Music education takes place in many contexts, both formal and informal. Be it in a school or music studio, while making music with friends or family, or even while travelling in a car, walking through a shopping mall or watching television, our myriad sonic experiences accumulate from the earliest months of life to foster our facility for making sense of the sound worlds in which we live. The Oxford Handbook of Music Education offers a comprehensive overview of the many facets of musical experience, behavior and development in relation to this diverse variety of contexts. In this first of two volumes, an international list of contributors discuss a range of key issues and concepts associated with music learning and teaching. The volume then focuses on these processes as they take place during childhood, from infancy through adolescence and primarily in the school-age years. Exploring how children across the globe learn and make music and the skills and attributes gained when they do so, these chapters examine the means through which music educators can best meet young people's musical needs. The second volume of the set brings the exploration beyond the classroom and into later life. Whether they are used individually or in tandem, the two volumes of The Oxford Handbook of Music Education update and redefine the discipline, and show how individuals across the world learn, enjoy and share the power and uniqueness of music.