Professor
Tara Browner
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Most Helpful Review
Wow where do i begin. I took the class as a ge, and I offer an non-ethnomusicology major's opinion. She loves native americans, which is pretty much all I took out of this course. Granted the material she goes over is easy to learn, so getting an A in the class is as simple as showing up to class and paying attention. That gets hard when she doesn't really know (or show that she know) anything concrete outside her specialty (native american). Wikipedia is just as effective in learning the course material, if not better. I would only recommend the course if you are only looking for an easy A.
Wow where do i begin. I took the class as a ge, and I offer an non-ethnomusicology major's opinion. She loves native americans, which is pretty much all I took out of this course. Granted the material she goes over is easy to learn, so getting an A in the class is as simple as showing up to class and paying attention. That gets hard when she doesn't really know (or show that she know) anything concrete outside her specialty (native american). Wikipedia is just as effective in learning the course material, if not better. I would only recommend the course if you are only looking for an easy A.
Most Helpful Review
Winter 2021 - This is a very fun class! The only thing you shoud be aware of is that Professor Browner adds a lot of random facts to the lectures, which could be a bit distracting sometimes as it diverted my attention from the actual important things. However, I really like Professor Browner! She is a very cool lady, she has amazing stories, and she is very knowledgeable and passionate about Bach as a scholar. The books we need to buy are super cheap. We needed to buy two, and both of them together are under 20 dollars. The class is pretty easy as well, and this is coming from a student without a lot of musical background taking a music GE class. I had a lot of fun in this class. The most important thing is to pay attention to the listening assignments and focus on taking notes around the listening.
Winter 2021 - This is a very fun class! The only thing you shoud be aware of is that Professor Browner adds a lot of random facts to the lectures, which could be a bit distracting sometimes as it diverted my attention from the actual important things. However, I really like Professor Browner! She is a very cool lady, she has amazing stories, and she is very knowledgeable and passionate about Bach as a scholar. The books we need to buy are super cheap. We needed to buy two, and both of them together are under 20 dollars. The class is pretty easy as well, and this is coming from a student without a lot of musical background taking a music GE class. I had a lot of fun in this class. The most important thing is to pay attention to the listening assignments and focus on taking notes around the listening.
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Most Helpful Review
Fall 2022 - Fall '22: This is a very easy class w/ a light workload of 4 listening assignments (about >20 songs w/ 2-3 sentences describing the song/how you felt), in-class midterm, and take-home final. They're all graded very nicely and I didn't even mention much of the readings/lecture in the assignments. Her midterm prompt was very simple and gave it to you before the exam. I knew I blanked on 1 tribe but I still got an A. She requires a course material ($82) which had some long readings, but it was very easy to skim through them to find the important information. She's an interesting, fun personality which keeps you attentive to her lectures which can get a bit dry (she doesn't share her PPTs). She is very considerate of the students; she cancelled a lot of the assignments and final and gave everyone As (as long as they did most of the work) in support of the strikers. Easiness aside, you'll learn a lot about Native American culture and their music.
Fall 2022 - Fall '22: This is a very easy class w/ a light workload of 4 listening assignments (about >20 songs w/ 2-3 sentences describing the song/how you felt), in-class midterm, and take-home final. They're all graded very nicely and I didn't even mention much of the readings/lecture in the assignments. Her midterm prompt was very simple and gave it to you before the exam. I knew I blanked on 1 tribe but I still got an A. She requires a course material ($82) which had some long readings, but it was very easy to skim through them to find the important information. She's an interesting, fun personality which keeps you attentive to her lectures which can get a bit dry (she doesn't share her PPTs). She is very considerate of the students; she cancelled a lot of the assignments and final and gave everyone As (as long as they did most of the work) in support of the strikers. Easiness aside, you'll learn a lot about Native American culture and their music.
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Most Helpful Review
Spring 2018 - I loved this class. Browner is very funny and pretty laid back. There is no actual discussion, they end up just making it into 2 lectures (1.5 hours) a week. The assignments are graded easily if you put in minimal effort but actually try. There are 6 listening assignments but very easy, one 5page paper just describing the experience you had at the UCLA pow wow -so you are required to go to that on your own- and a midterm and final that are 2 essay questions which you pick out of a couple different prompts and she gives you the questions a couple days ahead of time so you can prepare. The final is take home. On the final and midterm you have to cite either lecture, the book, or listenings to get full credit (i never bought or read the course reader and still got an A though using other resources). It sounds like a lot but its truly not, the class is very interesting and entertaining and the professor is funny and very laid back (late a lot, grades easily, etc). I suggest taking this as an easy but entertaining GE!
