McLean Macionis
McLean does a wonderful job accommodating students from all musical backgrounds. He makes lectures interactive and fun alongside show off his skills on the EDM platform, Ableton Live. He gives live tutorials on the application, allowing for the class to understand the concepts being taught on the spot while also leaving room for questions. Weekly album listens and reviews are honestly refreshing and serve as easy points. There are occasional quizzes on vocabulary, but they are beneficial when progressing through the course. Projects, especially in the second half of the semester can get overwhelming, so expect to be going to the lab room to work on compositions outside of class time. I would recommend taking this course!
McLean does a wonderful job accommodating students from all musical backgrounds. He makes lectures interactive and fun alongside show off his skills on the EDM platform, Ableton Live. He gives live tutorials on the application, allowing for the class to understand the concepts being taught on the spot while also leaving room for ques …Read more
This course is primarily designed to teach students how to use Ableton Live 12 to produce music. As someone who wants to produce my own music but doesn't know anything about music theory, I found this course to be very helpful in introducing me to different aspects of the app and equipping me with basic skills of music production. However, as a beginner, you definitely need to spend more time at the start of the course to navigate the app outside of class in the lab, especially during the first project. Grading is mostly based upon projects, and as long as you satisfy the technical criteria in the rubric (eg, not clipping & following exporting instructions), Mclean is quite a lenient grader. There are around 4 simple quizzes per semester on Live/music concepts covered in class. Overall, it's a light course that teaches you a useful skill. However, I did not find class time to be that effective, as they're mostly demonstrations of him using the app (lab-periods where you can get hands-on experience with the computers only occurs once a week).
This course is primarily designed to teach students how to use Ableton Live 12 to produce music. As someone who wants to produce my own music but doesn't know anything about music theory, I found this course to be very helpful in introducing me to different aspects of the app and equipping me with basic skills of music production. Ho …Read more
McLean is one of my favorite professors because he truly cares about what he is teaching and is also an active artist that releases music. His guidance and experience in music production comes from years of professional experience and I highly recommend this course if you are interested in making any type of music.