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Sound in STEAM-Based Music Education: History
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Contributor:
Satavat Malaisri
, Warakorn Seeyo , Sayam Chuangprakhon

In science, technology, engineering, arts, and mathematics (STEAM)-based music education, sound serves as a shared object of listening, inquiry, design, representation, and artistic expression. Sound is approached as musical material, a physical phenomenon, a technological object, a design problem, and a mathematical structure. Learners investigate vibration, pitch, loudness, timbre, duration, rhythm, melody, and acoustic experience; use digital tools to record, replay, visualize, arrange, and create sound; and apply design processes to plan, test, revise, and present sound-based products or performances. Musical understanding is developed through singing, movement, instrumental performance, composition, improvisation, and reflection, while mathematical reasoning is supported through beat, duration, sequence, proportion, pattern, and timing. In this approach, music provides an integrated context in which learners connect sensory experience with conceptual understanding. It is relevant across general music education contexts because it supports listening, discrimination, comparison, organization, creation, performance, and reflection, with activities adapted to learners’ ages, prior musical experience, and educational levels.

  • sound learning
  • STEAM education
  • music education
  • acoustics
  • aural skills
  • music technology
  • project-based learning
  • general music education
Sound is one of the most accessible phenomena through which learners can experience the relationship between science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics (STEAM) [1][2][3][4]. Before students encounter sound as an abstract academic concept, they experience it through everyday listening, speech, song, movement, environmental noise, instruments, rhythm and emotional expression [5][6][7]. This makes sound a strong foundation for STEAM-based learning across general music education contexts [8][9].
In music education, sound is commonly approached through listening, performance, creative activity, and technology-supported musical interaction [7][8][9]. These experiences can be supported by formative assessment that documents students’ learning processes and musical development [10]. In science education, sound is commonly introduced through vibration, sound sources, wave movement, and sound propagation [11]. In technology-supported learning, sound can be recorded, replayed, visualized, edited, and organized through accessible digital tools [12][13]. Gamified environments can also provide interactive opportunities for practice and feedback [14]. In engineering-oriented learning, sound can be treated as a design object when students plan, construct, test, and revise sound-making objects, digital sound patterns, or musical products through an engineering design process [15]. In mathematics, sound can be organized through beat, duration, sequence, proportion, counting, grouping and pattern [16].
STEAM-based music education therefore offers more than a simple combination of school subjects [17][18]. It provides an integrated learning environment in which students investigate sound, create with sound, design sound products, perform musical ideas and communicate through sound [18][19][20][21]. The arts are not included merely as decoration or motivation [19][20][21]. Music provides the expressive and structural medium through which scientific observation, technological practice, engineering design and mathematical thinking can become audible and meaningful [21][22].
This entry synthesizes established scholarship on the ways in which sound connects music education with scientific inquiry, digital technology, engineering design, artistic expression, and mathematical reasoning. It reviews the conceptual foundations of sound-based learning, disciplinary connections across STEAM, relevant pedagogical approaches, digital tools and educational games, assessment practices, inclusion and accessibility, illustrative classroom applications, and future directions for research and practice. The synthesis indicates that sound can provide a coherent organizing medium for STEAM-based music learning when disciplinary connections, pedagogical design, assessment, and accessibility are intentionally aligned.

This entry is adapted from the peer-reviewed paper https://doi.org/10.3390/encyclopedia6090183

