Max’s is so good that I cannot put down leisure in this cozy Friday night and write this review. He is the best instructor I’ve had in Columbia, not one of. If you are in his section, I would think you are really blessed. His class is great in 2 aspects.
1.The Evaluation Structure: A concert report is a required component for music hum. Students in some sections may have headache how to write it. In Max’s class, I do not have such agony. Max does not expect you to write a mellifluous paper that may provoke him, or bash you how bad you appreciate music. So when you are in concert(whose attendance is required for music hum), you can really enjoy the concert or opera without distraction of finding clues how to fill in several words in report. The grade is based on attendance, participation, midterm, final, quizzes and homework. Homework is not hard and very useful. It helps you understand the pieces.(fugue) His penalty to absence is harsh but I promise his class is so interesting that you would enjoy every class. Almost each class has a quiz: one for assigned reading and one for listening. There are a lots of quizzes but it is not hard if you keep up to his schedule. Reading is not long at all. He usually writes reading by himself, with pictures of his choice. It not only saves you lots of money but also his reading handout is very neat! Listening quiz is to give an answer if the music he plays is assigned or not. This may sound daunting. But trust me, if you use his method how to get familiar with music, you would find the answer comes spontaneously. So quiz part of evaluation can easily earn full mark. A bit complaint is that he is a merciful person that when many students are wrong in a quiz, he may blame himself for tricking students and announces the quiz will not count. I am just a bit vexed that I was not wrong when many were wrong while I slipped in some quizzes where most of others got correct answers. Last parts are midterm and finals! There are two parts: definition of music vocabularies and music identification. No essay question! He would give a clear list of words you need to remember. He asks for the word, not asking you to explain the word, which is much easier. The music recognition part could be tricky, as he may choose some ambivalent period. But it is not hard. It is just a bit not easy to get full mark.
2. the content of class: Max is a knowledgeable, “talkative†instructor. It is unfortunate truth that if a lecture spends 100% of time on the same topic, like music, it will definitely become boring. Max is adept in teaching as he digresses a lot, to the end that is still related to the class and interesting. Such as, in the class of High Baroque Period, he show pictures how noble people stand, pose, in picture. He gave interesting insights and observation comments, which made the class not only a music hum class but also a class of digging history minutes. In a class, we digressed to a philosophical question, whether there is a sound when a tree falls in an azoic place. In my class, it is funny that both the president and vice president of CCSC are in my class and they defended different opinions. It is a nice touch to Philosophy, broadening my knowledge in college, although I have no Philosophy class. In addition, Max often described his feeling to pieces of music, which is one of my favorite parts. I always find it hard to express music. What he said often expresses what I feel(Beethoven, Mahler), or intrigued me why the piece has the power(Prelude to Tristan and Isolde).
I feel like I have much to say but I have to be out. I hope Max would keep up the passion of teaching. I really wish Columbia would hire him after he graduates. He already finishes his study and would graduate soon. If Columbia does not give Max Tenure, Max may let us know, we would occupy low to petition. If you want to fraternize with Max, you may call him Maxi, that is what he said his mum called him. And the second piece of music ( sounds like African ) is very good and he said he would post but did not post to courseworks. If you really want to read some cons, I would say he is a bit laid-back. He may return graded midterm late and uploaded your final grade late. That is it. At last, I want to say that Max’s assigned pieces of music are so great that I am still listening to them. If he could do twitter to keep giving assignments, I’d like to take more!