Jeffrey L. Goldberg '86, Dunster House music tutor and co-instructor of Dunster 119: "Discovering Musical Language," points to a sheet of music: "This is dead," he says. "It takes human beings to bring it to life."

His co-instructor, Luise Vosgerchian, Naumberg professor of music and former chair of the music department, says the class is not about getting the right answer.

"It's about feeling secure about your own intuition," she says. "So much of education seems to be about what is expected and memorized that it takes courage and risk [to make your own decisions.]"

"Trust your response," she adds. "Then the responsibility that comes in is: what made you have that response? What is there in the music that created that in you? Then you really begin to learn and get a handle of what's there."

"It doesn't make any difference that there are many different points of view as long as each point of view fits into the totality," Vosgerchian continues.

Goldberg, who was Vosgerchian's student when he was an undergraduate, echoes her sentiments.

"The word responsibility means `capable of response,'" he says, "and that means getting away from being a slave to the text."

Although the main focus of the course is listening to music, Goldberg says it also aims to help students bring out "What's there," to express through performance the evocative qualities that are inherent in the music.

Julia M. Schmidt '98, a soprano, says that "students are open to suggestions and are able to change their interpretation right there on the spot, so that the other students can compare the different versions."

Many of the students say they were drawn to the seminar because of the performance aspect.

"I'm also taking Music 51, which is intense theory stuff," says Jacob E. Fleming '01, who plays the clarinet. "I wanted something a little more performance-oriented."

But Dunster 119 is not a typical performance-only class because it focuses less on interpretation and more on "understanding the structure of a piece," says Sarita N. Cannon '98, another soprano.

The course is also unique because students are allowed to study music that they bring to class, resulting in a diverse syllabus.

"We had Thelonius Monk, we had Beethoven, we may have some Kurt Weil coming up," Goldberg says.

Vosgerchian says the students decide what the course is about as much as their teachers.