Amid globalization and cultural diversity, Chinese traditional culture serves as a crucial carrier of national spirit and cultural identity, and its transmission at the basic education level is of vital significance. Music, as an important form of cultural expression, conveys rich historical, philosophical, and aesthetic information while offering students a unique means to understand and experience traditional culture. However, current secondary music education often lacks cultural understanding, features narrow instructional objectives, and insufficiently engages students’ agency, making traditional music difficult to perceive and internalize as a living cultural medium.This study investigates music teaching designed to foster understanding of Chinese traditional culture, using Moonlight over the Spring River as a case study, examining how music education can promote cultural cognition, emotional identification, and the development of core competencies. Guided by the concept of educating through culture, the study integrates the aesthetic and cultural dimensions of music, emphasizing how melody, structure, compositional techniques, and musical imagery can lead students to comprehend the philosophical ideas, aesthetic values, and cultural principles embedded in Chinese traditional culture, thereby enabling the generation and transfer of cultural meaning in the classroom.A qualitative research approach was employed, combining interviews, teaching case implementation, and classroom observation to explore in-depth instructional design and practice in eighth-grade music classes. The teaching design includes culturally oriented objectives, a tiered framework for exploring cultural content, and multi-level pedagogical pathways centered on artistic experience, covering perception, engagement, understanding, expression, and transfer stages. Classroom activities such as segmented listening, music analysis, poetry recitation, interdisciplinary integration, and collaborative inquiry guide students to engage with the cultural philosophy and aesthetic principles embedded in the musical work.Findings indicate that culturally oriented music teaching significantly enhances students’ understanding and identification with Chinese traditional culture. Students not only acquire musical skills and expressive techniques but also develop deep engagement at emotional, cognitive, and cultural-awareness levels, allowing cultural understanding to extend into personal life and social practice.