It is clear that Maria is new at teaching. As I expected, she assumed everyone had a more advanced knowledge of music than they did. There were a few students that played music, and had a musical background, and it was clear she catered toward them. I suspect the previous poster was one of them. If you aren't a fan of classical music, you will not enjoy her class.
The class had three unrelated sections. The book, her assigned readings, and her lectures. She wouldn't reinforce the material in the book, and because there was only one example for each term, you could easily be confused. This is like someone telling you there is this genre called Rock and Roll. Then they only let you listen to Billy Joel and say he is rock and roll. Now you think ALL of rock and roll sounds like Bill Joel, which it clearly does not.
She gave us a quiz, which everyone asked her what to study, or what to expect, and she said not to worry. Surprise surprise, we should have worried. Most people did poorly. She often says one things and writes another, and does not explain the formats of tests well. Suddenly you have 100 terms to study over the weekend.
Maria was very inflexible with meeting students. I was eager to make time with her between the quiz and midterm, but she wasn't available between the two, leaving no ability to improve, though I will admit she was good about email.
Maria takes off points on the exams with no explanations. She can take half of the points off an essay with only one small comment.
The papers have nothing to do with music, which is nice because she doesn't teach it well, but again she takes off points for nothing.
Towards the end of the course, she played youtube videos sometimes half of the class time.