Learning together: A shared practicum for music education and music therapy students

Music has well-documented health benefits throughout life, from childhood development to quality of life in older adulthood. While researchers have identified cognitive, emotional, and social functions of music, social aspects have often received less attention. This project grew from the understanding that students build knowledge through interaction with others, linking academic learning with real-world action through reflection in small cooperative groups.

This study examines a collaborative creativity project involving music therapy and music education students who worked with older adults from a retirement village. The participants engaged in lyric rewriting—a teaching and therapeutic intervention—and then performed the songs publicly. Drawing on reflective journals and interview transcripts, four major themes emerged: learning about facilitation, learning about self, learning about the musical process, and learning about context and aging. The findings have implications that reach well beyond retirement settings into any educational or therapeutic context where creative collaboration occurs.

Working together: The value of collaborative learning

The project paired music therapy and music education students to guide a group of retirees in creating new lyrics to familiar songs, which were later performed for a public audience. This report focuses on student perceptions of what they gained from this process.

As career paths for music graduates continue to diversify, the authors considered it vital for students to explore nontraditional employment settings—such as retirement villages—and to apply theory in unfamiliar contexts. The study also examined how students from distinct disciplinary backgrounds could collaborate effectively when their approaches to leading a lyric rewriting session naturally differed.

Biggs argued that learning involves interacting with the world; through a constructivist lens, effective teaching engages students in higher-level cognitive processing, which happens when they create their own understanding. Collaborative learning facilitates this engagement by having students work in pairs or small groups, mutually searching for understanding or creating a product together. Boud suggested that moving from independent toward interdependent learning allows students to gain more by explaining ideas to others and taking part in peer activities.

Panitz listed 67 benefits of collaborative learning across academic, social, and psychological domains. Academic gains include fostering critical thinking, active engagement in learning, safe exploration of problems, and support for varied learning styles.

Social benefits involve building interpersonal relationships, developing social support systems, cultivating empathy, learning to critique ideas rather than people, fostering team-building with individual accountability, and supporting learning communities. Psychologically, collaborative learning builds self-esteem, increases satisfaction, promotes mastery, and reduces classroom anxiety.

How the study was conducted

Grounded in the belief that students construct knowledge through interaction with peers, faculty, supervisors, and clients, this project used a learning-in-action model that connects academic learning to practice through reflection within small cooperative groups. The study aimed to:

1. Assess educational outcomes for students and retirement village participants when students facilitate lyric writing groups and the retirees perform their creations publicly.
2. Explore and compare perceptions of the lyric rewriting process between music therapy and music education students.
3. Examine the perceived impact of the project on lifelong learning and music therapy in aged care.

Who took part

Eight female university students volunteered for the project, facilitating lyric rewriting sessions with residents of a local retirement village. Lyric rewriting is an established therapeutic song-writing method that helps older people stay cognitively active and engage in meaningful group activities.

Over three weeks, the students ran five lyric rewriting sessions. Four came from music education (Susan, Rosanne, Brianna, Josie) and four from music therapy (Eloise, Annabelle, Sophie, Carol). A university supervisor and nursing staff oversaw the process, and the students helped arrange a public performance of the songs.

Session format and setting: Sessions lasted 90 minutes and took place in the retirement village auditorium, a large performing space. Tables and chairs were arranged in a circle, with student participants seated among the eight retirees to offer individual support. Keyboards, guitars, and songbooks were provided; songs were chosen cooperatively to ensure the melodies were familiar and meaningful to the older adults. While all students shared leadership, one music education student tended to take charge naturally.

Session overview:

• Session 1: Student introductions and explanation of the project. Sing-a-long of age-appropriate, culturally relevant songs. Introduction of lyric rewriting concepts with a student-created example.
• Sessions 2–5: Guided brainstorming, idea summarization, and cooperative lyric creation. Each session included singing the newly written song. Session 5 focused on rehearsal for the performance.
• Session 6: Concert—a choral performance for an audience of retirement village residents. The older participants introduced their songs and shared stories about the writing process.

Songwriting process and working with well older adults

The structured protocol included specific stages, each with a time estimate: an opening song-singing activity, generating topics through probing, focused brainstorming on the chosen topic, selecting a song for parody, identifying the central idea or emotion, grouping related concepts, and constructing lyrics over the work session. Participants drew on a step-by-step songwriting protocol described by Baker.

