Music teachers’ perspectives on artificial intelligence tools: opportunities and challenges

This study offers an in-depth qualitative examination of how music teachers conceptualise and integrate artificial intelligence (AI) within their pedagogical and creative practices. Through interviews conducted across Australia and Italy using thematic analysis, two overarching themes emerged: (1) music teaching, and (2) ethics, ownership, and challenges. Findings reveal that teachers are developing sophisticated, domain-specific uses of AI extending beyond administrative convenience. Participants identified AI as a time-saving and organisational tool supporting report writing, rubric generation, lesson planning, and content summarisation. Teachers also described AI as a catalyst for creative scaffolding, enabling rapid musical prototyping, idea generation, notation workflows, and the structuring of DAW-based tasks, while positioning these applications as supplementary rather than substitutive. Hybrid practices, in which AI functions as a 'third ear' or co-creative reference, were evident along side examples of human musicianship guided by interpretive and embodied decision-making. Teachers expressed concerns regarding authorship, reliability, aesthetic homogenisation, and the erosion of student agency and critical thinking. Inconsistent institutional responses prompted calls for redesigned assessment strategies emphasising oral, practical, and iterative work. Overall, the study highlights a cautious optimism in which teachers strategically incorporate AI while reaffirming the centrality of human judgement, creativity, and relational pedagogy in music education.