Danielle Simon

Music in Western Cultures is a difficult, reading heavy coursed required for the music major. We went from ancient music traditions all the way to contemporary music in an entire semester–it was rapid speed. That being said, the Professor Simon was mostly focused on teaching the scholarly aspects of musicology–which felt at times a bit distracted from learning music history. Every class we would begin with a student-led discussion on the reading which was often beyond our comprehension, and Professor Simon would have to jump in to steer us back on track. Research project, presentations, discussion leadings, and special collections visits were all part of the course. I really enjoyed the material of this course, but struggled to stay caught up with all of the material we blew by, and often skimmed the readings that felt most relevant to music history to prioritize the scholarly discussions. I wouldn't recommend this class to students looking for light reading or are shy in discussions.

Music in Western Cultures is a difficult, reading heavy coursed required for the music major. We went from ancient music traditions all the way to contemporary music in an entire semester–it was rapid speed. That being said, the Professor Simon was mostly focused on teaching the scholarly aspects of musicology–which felt at times a b …Read more

I've taken Music 101 with Prof. Simon and this course was basically an in-depth version of music history that looked more at analyzing music historians from each period rather than the actual evolution of music. The overall is that if you skim the (many) readings and participate thoughtfully in discussions, and keep up with the weekly writing assignments, you'll get an A/A-. The main criticism I had was that there weren't really lectures; she would maybe talk a little about the time period we'd read about and then the whole class would just be student-led discussions. There were five of us total and I believe this is usually a small class, so be aware that you'll probably have to contribute at least a few times every class. In addition to pre-class readings, weekly essays, a final paper, and a small presentation, there are also a couple listening exams, which I honestly thought were very irrelevant and did not contribute anything to the class. In Music 101, you learn about characteristics of each time period, from the Middle Ages to the Contemporary Period, and you have small listening quizzes then that make sense. However, like I said about in this class, you're focused on analyzing musicologists from each period and not the actual music. The listening quizzes here only featured examples we'd had for homework, so if you'd heard those, you knew their historical context/time period, and we also always talked about them in class. Therefore, having to identify pieces through listening and talk about why you labeled them as a certain period did not seem important to the course material and just felt like busy work. That being said, Prof. Simon is a very kind, caring & understanding professor, and she's also always very enthusiastic about her material, and she was also actively working to build her curriculum and fine-tune it with us. If you're in a class with her and are ever having any difficulties, she's probably one of the most accommodating and helpful professors you could ask for help!

I've taken Music 101 with Prof. Simon and this course was basically an in-depth version of music history that looked more at analyzing music historians from each period rather than the actual evolution of music. The overall is that if you skim the (many) readings and participate thoughtfully in discussions, and keep up with the weekl …Read more

Class was fine, honestly just felt like a waste of time a lot. Work was pretty optional as all readings were covered in class. It was very western-centric, but the musical selections were interesting sometimes.