#101 - Sound, Music, and the Environment
Explores various definitions of what music is, from the sine wave to poetic metaphor, and the impact of the cultural environment on music. Examples include Bosnian ganga and becarac singing; Tuvan throat singing; Irish, West African, Trinidadian, and Japanese music; and Western chamber music, jazz, and rock.

#102 - The Transformative Power of Music
The musical healing ceremonies of the !Kung people in Namibia and Botswana; Epirote music in traditional Greek weddings; and modern rock, gospel, and folk music all reveal music's power to transform lives.

#103 - Music and Memory
West African griots, the Walbiri people of Australia, folksingers of Ireland and Appalachia, and modern practitioners of early music show us how our musical pasts live again today.

#104 - Transmission: Learning Music
How people learn musical traditions and how they are maintained, modified, notated, taught, and performed for a new, younger audience are exemplified in Indian classical music, African village drumming, and modern jazz and gospel.

#105 - Rhythm
How rhythm structures music is examined through American marching bands, North Indian tala and Japanese shakuhachi traditions, West African drumming, and Afro-Cuban dance music.

#106 - Melody
Illustrates how melodies are shaped, elaborated, and developed within Western classical music, the Arabic maqam tradition, Irish dance music and sean-nós singing, and Indian raga.

#107 - Timbre: The Color of Music
Examines the creation and effects of timbre in jazz; Indian, West African, Irish, Bosnian, and Japanese music; and Indonesian gamelan.

#108 - Texture
Explores texture in Japanese shakuhachi, Trinidadian steel band music, Bosnian ganga, West African percussion, and modern Australian choral music.

#109 - Harmony
Harmony, understood in vastly different ways around the world, is analyzed in jazz, chamber music, Bosnian ganga singing, early-music plainchants, and barbershop quartets.

#110 - Form: The Shape of Music
The traditional Western sonata, the blueprints behind improvisational jazz, the narrative structure of traditional Japanese music, call-and-response forms in West African music and American gospel, and Irish fiddle tunes demonstrate worldwide variations in musical form.

#111 - Composers and Improvisers
How are a composer and an improviser alike? How are they different? The marriage between fixed elements and new variation is examined in American rock, Indian raga, classical and contemporary Western music, jazz, and Arabic classical music.

#112 - Music and Technology
How technology affects music is examined in a case study of the flute and in an exploration of developing recording and composing technologies that are fusing the roles of composer, musician, arranger, and conductor.