Being a member of the International Society for Music Education (ISME), is an advantage to those who are interested in music education in the broad sense.

ISME is a member organization of the International Music Council (IMC) and is the music advisory organization to UNESCO.

In being a member of ISME, you are supporting the development of music education internationally by supporting the Society that works on your behalf for the betterment of music education in all parts of the world. In doing so, you help make the world of music education much stronger professionally, politically and theoretically.

ISME meets the professional needs of music educators
ISME offers goods and services to anyone interested or involved in music education. Some services are for free, others have to be paid for: the level of membership determines the price of these services.
Please note that membership applications can be made at any time.

ISME accepts members in three categories:

Individual Members

Student Members

Group Members (including ISME National Affiliates)

United Nations Human Development Index

To make sure that no member pays a membership fee that exceeds his or her financial means, the General Assembly decided to make use of the Human Development Index (HDI) as a basis to calculate the level of the membership fee.

The HDI is determined by the United Nations. It is an index based on the Gross National Product and other important parameters, designed to measure a country's achievments in terms of life expectancy, educational attainment and adjusted real income. The HDI has three levels: High, Medium and Low. These levels will be applied to ISME Group Membership (as from 2001) and to ISME Individual Membership (as from 2002).

The Human Development Index Ranking is published annually by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).  A direct link to the current table is available at http://hdr.undp.org/en/statistics.

NOTE: ISME is aware that there are now four HDI categories. Those countries in the HIGH and VERY HIGH categories will all come under HIGH, until such time as membership fee changes have been approved by the ISME Board.