requires the recognition of diverse perceptions and the interconnectedness of human and more-than-human composers (see also Foster and Turkki 2021). Co-composing revitalises the human-nature connection and embraces a more-than-human world in music-making. It also abandons the idealisation of human-centred self-expression in music education that often stresses product-oriented musical activities. Shifting attention in music education to co-creating sounds, harmonies, rhythms, and melodies with a more-than-human world can dislocate the dominant modern narrative of a human as the music composing process's only (and superior) agent (Ullrich and Trump 2023). Doing so also further assists in giving attention to the sounds and musical elements surrounding us daily – but to which we do not pay enough attention.

Conclusion

Reflecting on how music education might be undertaken in the era of complex environmental crises, we have considered the potential of an ecosocial approach. It stresses the importance of dismantling human supremacy and recognising the interdependence of humans and all other forms of life. We suggested that to guide students toward sustainable life orientation, music education should start by practising attunement to all sounds, not just listening to (culturally biased and human-created) music. Becoming aware of the relationalities in the sonic environment can help bridge the gap between subjects and objects, humans and the more-than-human world. Furthermore, reconnecting with sound memories helps to recognise how sonic environments take part in the overall process of what makes humans and other organisms what they are. Recollecting sounds from the past also makes audible how humans affect the sound environments and the planet's life-supporting ecosystems. Finally, we argued for music as a co-creative process where the positions of humans as makers and all others as background are shifted to mutually contributing creators, the co-composers of the sonic environment.

The ecosocial crises challenge traditional approaches to teaching and learning and call for a new understanding of the role of education in an ecosocially sustainable society. There is no neutral music education since all beliefs and actions in teaching are tied to more general practices and values in life. Therefore, music educators must understand their power: how one teaches either transfers or transforms current ontological and epistemological beliefs. Education must equip future generations with values, knowledge, and skills to address the world's complex challenges and create a more just and sustainable future. Approaching music education from the perspective of ecosocial sustainability can foster students’ sensitivity to diverse sonic environments, raise their awareness of the human-caused ecological crisis, and support the overall appreciation of multispecies communities and mutually beneficial ways of interaction. The ecosocial approach to music education can also promote students’ critical thinking, creativity, and collaboration in addressing social and ecological problems. Most of all, ecosocially oriented music education can cultivate ethical values, attitudes, and behaviours that respect and care for the more-than-human world.

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No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Raisa Foster

Finland-based multidisciplinary artist and scholar Raisa Foster, PhD, has focused on the questions of eco-social justice and sustainable life orientation for the past several years. She holds the titles of associate professor in dance pedagogy (University of the Arts Helsinki) and in social pedagogy, especially artistic research and practice (University of Eastern Finland). Originally a dance practitioner, Foster combines her expertise in body and movement with the possibilities of digital media, creating accessible but sensuously, emotionally, and cognitively stimulating total works of art. Her performances, media works, installations, and drawings have been exhibited in Finland and abroad. She has written several academic articles on the topics of recognition, contemporary art, dance, and ecosocial education.

Katja Sutela

Katja Sutela, PhD, is university lecturer and postdoctoral researcher in music education at University of Oulu, Finland. She is currently engaged in a research project with focus on music education of d/Deaf students. Her research interests focus on inclusive music education, theories of embodiment, and ecosocial approach to music education. She is also an active singer-songwriter and has released two albums.