COVID-19 has had a profound effect on higher education institutions across the world. The rapid shift to blended teaching has meant changes to ways of teaching and learning. Author One (Australia) and Author Two (New Zealand) are tertiary academics in initial teacher education programmes. In this paper, they draw on narrative enquiry as a way to tell their stories of how they had to rapidly move from of face-to-face teaching to an emergency situation of online (cloud) teaching and learning. Through shared reflection, they offer a snapshot of their lived experience teaching music education, managing students and staff. In the findings, they discuss key challenges and opportunities they encountered in relation to student participation and engagement, teaching and learning, and wellbeing. Staying connected with each other across the Tasman Sea, using email and Zoom were important forms of providing mutual support that contributed positively to their sense of wellbeing as academics during this stressful time. They contend that universities need to consider the more human aspect of changes that have impacted staff and students. They question what the future will hold for initial teacher education programs post 2020. They suggest working collaboratively with schools, professional organisations, and industry when designing new programmes as the landscape of higher education changes due to the ongoing pandemic.

Children have a natural curiosity about sound. This is particularly evident in the context of musical play. The potential of play for music learning may be overshadowed by a teacher-led and performance-focused approach to music education rather than an organic, self-initiated approach. By bringing together the child’s natural curiosity about sound, a rich music environment, and effective teacher guidance, the stage is set for building a strong foundation of musical understandings during a child’s first five years, a critical period of the child’s musical development. This article draws attention to and provides examples of ways that musical play can be fostered and enacted in the New Zealand early childhood context. The unique, holistic nature of the New Zealand early childhood curriculum, Te Whāriki, does not address music explicitly. Rather, aspects of music pedagogies are embedded throughout the document, within a complex weaving together of principles, strands, and goals.

With the introduction of the New Zealand government’s National Standards, there are increasing demands on teachers to provide evidence of student achievement in the areas of numeracy and literacy. As a result, primary school teachers may perceive that there is neither time nor the need for music activities such as singing, which may be viewed purely as entertainment. This perspective may prevent teachers from realizing the potential of song as a valuable tool for literacy learning, particularly during a child’s first 4 years of school. This article explores whether purposeful application of song can add a new dimension to existing language programs, offering a meaningful and engaging context for learning. Through an analysis of a range of literature, key elements and principles relating to the affective, sociocultural, cognitive, and linguistic benefits and issues of song for language learning are identified and discussed. Potential ideas for establishing a singing environment are suggested.

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Tertiary music educators are faced with challenges associated with the enactment of curricula in pre-service education courses within time constraints.  As a result, considered choices need to be made regarding content and pedagogical approaches based on what they deem to be valuable, memorable and transferrable. Using narrative methodology, two tertiary educators across the Tasman share their views about what they prioritise in their music education courses and how these choices are informed.  Both authors face similar challenges, and share the view that the teaching of music goes far beyond entertainment.  They uphold that music education provides a rich context to develop not only knowledge, skills and understandings about music itself, but also to address social, cultural, linguistic, cognitive and affective domains of learning, to name a few.  This article looks at some of the ways the authors effectively support beginner teachers to address the music components of their respective national curriculum statements.  While constraints of time in teacher education programmes is not a new phenomenon, the intention of this article is to highlight the benefits of music education, and encourage other educators to critically reflect on choices made in their own teaching contexts under challenging constraints.