By working with older adults who were "well"—not sick or vulnerable—students could develop skills without a duty of care obligation. The risk involved was no greater than that in the general public. Nursing staff, a university supervisor, and the retirement village manager were on hand but never needed to intervene. This provided a safe environment for skill development that differed significantly from work with children or acutely ill clients.

Data collection relied on two main sources: student participant journals and a focus group interview. Students kept journals throughout the three weeks, recording observations, reflections, group dynamics, challenges, and highlights. Pseudonyms protected both student and resident identities. They reflected on how the experience affected residents and their own perceptions of lifelong learning and music therapy with older people. The 90-minute focus group, conducted the week after the concert, explored all three research aims. Questions included:

• What did you learn through this process?
• What do you think others learned?
• What went well, and what could change?
• What did you learn about the other participants and yourself?
• What health benefits resulted?
• What specific advantages does lyric rewriting offer retirees?

Analysing the data

The authors followed Creswell’s stages of content analysis. Each researcher independently read the data, identified emergent themes, then compared and clustered categories to ensure they were coherent, distinct, and representative. Sub-themes emerged naturally, and labels were refined to match content accurately. Throughout analysis and writing, the team regularly checked raw data to support or challenge arguments and ensure no themes were omitted.

What the students learned

Analysis of journals and interview transcripts produced four overarching themes about what the students gained from the experience.

Learning about facilitation

Initially, two groups—each containing two therapy and two education students—ran introductory sessions with small numbers of retirees. They made introductions, led vocal warm-up activities, sang songs, and demonstrated basic song parody. Afterward, the groups reflected on the session, receiving feedback that included suggestions for more active resident engagement in music creation. When low resident numbers required the groups to merge from the second session onward, students adapted by renegotiating leadership and support roles. They realized they needed to spread out among residents to offer more individual attention and make sure everyone’s contributions were acknowledged.

By the third day, some students had naturally stepped into leadership roles, while others felt more comfortable supporting from the sidelines. By day four, group cohesion notably strengthened, and quieter participants grew more confident. By concert day, residents took active roles in running the performance, with students acting as supportive facilitators rather than leaders, ensuring the show flowed smoothly.

This broad theme of learning about facilitation divided into several sub-themes: interaction and communication skills, planning and flexibility, leadership and group cohesion, and managing diverse personalities.

Communication and interaction skills

Both therapy and education students found they had to rethink their communication approaches when starting work with the new group.

Susan: I used to think, 'Well, how will I put this into a sentence?' or … 'I know what I'm talking about but how will I speak it?'. This was a really good opportunity to prove to myself that I can put my thoughts into a sentence and actually 'say something'. … A lot of the time I'm saying 'um, um, um' and my Dad's always saying 'stop saying um' or 'like' or 'whatever'. For me to stop that was challenging … and that was good.

Eloise: We need some work on slowing our speech as well as speaking loudly and clearly.

Part of this learning required rethinking how young student facilitators interacted with older, more experienced adults in positions of leadership.

If you give someone enough rein so that they feel important and can say what they want to say, then in theory they should respect what you have to say because you let them speak. — Rosanne, Interview, July 24, 2009

I noticed that some members who don’t speak up often were able to contribute when asked directly. They seem to need a little extra encouragement; more than the ones who are quite vocal. (Eloise, Journal reflection, July 11, 2009)

It was quite difficult with Bronwyn today as she was quite rude and unpleasant to others in the group. However, I think she felt uncomfortable and didn’t quite know what was going on and so she reacted this way. This was a good learning experience for me to see how group members can react to certain situations and how to deal with them. (Annabelle, Journal reflection, July 7, 2009)

I think for me it was very much about ‘respect the elder’. We didn’t want to interrupt them because the way that they were brought up they would see that as being rude and we didn’t want to come across like that in the first session. (Sophie, Journal, July 14, 2009)

Planning and flexibility

Throughout the process, the students increasingly realised the value of planning sessions to ensure that residents achieved predetermined outcomes. Their plans were initially rigid and did not allow for unexpected events to arise.

I found our group quite challenging to keep as a cohesive whole, even through the introduction. All of the residents wanted to tell every little thing about their musical past, which was great, but we could not get a couple of them to stop talking. (Sophie, Journal reflection, June 30, 2009)

Although there was initially a lack of insight into why their plans were not fulfilling their objectives, guided supervision and reflection enabled their planning skills to develop over the course of the project. Towards the end of the project, the students’ plans increasingly allowed for flexibility and they had clearer and more realistic outcomes.

