What in the World is Music? Second Edition is an undergraduate, interactive e-textbook that explores the shared ways people engage with music and how humans organize and experience sound. It adopts a global approach, featuring more than 300 streaming videos and 50 streaming audio tracks of music from around the world. Drawing from both musicological and ethnomusicological modes of inquiry, the authors explain the nature and meaning of music as a universal human practice, making no distinction between Western and non-Western repertoires while providing students with strong points of connection to the ways it affects their own lives.

The What in the World is Music? curriculum is divided into five parts, with a fully integrated multimedia program linked directly to the chapters:

• The Foundations of Music I proposes a working definition of "music" and considers inquiry-guided approaches to its study: Why do humans have innate musical perception? How does this ability manifest itself in the human voice? A catalog of musical instruments showcases global diversity and human ingenuity.
• The Foundations of Music II continues the inquiry-guided approach, recognizing the principles by which musical sound is organized while discussing elements such as rhythm, melody, harmony, texture, form, genre, and style. Where did music come from? What is it for?
• Music and Identity examines how music operates in shaping, negotiating, and expressing human identity and is organized around three broad conceptual frames: the group, hybridity, and conflict.
• Music and the Sacred addresses how music is used in religious practices throughout the world: chanting sacred texts and singing devotional verses, inspiring religious experience such as ecstasy and trance, and marking and shaping ritual space and time.
• Music and Social Life analyzes the uses of music in storytelling, theater, and film. It delves into the contributions of sound technologies, while looking at the many ways music enhances nightlife, public ceremonies, and festivals.