Becoming a classroom music teacher is demanding. Despite extensive preparation, student teachers often struggle to meet the practical demands of teaching practice (Van Manen, 2008). To address this, theory and practice should be integrated rather than treated as separate domains. Supporting student teachers in developing, understanding, articulating, and applying Practical Knowledge (PK), the experiential and contextual understanding of how to teach, should be central to the work of teacher educators, alongside efforts to meaningfully connect theory and practice (Goodnough et al., 2016; Lampert, 2010; Shin, 2019). For pre-service teachers who are still in the process of constructing their PK, the teaching practicum serves as a crucial context in this development (Hanuscin & Zangori, 2016; Toom et al., 2019). To better understand how PK takes shape within complex educational settings, this study draws on Bronfenbrenner’s bioecological theory and its Process-Person-Context-Time (PPCT) model as a theoretical lens to examine the multiple contextual influences on pre-service music teachers’ learning and development during practicum (Bronfenbrenner, 2005; Bronfenbrenner & Morris, 2007). Bioecological perspectives have been widely used in research areas such as developmental psychology and education (e.g., Amundsen et al., 2021; Cross & Hong, 2012; Mohammadabadi et al., 2019; Parker & Powell, 2014). In teacher education, the bioecological theory has also shown its unique explanatory power, providing a strong analytical lens for understanding how teachers are situated within both immediate and distal contexts (Cross & Hong, 2012). This qualitative study involved fifteen pre-service music teachers from a conservatory in southern China. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews, the River of Music Experience, and concept mapping conducted before and after the practicum. Thematic analysis was used to explore participants’ teaching experiences and reflections. The findings are expected to unfold across four dimensions of PK—knowledge of self, students, subject, and contexts—and, through the lens of the PPCT model, illustrate how pre-service music teachers interact with people, objects, symbols, and contextual factors within the practicum setting. These findings reveal the dynamic construction of pre-service music teachers’ PK during their practicum and highlight the importance of strengthening the connection between theory and practice in music teacher education. This study provides both theoretical insights and practical guidance for preparing pre-service music teachers, contributing new perspectives to the broader field of music education research.