Music learning among adults is witnessing rapid escalation as an important area of research and practice among music education professionals. In contrast to the years encompassed by childhood and adolescence, a significant challenge in teaching adults is that average life expectancies in developed countries include some 55 to 65 years beyond age 18. Historically, changes during middle and older adulthood have been characterized as slow declines in one's faculties and a diminishing capacity for learning and growth. In recent decades, however, researchers and practitioners have reevaluated such assumptions in concert with data revealing that most adults remain capable of acquiring and using new knowledge and skills well into older adulthood. As with children, nurturing music learning and growth within an understanding of the traits of adulthood can be richly fulfilling for both teachers and students. K. Patricia Cross's seminal work, "Adults as Learners" (1981), suggested that educators need to become more sensitive to the complex nature of learning through adulthood and to the "physical/psychological/sociocultural characteristics of older learners". In support of such awareness among music educators, this paper frames issues of adult music learning within a "lifespan perspective". A lifespan perspective envisions seamless relationships among music learning in educational settings, people's self-initiated lifelong music experiences outside such settings, and the assurance of richly diverse and developmentally appropriate opportunities for continued music learning through adulthood. (Contains 3 notes.)