Why Music history is important at every stage

Music history is such an important thing to learn. If a student never learns about the great composers or the History of Rock and Roll then they will not have a context for the music that they play. It is like trying to be an author without ever first reading a book. Students have to have a context for where music comes from - what was happening at the time in the political and social climate. Playing songs like “We gotta get out of this place”, or “Heard it on the grapevine” doesn’t have the same meaning unless you understand the years at which they were written.