Sophie: I think the last session we had was really quite productive. And that was when we had sat down and worked out this is exactly what we are going to do. And I think that maybe in retrospect, we should have done that beforehand but back at the beginning we didn’t know what to expect or what they would want to do.

Carol: I think the last session when we actually had a plan, and we made that very clear in the first 5 minutes then everyone knew what to expect and that was fine. And we didn’t have that for the other sessions and then it was sort of “ohh”.

Eloise: It wasn’t because it was the last session, I really think it was because we had a plan, we were all on the same page. . . . I noticed that our facilitating group (students) had some trouble delegating responsibility; probably because we did it on the fly. I think some more group work, planning meetings was necessary.

Over the course of the program students were faced with events that they could not predict. For example, students had a plan involving singing songs. What emerged in the session, however, was that the residents took the session as an opportunity to share their musical backgrounds with the students. The residents relished having their stories heard. Respectfully, the students adjusted their expectations for what could be achieved in the session and modified their approach to accommodate the unfolding events.

Sophie: I think the first session was the most interesting because we had actually been in pairs and the pairs had talked and I know that I had learnt 10 songs but so had these guys and so when we all joined together we suddenly had 40 songs. For the first session we had slightly different plans of which way to go.

Rosanne: And I don’t think any of those went to plan anyway because it was so important to them to share their musical background.

Eloise: And we wanted to feed off what the group wanted offered to us too. And so the plan didn’t always work.

To practise effectively, both music educators and music therapists need to be adept at spontaneously adapting to ever-changing situations. Therefore, the development of flexibility is a key component of their professional knowledge and skills.

Leadership and group cohesion

The emerging roles that each student assumed changed over the course of the project. This was in part a product of the rapport they developed with the residents over time. Residents observably grew more confident in initiating and steering the group lyric creations. Students reflected on the nature of leadership, group cohesion, and the utilisation of the group’s strengths to achieve goals. Through this process of reflection, the students realised that the residents within the group were far more capable of taking leadership roles than they had initially thought. By the conclusion of the program, the residents seemed empowered to own the process and their song creations.

It was still really hard to keep the residents focused on what we were supposed to be doing. Even though we really needed to bring them back on task, I felt like I should not be interrupting what they had to say. It was the traditional ‘respect your elders’ and ‘children should be seen and not heard’ sort of business. I did not want to seem rude or upset any of the residents . . . I really liked the way that the residents of the lyric rewriting group interacted between themselves and with the audience. It was like no problems, arguments, or differences had occurred throughout the past three weeks of sessions. (Sophie, Journal reflection, July 4, 2009)

I hadn’t expected to form such pleasant and strong relationships with some of the residents, and originally felt a little apprehensive about becoming so close to some of them. I felt that the group dynamics had shifted quite considerably since early sessions. I felt that we weren’t so much facilitating anymore, but friends and members of the group that ended up sharing something very special. (Annabelle, Journal reflection, July 18, 2009, day of the concert)

Questioning the nature of leadership and facilitation is important in the development of effective practitioners. The constant negotiation that needs to go on between teacher and student, therapist and client is one where music professionals are guiding their charges towards greater and greater independence over time.

Managing diverse personalities

During the composing of the song ‘Good and Bad Memories’, which was a song parody to the melody of ‘My Grandfather’s Clock’, residents described their childhood experiences. It was evident to the group that some of the members had vastly different childhoods from others. For example, one resident was raised in a regional centre in the state of Victoria and found it difficult to relate to stories of childhoods in the city. The students were challenged to accommodate, acknowledge, and respect these differences and to incorporate all the residents’ ‘voices’ into the song texts. Music education and music therapy practitioners will undoubtedly work with a range of people with complex life histories, family situations, and personality traits. Effectively managing groups comprising individuals from diverse backgrounds is central to the success of group facilitation. Much of the students’ reflections focused on their approaches to dealing with negative situations, and exploring ways to turn the situation into an opportunity for growth.

Sophie: And I don’t know why I didn’t expect this because my grandfather has a very strong personality. I suppose I never worked, I mean I can talk to my grandparents, I’m quite close to them but when you have a large group like that its different.

Carol: I also found for people like Bronwyn who didn’t have that type of relationship with us I didn’t feel as though they were as big a part of the group as much as though like Harry who were very talkative. And Lex and Corine. Corine was very lovely but she was very shy. And she got very upset at one point and said, ‘I don’t feel like I belong here’ because she felt she didn’t have the ability to think of things and just bring things up like that. She needed time to think things through. And Lex, and Bronwyn who had that personality — however I’m sure she had her issues behind all that and I felt that they weren’t really taken care of in the same way as those that were really easy going, and talkative, and happy.

