The purpose of this study was to examine American preservice classroom teachers’ self-reported learning outcomes after partaking in a weekly Korean percussion ensemble in an elementary music-methods course. The preservice classroom teachers rehearsed a Korean percussion ensemble piece ( Samulnori) as their course routine for half of the semester. Participants’ open-ended essays and semi-structured interviews were analyzed to determine their learning outcomes. Based on Abril’s (2006) three world music learning outcome categories (musical, cultural, and other) as initial codes, the emergent coding process was adopted. Through the data analysis, four themes emerged that illustrated preservice classroom teachers’ learning outcomes: (a) Cultural Awareness: Difference, (b) Music Fundamentals: Overlap with Traditional Course Content, (c) Bonding Experience: Community, and (d) Teacher Education: A Well-Rounded Teacher. Based on the results, possible implications for teaching culturally diverse musics to preservice classroom teachers in music-methods courses were discussed.

We investigated contributors of undergraduate nonmusic majors' preferences for world musics, specifically those from Africa, Asia, and Latin America. Drawing upon the reciprocal feedback model as a theoretical framework, we determined the extent to which predictor variables (familiarity with the music, personality, and music absorption) were related to music preference. Participants were 401 undergraduate nonmusic majors from South Korea (n = 208) and the USA (n = 183). Participants took an online survey via Qualtrics that included demographic information, the World Musics Preference Rating Scale, the Big-Five Inventory, and the Absorption in Music Scale. Results indicated that, familiarity, followed by openness to experience, was the strongest predictor of participants' preferences for world musics. For the U.S. participants, familiarity, followed by openness to experience, was the strongest predictor of participants' preference for musics from each continent. By contrast, for the South Korean participants, although familiarity was also the strongest predictor for African, Latin American, and Asian musics, openness to experience was not consistently the second strongest contributor. For African music, openness to experience was ranked second; for Latin American and Asian music, agreeableness and music absorption were ranked second, respectively.

This article examines how American perspectives about world music have evolved based on the controversial discussion of “music is the universal language.” At earlier periods, scholars showed their interest in musics of other cultures from the ethnocentric standpoint. Gradually, scholars came to value the music differences of cultures, which generated the antithetical discussion of “music is not the universal language.” These past discussions contributed to the awareness of cultural differences of musics. However, we should go beyond mere awareness, until we reach the degree to which world music is actually learned and taught maintaining the sound balance of the two extreme aspects of music. Technology can promote the quality of both music class and music teacher education by offering real opportunities for engaging and exploring world musics.

The purpose of this study was to reveal the effects of Westernized arrangements of traditional Korean folk music on music familiarity and preference. Two separate labs in one intact class were assigned to one of two treatment groups of either listening to traditional Korean folk songs ( n = 18) or listening to Western arrangements of the same Korean folk songs ( n = 22); a second intact class served as a control group with no listening ( n = 20). Before and after the listening treatment session, pre- and posttests were administered that included 12 music excerpts of current popular, Western classical, and traditional Korean music. Results showed that participants who listened to traditional folk songs demonstrated significant increases in both familiarity and preference ratings; however, those who listened to Westernized folk songs showed increases only in familiarity ratings but not preference ratings for the same Korean songs in traditional versions. An analysis of participants’ open-ended responses showed that affective–positive responses were used most frequently when explaining preference for traditional versions of Korean folk songs (28.1%) among the traditional Korean listening group; structural–negative reasons (47.8%) were the most frequent among the Westernized listening group.

The purpose of this study was to examine the effect of motivation on upper-grade elementary students’ preferences for acoustic or tablet-based instruments. The effect of cultural familiarity on musical instrument preference was also investigated. Participants ( N = 138) were classified by motivation levels (low, medium-low, medium-high, and high) and played the guitar, tablet-based guitar, gayageum (Korean string instrument), and tablet-based gayageum. After playing each instrument, participants rated preferences and provided their reasons. Results of the mixed-model ANOVA revealed two significant main effects for instrumental mode (acoustic vs. tablet-based) and motivation on instrument preference. A significant three-way interaction was also found: Cultural Familiarity × Mode × Motivation. The two main effects of mode and motivation produced a general pattern in instrument preference: (a) Students generally preferred acoustic instruments to tablet-based instruments, and (b) the level of motivation was associated with the degree of preference ratings. However, the interaction effect deviated from the general pattern; the low motivation group participants’ preference ratings between acoustic and tablet-based guitars were not significantly different. This deviation from the general pattern appeared only for the culturally familiar instrument (guitar) but not the culturally unfamiliar instrument (gayageum) among the low motivation group.