Courses

We all like music. The goal of this course is to talk about why.

My primary objective is to introduce you to the study of music through the fundamental vocabulary of music, outlining the most critical questions in music study (concerning repertoire, methodologies, and diversity of perspectives), and engaging with scholarly literature at an appropriate level. You will learn to articulate what you like about music, supporting your opinions with objective musical observations. Along the way, we’ll talk about songs, albums, music videos, music journalism, and music in films.

Since the course focuses on what you hear, the music that we study in the course will be primarily determined by you. In the first class meeting, we will talk about our favorite types of music, and briefly discuss why we like them. I will then solicit written suggestions for music to be studied in class. There will be no limitations on repertoire. All forms of music are worthy of study, and all can be appreciated if you know what to listen for.

This course is eligible for honors credit through Hutton Honors College.

Catalog Information: MUS-Z 130  MUSICAL PERFORMANCE CONTEXTS

Instructor:

Kyle Adams

Email:

kyadams@indiana.edu

Department:

Jacobs School of Music

Kyle Adams is Associate Professor of Music Theory in the Jacobs School of Music and chair of the department of music theory at Indiana University. He has published articles on the analysis of hip-hop music and on sixteenth-century music in Theoria, Music Theory Online, Music Theory Spectrum, Journal of Music Theory and the Cambridge Companion to Hip-Hop. Prof. Adams is currently the faculty director of Indiana University’s interdisciplinary Global Popular Music team. Prof. Adams holds a Ph.D. in music theory from the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, where he studied under William Rothstein and Ruth DeFord; and Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in piano from the Mannes College of Music, where he studied under Josef Raieff.

GenEd Information: Approved for the Arts & Humanities requirement of the IU Bloomington General Education program.