Susan: I kind of imagined myself in a high school classroom and Bronwyn being the really snotty bully person, and there’s a couple of shy kids, and smart kids and Bronwyn would be the one trying to kick them down and have her own way. So I was kind of thinking how would I do that in a real classroom, to facilitate their learning so that they are all on the same page. That’s kind of how I worked it in my mind. Corine was really quiet, and there were so many amazing things she had to say, and same with Lex but most of the time they sat back and it appeared as though they weren’t listening or involved but then they’d come out with these really cool things — that’s awesome. It was hard for me because I was sitting on one side of the table with Harry because he was always wanting me to come with him (everyone laughs) so I didn’t know how else to connect with everybody else. (Interview, September 24, 2009)

The diverse personalities found in this group context required the students to reconsider their role and ways to assist individuals in the group to effectively work together to produce an outcome. It also required them to negotiate the differences in personalities and approaches amongst themselves, as noted by Carol in her reflection after the first session:

I think that is so far the biggest difference between music education/therapy — that they, education students, are more focused on the result (the songs and the concert) and we, music therapy students, are more focused on the process and how each individual should be in focus in addition to the group. (Carol, Journal reflection, July 4, 2009)

This was the only reference by any student to differences between music education and music therapy students.

As is often the case on practicum situations, when there is a sense of disequilibrium or conflict, this is when the students feel that they learn the most (in retrospect). This is consistent with the notion of cognitive equilibration proposed by Piaget, and discussed extensively in Fosnot and Perry (1996). In this case, it seemed that the students from each cohort had to re-imagine how the process should continue, given the different perspectives and backgrounds of the students from the other cohort. We would argue that the memories from these situations are useful to students when dealing with similar situations in their professional contexts.

Learning to interact appropriately with students or clients from various backgrounds (gender, age, culture and socio-economic status) is a crucial skill for both music teachers and music therapists. The opportunities that this project presented enabled the students to explore their abilities and skills in this realm, and to develop new skills and abilities in response to the challenges of the context.

Learning about self

The opportunities that a practicum experience such as this presents are rich and allow for students to grow in their understanding of themselves, both musically and professionally. The students’ reflective accounts provide rich evidence of their growth in self-knowledge, which can then be applied to classroom and clinical settings. A greater understanding of professional and personal identity also lends itself to a deeper reflection on theoretical knowledge gained through university study. What was clearly seen in the accounts of the students — in particular Carol, Annabelle, Sophie and Eloise — was that the experience opened their eyes to the unpredictability of teaching and clinical contexts. In reflecting on this, they acknowledged that these types of experiences could be confronting and uncomfortable, but that this was a place for further learning about themselves and their profession.

I think I learned that nothing turns out to be the way that I expect it to be and I really need to work now to handle that. So for example when I was preparing for the first session we thought we’re going to do this and that and blah, blah, blah and then it didn’t happen and that made me feel quite insecure and I guess that something you should really be (pause) prepared for and I don’t know how to really prepare for that. (Carol, Interview, September 24, 2009)

This practicum seemed to affect the students in different ways, but they had no difficulties seeing the impact it would have on their future practices as music teachers and therapists. Their positive attitude towards the experience was clear when quite a few of the students testified to a shift in their aspirations; whereas before they had not considered it an option, they could now imagine working with the older generation.

Annabelle: I am more interested in working with old people.

Sophie: Yeah.

Eloise: Yeah.

Annabelle: I think I could work in palliative care or something like that. I was thinking I’d work with children or teens and then I thought no, I could see myself, yeah.

Others felt that the experience provided a rich opportunity to apply the knowledge and skills acquired within their chosen career context — such as the music classroom — and that the intergenerational nature of the experience offered something additional, which would enable them to think of their students in a more individual way in the future.

Susan: I think for me, when I walk up for the first time to a classroom, it’s to me, going to be similar as walking up to that group full of people and being able to deal with so many personalities at the one time. And that was only a small group so I can’t imagine myself yet walking into a classroom of 30 dealing with a whole heap of grade 8s.

Brianna: I think for me the importance of the generations mixing together for both us and them to benefit from it. I think that’s very important. So I want to go on to teaching and therapy and somehow integrate the generations together in whatever way I work out how to do that. But I think it’s really important that that happens.

