ABSTRACT
This chapter highlights some pedagogical problems often encountered in teaching music appreciation. It presents some suggestions for teaching strategies. Most music appreciation instructors have several goals that exist at different levels of pedagogical theory. The teaching of general concepts in art appreciation may be appropriately and successfully integrated with the teaching of musical concepts. Because of their cultural conditioning, students are often more quickly comfortable with a new visual experience than with new listening experiences when these are the focus of analysis and discussion in an introductory class. The study of opera provides a good opportunity to explore the relationships among music, drama, and philosophy. The music and psychology unit has resulted in some interesting class presentations including one in which a student, inspired by reading about Evelyn Glennie, succeeded in recreating for the class a means of musical perception employed by the deaf.
