In the context of 21st-century globalization, music education worldwide is undergoing a profound and complex transformation. Confronted with an increasingly diverse sociocultural environment, music educators across different countries have gradually reached a consensus that music should serve as a bridge connecting world cultures, positioning it as a form of cultural dialogue. By guiding students to engage with and understand music from diverse cultural backgrounds, educators aim to help them respect, appreciate, and comprehend the beliefs, values, and ways of life embedded within these musical traditions. Against this backdrop, ethnomusicology’s in-depth research on non-Western music systems, particularly its focus on the “music-culture relationship,” has garnered growing attention within the field of music education. Building on this foundation, this paper adopts two core concepts from ethnomusicolog—“music as culture” and “music in culture”—as its theoretical framework to systematically elucidate the inseparable symbiotic relationship between music and culture. Taking Chinese folk and traditional music as its specific focus, the study examines their rich and diverse musical landscape. Furthermore, it explores how various ethnic musical traditions and local operas have been shaped, transmitted, and transformed through the dynamic interplay of geographical environments, cultural customs, and historical exchanges. Through concrete teaching case studies, this paper demonstrates how the practice of Chinese music can be integrated with its cultural connotations, thereby constructing a pedagogy grounded in cultural context. Using Chinese music culture as a conceptual starting point, the study aims to enhance students’ accurate understanding of Chinese traditional music, while simultaneously contributing a Chinese perspective to global multicultural music education. Ultimately, it seeks to establish the music classroom as an authentic bridge for cross-cultural understanding and communication.