The British Journal of Music Education has always aimed to offer a variety of perspectives on musical teaching and learning, and in this issue the diversity of researcher and participant voices is wider than ever before. Most notably, we hear from a 12-year-old researcher, Eleanor Denny, whose project on extracurricular musical participation was carried out at the Children's Research Centre at the Open University. As John Finney says in his response to Eleanor's work, equipping young people with research skills leaves them ‘empowered to ask ever more interesting, challenging and sometimes uncomfortable questions’. The growing literature on ‘pupil voice’ in educational research invites us to consider, not just the views of the young people involved in musical learning, but also our own position as researchers and our responsibilities to those who inform our research and writing.