Spring 2018 - I loved this class. Browner is very funny and pretty laid back. There is no actual discussion, they end up just making it into 2 lectures (1.5 hours) a week. The assignments are graded easily if you put in minimal effort but actually try. There are 6 listening assignments but very easy, one 5page paper just describing the experience you had at the UCLA pow wow -so you are required to go to that on your own- and a midterm and final that are 2 essay questions which you pick out of a couple different prompts and she gives you the questions a couple days ahead of time so you can prepare. The final is take home. On the final and midterm you have to cite either lecture, the book, or listenings to get full credit (i never bought or read the course reader and still got an A though using other resources). It sounds like a lot but its truly not, the class is very interesting and entertaining and the professor is funny and very laid back (late a lot, grades easily, etc). I suggest taking this as an easy but entertaining GE!
Most Helpful Review
I had her for Music History 63: The History of Bach, and she taught a 163 class at the same time, but they had a different section and more assignments than the regular class. It was her first time teaching the class so there were a lot of things that could have been better, but the class wasn't that difficult at all. It was a GE so a lot of people were taking it for GE credit and she knew that so I think she made the class a little easier to accomodate all of them. Basically we had two five page papers which were due 8th week and 10th week, which I thought was really bad planning. The first one was a book report on a 300 page book Evening in the Palace of Reason. We had to write a three page summary of the book and then a two page critique. The second paper was a compare contrast between two different versions (one by Karl Richter and the other by John Eliot Gardiner) of the same cantata written by Bach. It was actually pretty easy and we got all the answers in discussion. So it wasn't that difficult at all, it just took a little while. For the midterm she gave you a review sheet in discussion. Basically for the midterm there were like fifteen or so pieces by Bach that we had to listen to and identify five on the midterm. She would play them over the loud speaker and you'd have to write it down in the bluebook. Which seems hard, but it actually really wasn't. She gave you all the ones that would be on the test, you just had to listen to them. Then, she gave us eight words in discussion (musical styles like organ chorale prelude, concerto gross, etc.) that we needed to define, name a piece/ example that Bach wrote in that style, what was going on in his life when he wrote it, and what influences he had. It was pretty easy, the example was always from the listening. You would do a little bit in discussion and discuss it with your classmates and whatever you didn't finish you'd have to do outside of class, but you were allowed to use wikipedia and it really wasn't that hard to come up with all the facts. For the final it was pretty much the same thing except it was only two words: cantata and passion or mass in B minor. You got to pick between passion or mass in B minor. Then we had fifteen more listening, but she only picks five to be on the test. She also gave us five extra credit points on our final grade for going to a Bach concert in Powell. It was only an hour or so and all you had to do was sit there and get your program signed at the end. She grades the class on a 100 point scale. So the midterm and final are each worth 30 points, the two papers are worth 20, making it all add up to 100. So basically if you lose a point on the midterm and get a 29/30 then you can only get a 99 in the class. If you want an A you can't lose more than 10 points, (15 if she does the extra credit assignment). Overall it wasn't an impossible class. I took the class for a GE and I got an A.
I had her for Music History 63: The History of Bach, and she taught a 163 class at the same time, but they had a different section and more assignments than the regular class. It was her first time teaching the class so there were a lot of things that could have been better, but the class wasn't that difficult at all. It was a GE so a lot of people were taking it for GE credit and she knew that so I think she made the class a little easier to accomodate all of them. Basically we had two five page papers which were due 8th week and 10th week, which I thought was really bad planning. The first one was a book report on a 300 page book Evening in the Palace of Reason. We had to write a three page summary of the book and then a two page critique. The second paper was a compare contrast between two different versions (one by Karl Richter and the other by John Eliot Gardiner) of the same cantata written by Bach. It was actually pretty easy and we got all the answers in discussion. So it wasn't that difficult at all, it just took a little while. For the midterm she gave you a review sheet in discussion. Basically for the midterm there were like fifteen or so pieces by Bach that we had to listen to and identify five on the midterm. She would play them over the loud speaker and you'd have to write it down in the bluebook. Which seems hard, but it actually really wasn't. She gave you all the ones that would be on the test, you just had to listen to them. Then, she gave us eight words in discussion (musical styles like organ chorale prelude, concerto gross, etc.) that we needed to define, name a piece/ example that Bach wrote in that style, what was going on in his life when he wrote it, and what influences he had. It was pretty easy, the example was always from the listening. You would do a little bit in discussion and discuss it with your classmates and whatever you didn't finish you'd have to do outside of class, but you were allowed to use wikipedia and it really wasn't that hard to come up with all the facts. For the final it was pretty much the same thing except it was only two words: cantata and passion or mass in B minor. You got to pick between passion or mass in B minor. Then we had fifteen more listening, but she only picks five to be on the test. She also gave us five extra credit points on our final grade for going to a Bach concert in Powell. It was only an hour or so and all you had to do was sit there and get your program signed at the end. She grades the class on a 100 point scale. So the midterm and final are each worth 30 points, the two papers are worth 20, making it all add up to 100. So basically if you lose a point on the midterm and get a 29/30 then you can only get a 99 in the class. If you want an A you can't lose more than 10 points, (15 if she does the extra credit assignment). Overall it wasn't an impossible class. I took the class for a GE and I got an A.
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