The experience also impacted on the students personally; they felt the challenge was rewarding, particularly as they got to know some older people through the musical experience. In addition, they spoke of their growth in confidence generally, although they were relieved that the effort was initially a group one. As indicated below, they would have felt less positive about it had it been an individual practicum experience.

Susan: I thought it was really really awesome. I didn’t expect it to be so good. And it was good because it was a challenge with the people that we worked with but also really rewarding for me personally. I thought it was amazing experience. I’ve never got so close in such a short amount of time with a bunch of older people. And never had the opportunity to. (Interview, September 24, 2009)

Brianna: I didn’t really have any expectations. I was just going into it to enjoy it and see what came out of it in the end. And I have really enjoyed it. (Interview, September 24, 2009)

Sophie: Overall, the experience of lyric rewriting with this group was really interesting. I must admit that I had doubts of my own ability to work with this age group, as I had never participated in anything that included this generation, apart from my own grandparents. I still do not know if I could run a session like this by myself, and I was glad that it was a group of students and a combined effort, as we provided support for each other. (Journal reflection, July 18, 2009, day of the concert)

Learning about the musical process

Throughout the six sessions the students were interspersed amongst the residents, singing together with them. There was a feeling of excitement from both the students and the retiree participants, and the project structure enabled the students to learn about the process of creating music from a different perspective. Although we (the authors) expected that there might have been more learning articulated by the students in this category, the content analysis revealed that the project predominantly highlighted (for the students) the importance of age-appropriate repertoire, which is central to the success of music education and therapy. Students learnt how to listen to the people with whom they were working, and were open to learning repertoire from them (giving up the reins, so to speak), which is fundamental to effective teaching and therapy practice.

Roseanne: Personally I now love Grandfather’s Clock.

Eloise: I had never heard it before so that was a gift.

Susan: I mean I’d just be singing them randomly and my boyfriend would be saying, ‘What are you singing?’. He doesn’t know. Repertoire was a big eye opener for me because when me and Eloise were thinking about what songs we could do, we were sticking to the ones we knew so when they were suggesting songs, I was thinking ‘I’ve never heard of that one, or that one’. I wouldn’t have imagined picking them so I think, that was kind of a lesson for me, repertoire choice in education. Because there is more than what I know. (Interview, September 24, 2009)

Notably, aside from repertoire, the notion of how to engage in a lyric re-writing musical process occupied a seemingly trivial role in the students’ journal reflections. The students spent much more time and effort reflecting on the experience in terms of their social learning and the benefits of the experience to the residents. However, there was some allusion made to musical process by a small number of students.

When reflecting on their experiences, some students felt that they learnt more about the musical process through being involved with the lyric rewriting experience.

Josie: As a music education student, I have looked at this project as how it relates to teaching. I think that this project has highlighted to me the process of creativity. The first piece the residents wrote was Que Sera, Sera. In just three verses the residents went from changing a few words, to changing phrases and then changing an entire verse, but still keeping the ideas from the original lyrics. The next lyrics the residents wrote was Joyful Happy Place, to the tune of Yellow Submarine. The residents kept a similar idea to the original in the chorus, but wrote original verses. By the end of the project the residents were writing their own, completely original lyrics, often using the tune of the original piece to inspire their ideas, rather than the original words. I think it is interesting how quickly their level of creativity matured in just six sessions. (Journal reflection, July 18, 2009, day of the concert)

Learning about context and ageing

The students commented at length about their increased appreciation of the older people as individuals. They acknowledged that many of their prior assumptions had been challenged by the experience, and that by getting to know these people’s contexts through the experience and through the songs, they felt that they understood them more and why they acted in the ways that they did.

Some of the comments that they had to share on this matter are outlined below.

One student wrote: “I particularly like the lyrics they wrote to Grandfather Clock, because I think it follows on well from Memories. It brought the reality of what life was really like, which I think was good for them to remember as well as for us to know. If ever they had doubts about ‘back in the good old days’ that song could possibly remind them of what life really was like, rather than the silver lining that they may try to remember. I personally liked that effect that the song could have (as well as the song itself!).” (Rosanne, Journal reflection, July 14, 2009)

One student remarked: “I learned to interact better with older people. Even with my grandfather I don’t know how to … respond to him and to be able to sit down and listen to what he had to say is so interesting. I had never really sat down with my grandfather and listened to his stories and things. I’ve never really been that close. I just feel more comfortable as I’ve never really had a strong relationship with him and I want to actually hear what he has to say. I’m interested in his story.” (Annabelle, interview, September 24, 2009)

