ABSTRACT
Our secondary music students can know music more deeply by understanding its instruments, voices, and the sociohistorical contexts and functions within culture. By engaging in thoughtful experiences with the cultural, historical, and social significance of music, students may enrich their understanding of themselves, their classmates and teachers, their communities, and their broader global society. These students can come to know the sonic structures and social meanings of music in its culture of origin. Through a teaching and learning process that engages World Music Pedagogy with its emphasis on deep listening, understanding the full context of a music culture, performance, creativity, and integration with other disciplines, secondary students can grow their cultural understanding and empathy toward their fellow students and their broader community both near and far.
Through participatory musicking, performance, creative experiences, and musical learning integrated with other subject areas, music teachers help students to better understand music’s role and function within the culture of origin, and then within the culture of secondary school. Music education through World Music Pedagogy can open teachers’ and students’ eyes, ears, and minds to a growing empathy and consideration of their local and broader global communities while nurturing the potential for a life-long, active relationship with music.
