Chinese primary school music teachers’ sense-making and adaptation of the Suzuki method in the context of curriculum reform

China’s 2022 music curriculum reform emphasizes student-centered learning, artistic practice, and holistic competency development, posing new pedagogical challenges for frontline music teachers. This study employs a video-cued multivocal ethnography to investigate how Chinese primary school music teachers interpret and adapt Suzuki-inspired pedagogical principles in ordinary classroom settings. Data were collected through video-cued focus group discussions, classroom observations of three focal teachers, and post-lesson semi-structured interviews. Findings reveal that teachers perceive core Suzuki-inspired principles as flexible tools that can be integrated into local teaching practices while accommodating practical constraints such as lesson duration, class size, and institutional priorities. Teachers’ adaptations are guided by professional reflection, classroom dynamics, and curricular goals, illustrating how cross-cultural instructional models are internalized and operationalized in contextually appropriate ways. The study further identifies contextual challenges, including limited parental involvement, marginal institutional status of music education, and classroom management pressures, which shape how Suzuki-inspired principles are implemented. These findings offer context-specific insights into situated teacher cognition and localized curriculum adaptation and provide tentative implications for integrating international pedagogical approaches into Chinese primary school music classrooms.