Music and Worldschooling

Music and worldschooling go together like redwood forests and Gulf Stream waters. This blog will cover the many ways to incorporate music appreciation, personal listening, and instrument study into your worldschooling plan and your travel itinerary. Stay tuned!

As we cover in our book, Wonder Year: A Guide to Long-Term Family Travel and Worldschooling, families can incorporate a wide variety of educational themes into their travels: ecology, art, geology, history, or literature, for starters. Another theme you might consider is music. As an educational element, music is versatile, cohesive, full of joy, and applicable across all locations. Music can also be explored as a family because it is inclusive of all ages and stages. Rather than being a fixed unit of study, music is dynamic and can weave through every location you visit.

Our family owns a record store (like vinyl), and individually we collect music and each play an instrument. During our Wonder Year, we found music to be a wonderful way to connect, deepen our shared curiosity, and find our niche wherever we traveled across three continents. 

Visiting Places of Musical Import

Iconic Red Rocks Amphitheater–if rocks could talk, the tales they’d tell!

You can choose places on your itinerary that have music lessons baked in. You can study the music history, the instruments, or the popular trends of a place before you travel. Maybe have your kids do research in advance and teach the rest of the family or group. Think of learning about the lives of classical masters in Vienna through a concert at Mozarthaus. You could research the influences that came together for the birth of rock and roll in Graceland, Tennessee. Or, study acoustics while taking in an opera at La Scala in Milan. You might buy a khaen (Thai bamboo flute) at a market and give it a go. Or, follow Nairobi’s @realvinylguru on Instagram. (His vinyl record shop has a cult following and you just might see the legends who pop by for a hello, like Yo-Yo Ma did in 2023.) Keep on the lookout for fairs and festivals. The Riff Music Festival of traditional folk music in Rajasthan, India, has been on my bucket list since my 20s.

In this vein, keep a look out for local and current happenings. For example, especially important to us is Record Store Day. Record Store Day is an International Holiday, IMO–a collaboration of music labels and independent record stores to celebrate vinyl records. Whether you’re in Rome, Rio, or Rochester, collectible releases drop at the same time. Lines run for blocks, local musicians play, schwag giveaways are the norm, and you get a slice of local life by joining in the celebration. Although records are not necessarily portable, you can send some home. Or, just come for the fun. Finding ways to weave your interests into your Wonder Year is a great way to connect with a destination, and just might take you off of the “top 10” tourist path.

Using Music as an Exploration of Arts and Social Science

Practicing some tunes on a mosaic piano at The Giants House in Akaroa, New Zealand

Music offers a window to the study of culture, language, and place. What can we learn about history and culture when contemplating lyrics, rhythms, influences, and cross-cultural listening patterns? There is also a temporal component when we consider how music is passed down and changes from generation to generation.

The possibilities are endless and music might be the entree to pique your family’s attention for genres, borders, and fusion. For example, you might start asking why there is so much polka music in Mexico. Which could then lead to a deeper look at Mexican history and its ties with Germany. Studying the lyrics of popular songs is a great portal into language study. Or, perhaps study the musicians themselves by reading biographies or learning about them from museums or music venues. You can extend this to how their lives and messages tie into the larger timelines and world history. Think of Bob Marley, Bach, Dolly Parton, or Bono.

In the United States, February is recognized as African American History Month. The theme in 2024 is African Americans in the Arts. What a wonderful time to dive into the history of jazz, blues, and hip hop and explore the historical and cultural realities that gave rise to these amazing art forms. You can find short videos on many topics, like the history of Berry Gordy Jr and Motown Records or the origin of hip hop, or immerse yourself in the amazing 19-hour Ken Burns documentary series on the roots of jazz available on PBS Learning Media.

Bringing Instruments Along

Yes, we traveled with a cello, which was almost as tall as Lucy herself.

If you or your kid play an instrument, you might be contemplating what to do while you’re on the road for an extended time. Do you bring it along? Pause for the time away? Find alternative travel-friendly versions, or focus on music appreciation? If piano is your instrument, did you know that you can purchase a rollable and packable keyboard? Flutes, harmonicas, and other smaller instruments might be a great option to continue or learn while you’re on the road. Ukuleles and ¾ guitars are also great options that travel relatively easily. 

Our family brought a guitar, viola, violin, and cello with us. Seriously. We flew through seven countries on three continents and gate-checked the cello with a “fragile” sticker. Security was curious, but we never had a problem. In a campground in New Zealand, we were able to have an impromptu concert. We stashed them with friends or at guesthouses when we were mobile, and when we settled for longer periods, we could resume Zoom lessons with teachers back home and have concentrated practice time. The corresponding math lessons in time zones were well worth the continuity of my kids’ love of music and instruments. If it’s your thing, there’s a way.

Theme Songs

Elvis for sale while crate digging at a flea market in Beijing.

If you’re more of a music appreciator than a creator, consider finding your theme songs for each month, each destination, or maybe each year. What speaks to you as a family? Negotiate which songs make the metaphorical mixed tape. Do the lyrics remind you of a place? Are they all sing-able? Or is it the mood? Our family created theme songs for each place and a mixed tape compilation / Spotify playlist of the year. Music, like food or photos, takes us back to the time and place.

Social media trending songs could be your theme, or you could make video compilations that match trending songs. Try these experiments and gauge your profile interactions, extending your media literacy or marketing lessons.

Personal Listening

Music can also be a personal escape from the group’s activity. When family members need space, they can take it with headphones and their own playlist. Also having time to listen together is a great way for family members to share what they like with each other. Some families rotate who is “in charge” of music in the car, and that person can share what they’ve been listening to lately.

Invest in a family Spotify account and download rather than stream music. Did you know that streaming music has a massive carbon footprint? You also won’t be beholden to WiFi when you really need to listen. 

You can also encourage musical exploration in everyone’s listening. Find songs by local artists, listen to a genre you don’t usually, research a singer-songwriter and analyze their lyrics. Music, like the world, is full of inspiration, with hidden gems in corners if you keep an open mind and a travelers’ heart.

None of the ideas we shared here need to feel like planned lessons or coordinated effort–it can also just be fun, casual listening together that naturally leads to learning. We hope this post has helped you think about ways, small and grand, to incorporate music and worldschooling into your family’s travels.

To learn more about worldschooling ideas, check out our book, Wonder Year. Or, read more worldschooling blog posts like, Traveling Timelines, Winter Worldschooling, or Citizen Science.

Rooftops of Kathmandu make a great spot for Zoom music lessons.