Published online by Cambridge University Press: 18 December 2008
The basic aim of this article is to argue that world music should be an integral part of any musical curriculum. An extensive example, drawn from Chinese traditional music, outlines potential benefits that the study of world music offers to the music teacher interested in it either for its own sake or as a means of developing pupils' skills at improvisations and composition. The featured example is a composition for erhu (Chinese two-stringed fiddle) by the folk musician Abing. Ideas are raised concerning musical context, analysis, melodic structure, tonality, metre, notation and ornamentation.