Accessible Digital Music Technologies for Inclusive Music Practices

This proposal outlines a Research Topic dedicated to accessible digital music, a rapidly expanding area at the intersection of music technology, inclusion, pedagogy, and creative practice. As digital tools increasingly shape contemporary musical life, accessibility has emerged as a critical framework for rethinking how musical engagement and learning are designed, supported, and distributed. Despite significant innovation, research in this domain remains fragmented across disciplines and often lacks a shared platform for dissemination. This collection seeks to consolidate current knowledge, highlight emerging methodologies, and foster dialogue among researchers, educators, clinicians, designers, and artists.Accessible digital music refers to technologies, interfaces, and practices that enable people of diverse abilities, backgrounds, and levels of musical experience to participate meaningfully in music-making and musical learning. These include adaptive and alternative controllers, sensor-based and gesture-based instruments, multimodal representations of musical structure, and software environments designed to accommodate varied cognitive and motor profiles. Such tools do more than remove barriers: they open new expressive possibilities, support inclusive pedagogical approaches, and challenge traditional assumptions about instrumentality, virtuosity, and musical literacy.The proposed Research Topic will address several key themes. First, it will explore design approaches that prioritize accessibility from the outset, including participatory and co-creative methodologies that center the lived experiences of users and learners. Second, it will examine pedagogical and therapeutic applications, illustrating how accessible digital instruments can support communication, agency, and creative development in educational and clinical contexts. Particular attention will be given to how these technologies can reshape music teaching practices, inclusive classroom environments, and digital learning spaces. Third, it will highlight artistic practices that integrate accessible technologies into professional performance and composition, demonstrating their aesthetic legitimacy and cultural relevance while also informing new models of creative learning and practice-based education. Finally, the issue will consider broader ethical, social, and infrastructural questions, including sustainability, long-term adoption in educational and community settings, and the importance of interdisciplinary collaboration between educators, technologists, and artists.By bringing together contributions from diverse perspectives, this collection aims to position accessible digital music as a coherent and impactful field of inquiry within both music technology and contemporary music education research. It will provide a venue for theoretical reflection as well as empirical and practice-based case studies, offering readers a comprehensive view of current challenges and future directions in inclusive digital music learning. In doing so, the issue seeks to stimulate further research, support the development of inclusive musical and educational ecosystems, and encourage journals, institutions, and practitioners to recognize accessibility as a central dimension of contemporary music education and technology.This Research Topic will be of interest to scholars in music technology, music education, sound and music computing, disability studies, human–computer interaction, and music therapy, as well as to educators, designers, and artists engaged in inclusive creative practice. By foregrounding accessibility as a generative principle rather than a secondary consideration, the collection aims to contribute to a more equitable, inclusive, and imaginative musical and educational landscape. Topic editors: Marcella Mandanici, Elena Partesotti Source: https://www.frontiersin.org/research-topics/79128/accessible-digital-music-technologies-for-inclusive-music-practices