The Different Hearing project ensued from the endeavour to transform music education into a subject within which creativity plays as significant a role as reproduction, creating music is as crucial as performing it, the importance of creativity surpasses the borders of musical pragmatism, and music and musicality are not understood as mere practising and preservation of the European musical multi-code but everyone is afforded the opportunity to develop his or her abilities and skills irrespective of the previous musical and socio-cultural experience.
Barrier-free music education is thus one of the key bases of the Different Hearing programme. Each sound and each expression is deemed to be musical, each item is considered a musical instrument, spontaneous interaction between sounds is understood as improvisation, and temporal fixation of sounds and their subsequent reproduction as musical composition.
Established in 2001, the Different Hearing programme linked up to the conceptions of the British-German Response and Austrian Klangnetze projects. It was inspired by their methodology, emphasis on creativity and utilisation of non-musical elements, as well as team work during lessons. The Different Hearing programme draws upon play, which is loosely based on improvisation with sound, instructive pieces and compositions created by pupils. Compositional principles become the means, not the goal, since the primary emphasis is placed on the experience from creation and work with sound.