UNDERGRADUATE
MUSI3029 Music and Scientific Thoughts: Past and Present (capstone experience)
Course Type: disciplinary elective for music majors/minors, free elective for others
Prerequisite: NIL
Prerequisite: NIL
Instructor: Professor Youn KIM
Semester: Second Semester 2026/27
Time: 1:00pm – 2:50pm, Tuesday
Venue: RRT-11.01 Seminar Room
Semester: Second Semester 2026/27
Time: 1:00pm – 2:50pm, Tuesday
Venue: RRT-11.01 Seminar Room
This course investigates the link between music and science in the Western history. Music has been frequently associated with science but the way the two realms are interconnected with each other varies throughout history. In exploring different cases of scientific thought on music, students will gain a contextual understanding of music and science as socio-cultural products and develop insight to the interdisciplinary nature of the study of music. The course approaches music not only as an art, but also as a way of thinking about number, nature, sound, the body, technology, and human experience.
Having taken this course, students will be able to:
- explain key historical interplays between music and science;
- reflect on musical experience and develop it into a scholarly research question;
- locate, evaluate, and integrate relevant academic sources;
- develop a coherent research project on a topic of their own choice;
- appreciate the interdisciplinary nature of music studies.
Research Project: 90%
Phase 1: Topic proposal + annotated preliminary bibliography (15%)
Phase 2: Critical source review (15 %)
Phase 3: Presentation (25%)
Phase 4: Final research paper (35%)
Attendance and class participation: 10%
The research project is designed as a staged capstone experience. Students will develop a topic of their own choice, formulate a scholarly question, identify and evaluate relevant sources, present their developing ideas, and produce a final research paper. Detailed assignment guidelines will be provided in class.
Phase 1: Topic proposal + annotated preliminary bibliography (15%)
Phase 2: Critical source review (15 %)
Phase 3: Presentation (25%)
Phase 4: Final research paper (35%)
Attendance and class participation: 10%
The research project is designed as a staged capstone experience. Students will develop a topic of their own choice, formulate a scholarly question, identify and evaluate relevant sources, present their developing ideas, and produce a final research paper. Detailed assignment guidelines will be provided in class.
- Music, Number, and the Universe
- Music and Proportion
- Music and Harmonics
- Music and Nature
- Music, Instruments, and Machines
- Quantifying Music
- Music and Space
- Empirical Musicology
- Music and Neuroscience
- Music and the Body
- Power of Music
- Music, Technology, Media and Virtuality
- Music in the Posthuman Era
There is no single required textbook for this course. Readings will be drawn from selected book chapters, journal articles, and other scholarly materials in music history, music theory, music psychology, sound studies, media studies, and related fields.
Course materials, reading lists, assignment guidelines, and announcements will be made available through Moodle. Students will also be guided in locating and evaluating scholarly resources for their individual research projects.
Course materials, reading lists, assignment guidelines, and announcements will be made available through Moodle. Students will also be guided in locating and evaluating scholarly resources for their individual research projects.