Students will learn to think critically about: 1) the relationship between music and society 2) organology (the classification of musical instruments) 3) pitch and rhythm 4) tuning systems 5) forms (Indian and Western/vocal, instrumental, and dramatic) 6) styles (associated with different historical periods, and pertaining to the aesthetics of composition and of performance) 7) timbre 8) basic concepts of harmony and orchestration. One of the topics that this course will investigate is whether music is a universal language from a semiotic point of view (i.e. whether the same music is interpreted in similar ways by listeners from different cultural backgrounds). Goals: (1) learning to recognize pitches, rhythms, metre, timbres, forms, and styles; (2) becoming familiar with some of the terms needed for analyzing and writing about music at a technical level.