Another noted: “I had June open up as well about her feet and also about her church life and stuff like that. And things about her family, and stuff like that. That they come and visit her but not enough and that she feels she’s not connected enough and others that are nice to her face but not really behind the scenes.” (Susan, interview, September 24, 2009)

Reflecting on relationships, one student shared: “…Personality, too. I know for me, Audrey and I got along really well. We were actually emailing each other. And I think it wouldn’t have worked as well if we hadn’t had that relationship with them. And they wouldn’t have felt the same at the end without the process and how we helped them.” (Sophie, interview, September 24, 2009)

Discussion and conclusions

This research examined music therapy and music education students’ perceptions of composing new lyrics to familiar songs. Although we originally intended to compare the two cohorts, the generated data rendered this aim irrelevant, as the students did not—on the whole—view themselves as separate groups within this experience; their perceptions were not determined or significantly influenced by their disciplinary background. Additionally, we explored students’ views on the experience’s impact on residents, lifelong learning, and music therapy for older people. (The retiree participants’ perceptions are reported in Baker and Ballantyne, 2013.)

Integrating real-world learning into tertiary programs challenges educators preparing music professionals for professional practice (Ballantyne, 2007a; 2007b; Ballantyne and Olm-Madden, 2013). The emergent themes—learning about facilitating, learning about self, learning about the musical process, and learning about context/ageing—showed how the experience deepened participants’ insights into their future practice, their own development, the musical process, and the older-adult context.

Students reported that the study’s collaborative process improved their ability to facilitate group learning with adults and that the experience was relevant to their future careers as music therapists and educators. It challenged prior assumptions about facilitating learning—songwriting in particular. Over six sessions, their reflections indicated growing flexibility and responsiveness to retiree participants, alongside better preparation for varied situations. Although this was not a standard practicum, the theme ‘learning about facilitating’ revealed that it still offered the typical opportunities of placement experiences. It encouraged peer collaboration (Draper & Hitchcock, 2006; Reeves, Herrington, & Oliver, 2002), engaged students in professional networks (Resnick, 1988), and exposed them to complex, multi-dimensional problems requiring constructed understanding (Sternberg, Wagner, & Okagaki, 1993) and time to resolve (Reeves, Herrington, & Oliver, 2002). Traditional practica place students in workplaces where they observe professionals and develop expertise. This experience allowed students to learn extensively about themselves and their evolving character, reflecting on how it would shape their future practice. The formation of professional identity in a practical situation could be improved if students attempted explicitly to connect their learning with prior musical and educational experiences (Ballantyne, Kerchner and Arostegui, 2012). While such connections may have occurred implicitly, the reflective data we collected did not reveal them. Additionally, although students reflected generally, more guided reflection might have enabled deeper links with prior learning. A suitable model is the ‘5Rs of Reflection’ (Bain, Ballantyne, Mills, & Lester, 2002): reporting, responding, relating, reasoning, and reconstructing. In this project, the areas of relating, reasoning, and reconstructing were not often well achieved.

Similarly, a reflective framework could help students learn more about the musical process—specifically how to musically guide others in discovering their musical voice (participants said relatively little about this, though some commentary existed).

The centrality of repertoire to students’ concerns at this stage is unsurprising; their willingness to be flexible—trying out new repertoire specifically—indicated a developing maturity.

Students felt the retirement village setting helped them learn more about older people and deepened their appreciation for the wealth of knowledge and experience those individuals brought to lyric writing. This was a delightful outcome of a brief study; the mutual respect and rapport developed between retiree participants and young students enhanced the quality of the experience and students’ learning.

Although retirees considered the project’s brevity acceptable, students identified it as the major weakness. Additionally, they would have appreciated a more structured approach to reflective journals. On the positive side, students were overwhelmingly positive about the experience’s impact; however, increased reflection on how it influenced their future practice—drawing on past experiences—would be a future improvement. This highlights the necessity of structured reflection and explicit links to discipline knowledge for helping students see the connection between theory and practice (Ballantyne, 2007b; Ballantyne & Olm-Madden, 2013).

These findings have implications for music education and music therapy programs. The analysis also extends to other educational and therapeutic contexts where creative collaboration occurs, demonstrating a viable possibility—for example, alternative settings, strategies, and ungraded assessments—for practicum experiences. Furthermore, the predetermined performance objective created a clearly defined time limit that worked well in a community-of-practice approach.