References

  1. Perignat, E.; Katz-Buonincontro, J. STEAM in Practice and Research: An Integrative Literature Review. Think. Ski. Creat. 2019, 31, 31–43.
  2. Liao, C. From Interdisciplinary to Transdisciplinary: An Arts-Integrated Approach to STEAM Education. Art Educ. 2016, 69, 44–49.
  3. Quigley, C.F.; Herro, D.; Jamil, F.M. Developing a Conceptual Model of STEAM Teaching Practices. Sch. Sci. Math. 2017, 117, 1–12.
  4. Courey, S.J.; Balogh, E.; Siker, J.R.; Paik, J. Academic Music: Music Instruction to Engage Third-Grade Students in Learning Basic Fraction Concepts. Educ. Stud. Math. 2012, 81, 251–278.
  5. Christiner, M.; Ludke, K.M. Singing-Oriented Language and Music Education (SOLME). Encyclopedia 2026, 6, 85.
  6. Nogueira, C.; Pereira, A.I.; Rodrigues, H. The Senses of Music: Towards a Theoretical Model of Multisensory Musical Experience. Encyclopedia 2026, 6, 94.
  7. Hallam, S. The Power of Music: Its Impact on the Intellectual, Social and Personal Development of Children and Young People. Int. J. Music Educ. 2010, 28, 269–289.
  8. Addessi, A.R.; Anelli, F.; Benghi, D.; Friberg, A. Child–Computer Interaction at the Beginner Stage of Music Learning: Effects of Reflexive Interaction on Children’s Musical Improvisation. Front. Psychol. 2017, 8, 65.
  9. Di Paolo, A.; Todino, M.D. Inclusive Music Education in the Digital Age: The Role of Technology and Edugames in Supporting Students with Special Educational Needs. Encyclopedia 2025, 5, 102.
  10. Kordes, U.; Sicherl Kafol, B.; Holcar Brunauer, A. A Model of Formative Assessment in Music Education. Athens J. Educ. 2014, 1, 295–308.
  11. Hrepic, Z.; Zollman, D.A.; Rebello, N.S. Identifying Students’ Mental Models of Sound Propagation: The Role of Conceptual Blending in Understanding Conceptual Change. Phys. Rev. Spec. Top.-Phys. Educ. Res. 2010, 6, 020114.
  12. Savage, J. Working towards a Theory for Music Technologies in the Classroom: How Pupils Engage with and Organise Sounds with New Technologies. Br. J. Music Educ. 2005, 22, 167–180.
  13. Klein, P.; Hirth, M.; Gröber, S.; Kuhn, J.; Müller, A. Classical Experiments Revisited: Smartphones and Tablet PCs as Experimental Tools in Acoustics and Optics. Phys. Educ. 2014, 49, 412–418.
  14. Christopoulos, A.; Mystakidis, S. Gamification in Education. Encyclopedia 2023, 3, 1223–1243.
  15. English, L.D.; King, D.T. STEM Learning through Engineering Design: Fourth-Grade Students’ Investigations in Aerospace. Int. J. STEM Educ. 2015, 2, 14.
  16. An, S.; Capraro, M.M.; Tillman, D.A. Elementary Teachers Integrate Music Activities into Regular Mathematics Lessons: Effects on Students’ Mathematical Abilities. J. Learn. Through Arts 2013, 9, 1–19.
  17. Radziwill, N.; Benton, M.; Moellers, C. From STEM to STEAM: Reframing What It Means to Learn. STEAM 2015, 2, 3.
  18. Henriksen, D. Creating STEAM with Design Thinking: Beyond STEM and Arts Integration. STEAM 2017, 3, 11.
  19. Liu, C.-Y.; Wu, C.-J. Not Just for Decoration: How the Arts Complement Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics Learning. Psychol. Aesthet. Creat. Arts 2025, 19, 1248–1258.
  20. Segarra, V.A.; Natalizio, B.; Falkenberg, C.V.; Pulford, S.; Holmes, R.M. STEAM: Using the Arts to Train Well-Rounded and Creative Scientists. J. Microbiol. Biol. Educ. 2018, 19, 19.1.53.
  21. Filipe, J.; Baptista, M.; Conceição, T. Integrated STEAM Education for Students’ Creativity Development. Educ. Sci. 2024, 14, 676.
  22. Ramos-Vallecillo, N.; Murillo-Ligorred, V. Prosignification in Art Education: Project-Based and Meaningful Learning Towards Active Learning. Encyclopedia 2026, 6, 86.
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