This class is organized annually at the beginning of the academic year in four successive weekly sessions of three hours each. It is a mandatory class for all newly-arrived students at the Early Music department of the CvA. The sessions are devoted to the purpose, method and history of Historically Informed Performance (HIP) and, as a whole, the class is conceived as an instrument of “self-help” for research on the performance practice of music of the past. There is no exam for this class, but attendance is compulsory.