Music lessons for understanding the world better

Some food for thought here:

Music is a genuinely direct way of connecting students with other times and other places in history.  It’s actually quite extraordinary how effective music is in this regard ,  and while listening to music provides a passive, touristic understanding of the world, actually playing that music means that you are complicit in this wider world – you’ve participated in history,you are replicating history and  you are experiencing the cultures of other continents and communities.

I cant think of many other activities that can allow a student first hand to play exactly in the same way as a student would have in 17th century Germany , or 19th century Russia.. or most other countries and eras for that matter.