Lectures are incredibly repetitive but straightforward and give exact information more directly than the textbooks will. The books (especially the course reader) barely helped me and didn't have the explicit facts that the tests were asking. Writing essays is pretty easy and straightforwards, but the tests are very specific and you have to memorize every instrument and period for every musician, even ones that aren't on the listening list, which Harrison didn't make clear. We watch a lot of films that aren't helpful, but overall this class is very low effort as long as you study for exams and can memorize about 30-50ish musicians. Also I've heard that for 50A you can get an exact copy of the midterms at the test bank and he never changes his questions, but this is definitely not the case for 50B.

Honestly this class wasn't too hard. However, the lectures can get a bit boring, especially since they mainly involve just Professor Harrison listing musicians, the era they were in, their instrument, and other facts about them. The midterm was really tricky in that there were 100 multiple choice questions, which means a lot of small details were tested and memorization of the lecture is crucial. There were questions that came from videos played during class. There was also a listening portion of songs from your listening list, which was more straightforward. I heard that Professor Harrison reuses a lot of questions from past exams, but he took his test out of the test bank. The 2 essays in the class are graded pretty easily by the TAs. There's also an extra credit essay (3-4 pages) that can boost your final grade by 3%. I also felt that the final, which is not cumulative, was easier than the midterm. Overall the class isn't super hard, but it also is not super interesting because the exams focus a lot on just memorization.

Easy class, just take notes on musicians and their respective instruments. Go to discussion, it really helps. My TA David condensed most of the lecture during his section and made it really easy to remember names. Definitely recommend him as a TA. All assignments are straightforward, tests too.

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this dude so boring i cant smh

BEST CLASS AT UCLA FOR A GE! Do not get me wrong, this class has been the easiest class I have ever taken at UCLA, but it was quite enjoyable. I actually found an appreciation for jazz music and up to this day, a lot of the music we listened to in this class, I still listen to today. The class is pretty basic, but if you allow yourself, you can learn a lot and have a new found love for jazz music. The tests are 100 multiple choice questions with a listening section (you have to be able to recall songs and artists). The TA's literally tell you which songs are going to be on the test, so you know what to study for. Also, there are 2 papers you have to write, but they are pretty general especially if you like the artists and music. GREAT CLASS and GREAT PROFESSOR! His key phrase "if you need to talk, please go outside". He hates when people talk in class.

Please. Do yourself a favor and do not take this GE for the grade. Even if you are interested in Jazz, just look up top 30 best jazz musicians of all time and listen to their albums. That is more than what you will get out of this class. If you care about taking GE's for cultural depth and knowledge, look elsewhere. Completely bait and switched by this class-- first two lectures were great with a live concert.... and then the class slowly delved into memorization and meaningless learning. Once again, find. a. different. class.

Easy class, but not fun. Lectures are pointless. Textbooks are not needed. Just review study guides given by TAs.

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I took this class cause jazz and its culture seemed cool to me, and in particular Kendrick Lamar's last album was heavily jazz-based, so I thought this class might even help me grasp it better. No.

Harrison literally just spouted random names of people that played some random instrument. That's it, and that's what you got tested on. Literally hundreds of names that mean nothing to you. Incredibly trivial and menial for a university that preaches intellectual vitality, or whatever.

Also, it's not even easy. This is the only GE I haven't gotten an A in, and I've taken plenty of very legitimate GE subjects before, ie Anthro 7, Astro 3, Stats 10, etc. And those I pretty much didn't go to class the entire quarter and still learned a shitton of cool stuff from lecture slides (the ethno department doesn't permit slides to be posted online, btw) and studying myself. For this class, though, didn't learned jack fuckin shit and still got a worse GPA to show for it.

It's just a huge pain in the ass, take Pass/No Pass.