Purpose: This study constructs a reasoned argument that liberal arts music courses centered on listening are appropriate for university general education, and identifies the condition on which that appropriateness rests. Object of study: Survey data on liberal arts music curricula in Korean universities, the Standard Model for General Education, the 2022 revised national music curriculum, and the critical lineage running from Thomson (1939) through Kivy (1991) to Mann (1999). Method: Documentary analysis establishes what these courses actually teach, tests the standing of appreciation against codified criteria rather than impression or advocacy, and derives a content framework from the national curriculum and from empirical research on listening guidance. Result: Music history accounts for 65.25% of theory-based liberal arts music courses at 40 Korean universities, while courses addressing listening method account for only 6.78%. Although the Standard Model classifies the appreciation of art under experiential literacy education, the same document requires that emotional response involve the capacity for aesthetic perception and construction, and education that systematically cultivates this capacity belongs to the liberal arts rather than to experience. The standing of appreciation therefore depends on the presence and design of guidance, and establishing a content framework at university level continues an unfinished project of the national curriculum rather than importing a foreign model.