The Focused, Musicultural Approach takes students deep inside the music and cultural worlds explored, while remaining consistently accessible and manageable in scope; the unique, tradition-and-transformation emphasis allows for integrated coverage of a broad range of musical styles, from traditional folk and classical genres to contemporary world beat, popular, jazz, and experimental musics.

A Globally Inclusive Introduction to the Elements of Music in the opening set of chapters provides students with a friendly and straightforward primer on how music works and how it lives as a phenomenon of human experience, at the same time offering a compelling, whirlwind tour of global musical diversity.

Guided Listening Experiences, which use narrative descriptions followed by bulleted listening summaries to illuminate key musical and cultural features, have been substantially revised for improved clarity.

Musical Guided Tours, featuring brief and informative lecture demonstrations with embedded musical examples, illustrate how specific styles of music work from the inside out-instrument by instrument and part by part.

Making Music Exercises give students a hands-on, performance-based perspective from which to understand and interact with the musics they explore, while making no assumptions about their knowledge of musical elements.

An Abundance of Illustrative Materials and Pedagogical Aids, including photographs, maps, timelines, visual illustrations, Insights and Perspectives boxed features, pronunciation guidance for foreign terms, key terms lists, student activities, study and discussion questions, and a general glossary, bring the music and text vividly to life and enrich the clarity and enjoyment of the reading and music-listening experience.

The Online Learning Center includes both a Student Edition and an Instructor's Edition and features Musical Guided Tours, Online Musical Illustrations, links to an abundance of online video resources for class use, annotated lists of resources for further study and research, study aids, an Instructor's Manual, and many additional features.

The Author's Personal Web site at www.michaelbakan.com contains lists of links to hundreds of online videos organized by chapter and topic, along with many other valuable teaching and learning resources.