Matthew Quayle

Professor Quayle was amazing in teaching this course. Almost every class consisted of us listening to performances or him playing piano and emphasizing the things we were learning in class. His passion was for the subject matter was clear and evident in his teaching. The course consisted of some assignments outside of class, a couple of short writing assignments, two concert reports, and one creative final project. Overall, this course was very mind opening and shows you that there is complexity to music and composers do things intentionally (or not) to get certain points across.

Professor Quayle was amazing in teaching this course. Almost every class consisted of us listening to performances or him playing piano and emphasizing the things we were learning in class. His passion was for the subject matter was clear and evident in his teaching. The course consisted of some assignments outside of class, a couple …Read more

This course wasn't exactly what I expected it would be... Instead of analyzing music before hitting the notation software, the assignments were pretty vague and basically left you to do anything you wanted as long as you complied to one or two parameters. I spent more time on assignments than other people, but if you *really* didn't want to put in that much work, you wouldn't have to. Quayle's feedback isn't all that helpful either; since most of the class is discussion based, he let the class share their thoughts first and then he'd give some sort of praise and maybe a single comment/critique. The main pressure (in a good way) were the guest musicians; great way to debut our pieces and learn what to tweak and why.

This course wasn't exactly what I expected it would be... Instead of analyzing music before hitting the notation software, the assignments were pretty vague and basically left you to do anything you wanted as long as you complied to one or two parameters. I spent more time on assignments than other people, but if you *really* didn't …Read more

I loved this course! Professor Quayle is an extremely talented professor. He is incredibly passionate about music composition. I found it very useful to meet with him to discuss my pieces. The course was accessible to people with a range of backgrounds -- my classmates all had differing levels of formal experience, which made for very interesting class sessions. All assignments happen outside of class, so the time spent on the course outside of class periods depends on how much effort you put into your pieces. Professor Quayle gives suggestions more often than explicit directions, which makes the course interesting but can leave grading somewhat ambiguous.

I loved this course! Professor Quayle is an extremely talented professor. He is incredibly passionate about music composition. I found it very useful to meet with him to discuss my pieces. The course was accessible to people with a range of backgrounds -- my classmates all had differing levels of formal experience, which made for ver …Read more