What are ABER and CAP?

The introduction to this special issue is written in a storied manner to ready the reader for the unique, storied forms of research that follow. I wholeheartedly suggest that readers not read the abstracts of the each paper first, but delve directly into the stories and engage with the music and media. These papers are not intended as a definitive collection of arts based educational research and creative analytical practices in music and music education. Rather, this special issue is a beginning—an opening—that represents where we are in 2019, as a profession, in our understandings and applications of contemporary forms of qualitative research.