Relationships with music are at the core of music education. However, they are rarely studied from learners viewpoints—especially those of exceptionally motivated, advanced students—as they are incorporated into the theoretical underpinning or methodological stance of research in instrumental education. In this research project we follow the musical lives of ten advanced, mastery-oriented adolescent instrumentalists. The focus of this first report of our narrative ethnography is on how their relationships with music manifest in written narratives on the role of music and instrument learning in their life. While corroborating findings of previous research, the results demonstrate many idiosyncracies in the trajectories of our participants, including critical events. The results show that studying relationships with music and their development may reveal complex ecological systems in instrument learning and interconnected theoretical concepts, such as self-regulation, self-efficacy, agency, autonomy, identity, and metacognition. These phenomena—which can be challenging to differentiate, adapt, and apply in terms of learning practices—may seem far-removed from everyday musical practices, but can be consolidated when looking at relationships with music as gateways to the learning of musical instruments.
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