As we consume culture we internalize its priorities and values. One of these in the west is to become a connoisseur of originality. But what if this gives us a distorted view of culture? What if the key to understanding culture is to focus not on the invention of the new, but on the reproduction of what already exists? This course takes this idea as its working hypothesis and tests it out in the realm of music. (Those who wish to take this course do not need to have any musical training.) By engaging in a variety of exercises—reading, writing, listening, viewing—we will try to answer the following questions: Which roles does imitation play in learning, teaching, creating, and performing music? How do we differentiate among the many terms we use to refer to cultural imitation: influence, derivation, appropriation, borrowing, theft, homage, parody, quotation, allusion, and so forth? How has musical imitation been shaped by sound and media technologies? How has music participated in imitative practices involving race and gender? And how has imitation in music been critiqued by philosophers and challenged in a court of law?