There is a phenomenon in long-term care that is rarely named but deeply felt. While care becomes organised around safety, routine, and well-meaning efficiency, opportunities for choice, self-direction, or autonomy quietly narrow, becoming difficult to prioritise and sustain. And yet, music can provide one of the few spaces in daily care where autonomy can still be expressed.

In one care home, two residents, whom I will call Jeannie and Frankie, sit side by side, strangers before this day. Today, however, they share a space, a gentle blues backing track, and two Soundbeam instruments positioned in front of them. The Soundbeams translate movement into sound. A hand lifts and a tone emerges. A slow sweep produces a phrase. Stillness becomes part of the conversation and silence is held rather than filled. Jeannie leans slightly forward. Frankie mirrors her. Their movements are careful and exploratory. A sound appears, tentative at first, then answered. Soon, a pattern begins to form. What unfolds is not instruction-led, with few parameters as to what to play or when to stop. Instead, they listen, respond, interrupt, and wait. There are musical mirroring, question and answer, moments of overlap, and moments of pause. Over time, the sounds begin to weave together. This is not performance in the traditional sense of that word, but it is an extraordinary musical and communicative dialogue.

This moment does not happen by chance. Before the music begins, there is careful preparation. The facilitator has chosen tools that respond to movement, and the space has been arranged to invite proximity and mutual attention. Time has been allowed for listening and for uncertainty. Above all, the interaction is grounded in respect and empathy. The residents are approached not as recipients of care, but as creative people with something to say.

In this sense, the facilitator models artistic citizenship, creating the conditions under which expression can emerge, and then stepping back. Something shifts, whereby ownership of the musical experience transfers to Jeannie and Frankie, who shape the interaction through turn-taking, interrupting, responding, and surprising one another. Through sound, they negotiate attention and presence. In so doing adopting the identity of artist citizens in their own right, using music autonomously to connect and to create a moment of significance in each other’s lives. Their musical conversation reminds us that agency does not disappear but waits for conditions that allow it to surface.

Celebrating musical agency in later life: A critical geragogical perspective

Critical geragogy asks us to examine the narrowing possibilities for agency not as an inevitable consequence of ageing, but as a product of social, institutional, and pedagogical choices. From this perspective, the question is not whether very old people can learn, create, or contribute, but whether the conditions exist that allow these capacities to be expressed.

Music offers one such condition. When approached as a relational and ethical practice, music-making can reopen spaces for choice, dialogue, and meaning-making across the lifecourse. This is particularly significant in long-term care, where opportunities for self-direction are often limited and where social identities may be reduced to diagnoses or care needs.

Critical geragogy foregrounds issues of power, voice, and participation in later life, challenging ageist assumptions that position older adults as passive recipients of care. Instead,  older people are celebrated as knowers, cultural agents, and co-creators of meaning. In this framework, learning and creativity become ongoing social practices shaped by relationships and contexts. Music-making, especially when improvised and responsive, aligns closely with this view. It allows participants to act in the present, to draw on embodied knowledge, and to engage with others without requiring linguistic.

Relational pedagogy further sharpens this lens. From a relational perspective, learning does not reside within individuals alone, but emerges through interaction, attunement, and mutual responsiveness. In later-life musicking, this means that agency is often co-constructed, arising through listening, mirroring, waiting, and responding. What matters pedagogically is not mastery of technique (although technical mastery of specific tools is a possibility), but the quality of the relational space that is created.

Within this framing, the facilitator expresses artistic citizenship by designing conditions that honour dignity, curiosity, and reciprocity. This includes selecting tools that allow immediate access, such as sound-based interfaces, shaping musical environments that invite response rather than performance, and sustaining a pace that respects embodied ways of knowing. Crucially, it also involves stepping back, allowing participants to take musical ownership once the conditions are in place.

Jeannie and Frankie’s musical dialogue is an expression of  relational agency. They are negotiating timing, gesture, contrast, and continuity listening and being listened to. In doing so, they enact a form of artistic citizenship that is grounded in care, presence, and shared authorship. These moments challenge deficit-based narratives of ageing and affirm the right to creative and relational life in advanced old age.

From a critical geragogical standpoint, such moments matter precisely because of their fragility, requiring intentional protection, nurturing and valuing within institutional and societal systems. Celebrating these musical encounters is therefore not a sentimental gesture. It is a political and pedagogical act. It asserts that very old people remain cultural agents, and that artistry, responsibility, and justice do not diminish with age.