Drawing on theoretical developments in the fields of Sound Studies (Sterne, 2012), Sound-based Music (Landy, 2007, 2012), Acoustic Ecology (Truax, 1978) - including the more recent critiques on the concept of Soundscape (Aragão, 2019; Ingold, 2007; Solomos, 2023), - and Post-digital perspectives on Music Education and Technology (Clements, 2018; Treß, 2024), this paper debates the need to move beyond Eurocentric approaches to Music Education that privilege technical development of conventional musical instruments, the interpretation of a tonal-based repertoire, the development of conventional music reading and writing skills, and a very restrictive idea of ‘talent’ and what is considered musically valid (Bartel, 2004; Gaztambide-Fernández, 2010; Gaztambide-Fernández & Parekh, 2017; Recharte, 2019; Thumlert & Nolan, 2019). The research discussed here draws from a project that aims to design, implement, and evaluate a pedagogical framework (PF) based on inclusiveness, equity, and democratically informed designs. It moves towards a critical approach to the concept of Sound-based Music Education (Holland, 2015; Holland & Chapman, 2019), that might inform the development of pedagogical principles and strategies that, while departing from a ‘sound-based paradigm’, might, at the same time, fully promote creativity, collaboration, diversity and democracy.In its exploratory phase, the project engaged in three case studies developed through a collaborative action research design across three different contexts—an intergenerational community group, a preschool, and a music conservatory. Cross-case analysis revealed that participants engaged heightened awareness of their sonic environments, extended their definition of music and musicianship, and engaged in sound-based co-creative processes that expanded their sense of belonging to the group.Drawing from this cross-case analysis, this communication aims to present and discuss the project’s first version of the PF, designed around four domains - Soundscapes, Invented musical instruments, Sound microscopy (referring to amplified sounds), and Post-digital media, and outlined seven guiding principles: 1) critical reflexivity, to respond to the interrogations of the inherited “talent regimes” and normative assumptions in music pedagogy; 2) embodied relational listening and sound-making, by focusing on active, relational and bodily experiences with sound; 3) sonic materiality, emphasising creative experimentation with “sound as material”; 4) hybrid and critical post‑digital engagement, blending analogue, electronic and digital tools while encouraging critical reflection; 5) collaborative, process‑oriented co‑creation, valuing improvisation, community‑defined goals and educators as co‑learners; 6) plurality of pathways, valuing the diversity of children’s sonic and musical pathways; 7) playful, imaginative inquiry, privileging curiosity, risk‑taking and emergent aesthetics over predetermined outcomes.