This presentation highlights results from a research study of ‘Music Week’; a one-week Swedish music project. The aim of the ‘Music Week’ project was to enable young people with physical impairments to take part in musical activities. Digitally-based musical settings were used in order to provide tools for performing and creating music. The main purpose of the present research study was to explore the interaction and the music education practices applied during the Music Week project as well as to investigate the musical settings used within the project.

The theoretical background of the project is to be found in sociocultural-based educational theories, health theories such as the Sense of Coherence framework and theories associated with music therapy and musicology. To ‘music’ is to take part in musical events in any capacity, e.g. by performing, listening, practising or providing material for ‘musicking’. Furthermore, music, music making and music creation will always promote health even when this might not be the specific aim. The present research project, however, was performed primarily from an educational perspective.

The research method was partially inspired by ethnographical methods where the author participated as a researcher through participant observations. The collected data were analyzed using a qualitative methodology. Passages of audio- and video-recordings related to the research questions were transcribed and coded.

In the study, two main variations of teaching music in groups were identified: i) Performance-oriented, with a stated goal to perform songs for an audience and ii) Participatory-oriented, where the participants were able to explore their potential to play and create music. The two identified variations of music education practices should not be regarded as mutually exclusive: it was shown that one musical situation often had qualities that applied to more than one practice. Also, the musical experience and competence of the tutor/teacher affected the collaborative music making.

The results of the present study imply that a performance-oriented, practise may fulfil the teacher’s intentions at the cost of interaction, inclusion and creativity while participatory-oriented musicking might facilitate creativity and improvisation. The result also suggests that musical settings should consider all kinds of resources: musical, technical, physical, psychological and personal. This result supports a holistic view of the individual and a focus on function rather than impairment.