First it was The Beatles, and then Frank Zappa and Jimi Hendrix. Now the latest rock-and-roller to get his own course at IU is folk legend Bob Dylan.\nA course on Bob Dylan will be added to the list of classes offered at IU in 2009. Music professor Glenn Gass received an $8,000 grant from the Summer Instructional Development Fellowship through the Office of Academic Affairs and Dean of the Faculties to create the new class.\n“For years I’ve been asked ‘what is the next class you are going to teach?’ and choosing Dylan was just a natural choice,” Gass said.\nThe class will span Dylan’s versatile career, from his beginnings as a folk hero of the ’60s to what he is doing in 2008, Gass said. The course will study in-depth Dylan’s role as an influential performer and poet who sang as the voice of \na generation.\n“He is a very essential part of rock and roll music and an amazing poet,” sophomore Sasha Gaona said. “There is a lot that can be learned from his words.”\nGass said designing a course on Dylan has presented him with new challenges because Dylan has reinvented himself so many times during his 50-year career. And unlike the Music of the Beatles class, where students learn about The Beatles from listening to their entire career, Gass will have to personally select the songs to use for the course from more than 30 Dylan albums.\n“I look at my self as being sentenced to Dylan for a few years,” Gass said. “Which is really pretty cool, I can think of a lot worse things.”\nWhile Gass is unsure of exactly when the class will be ready, he said it should be available by summer 2009 at the latest. The class will be available for music and non-music majors.
Electronic music composition class scheduled for 2009\nJohn Gibson, assistant professor of composition and assistant director of the Center for Electronic and Computer Music, also received the Summer Instructional Development Fellowship.\nGibson is currently creating a course called Computer Music: Design/Perform. Students in the course will spend time learning how to perform and improvise electronic music, as well as how to put the electronic music to video, Beck said. It will also give students the chance to create their own instruments using software to make new and original sounds. \n“I am spreading things out into a few different directions,” Gibson said. \nThe course is meant to be a continuation of the popular Intro to MIDI and Computer Music course, with more of a focus on performing the \nmusic live.\n“Because we have this technology, like synthesizers and computer software, it’s now possible for people with more of a casual background in music to do really sophisticated things musically,” Gibson said.\nThe course will be available to music and non-music majors, however students will be required to take the Intro to MIDI and Computer Music course as a prerequisite. The course will be offered for the 2009 \nspring semester.
