The music conservatoire culture has been found to nurture hierarchic structures, with an emphasis on the individual student’s highly specialised development through one-to-one lessons and a competitive learning environment (Davidson & Jordan, 2007; Kingsbury, 2001; Nielsen et al., 2018; Perkins, 2013).

However, research indicates that students’ collaborative work with peers can benefit their learning (Hanken, 2016; Nielsen et al., 2018) if the learning environment fosters shared understanding, mutual problem-solving, and identification between participants (Bandura, 1997). Therefore, we wanted to create an explorative forum that allowed students to develop their own reflection and practising habits in collaboration with their peers.

• The elective course spanned three study years, from autumn 2017 to spring 2020.
• Teachers: Siw Graabræk Nielsen, Guro Gravem Johansen, and various guest lecturers

• Participants: Open to all students at NMH and UiO, Department of Musicology
• Course requirement: An individual student development project based on a self-selected practising challenge
• Examples of course content: Psychological skills and goal-setting; strategies for performance used by elite sport athletes; memorisation strategies; health physiology; motivation, self-regulation, self-determination, and self-efficacy; practising improvisation; deliberate practice; and the relationship between identity and high-level acting.

The course was directed to all students enrolled at this institution across study year, programme, main instrument, and genres. In this article, we summarise the course based on a research study we conducted with participating students during this period.