I love both music and media, so I thought this would be the perfect GE for me! I couldn't have been more wrong. Taylor speaks in a monotone voice, and lectures were very boring. He barely wrote anything on his slides, so you would have to pay attention to what he said, even thought most of it wasn't important. Exams were unnecessarily hard, and we got marked down for not using specific words, even if we showed that we understood the concept clearly. Essays were graded unfairly in the same way. Definitely do not take this class as a GE.

Professor Taylor's lectures are always an interesting mix of musicology and Marxist theory, which I really enjoy. I wish the lecture slides followed the direction of the lecture more closely.

I would say that this is one of the worst classes I've taken at UCLA. Not because the topic is not interesting, but mainly because of the professor. First, Professor Taylor speaks with a monotone voice, which I can hardly understanding what he's trying to say. He also digressed away from the main points by telling us different anecdotes. The worst part is his presentation. It only consists of pictures, and huge quotes. He doesn't put up any main point or whatsoever. If you spaced out for a few seconds, or missed a class, you could potentially miss out important points for the exam. The readings are also ridiculously long and excessive. Their content is almost entirely exclusive from the lecture.

I feel like I learned very little from this class. To be fair, I was taking it only for GE. Those people who love 'music' classes might be interested. I feel like this class would be much more interesting if it was taught by other clearer and more succinct professors.

The test was not hard, and the TAs were great and helpful. However, I did not do so well, because I couldn't really understand his lecture. His study guide is also very vague, not giving us any specific terms and ideas to study for.

Overall, what makes this class horrible is mainly the professor and how he organized the class.

I took this course in the spring of 2016, and received an A-. Now, I took this class thinking it would be a chill GE that would be little work and easy to get an A. I took Ethno 50A in the fall of 2015, and that was the chillest class I have ever taken. I received an A+ in that class, and the professor is the coolest bro ever. Absolutely take that class. However, do not take this class, unless you like kissing up to the TAs. Don't be fooled by the grade distribution it shows, it is rather hard to get an A in this class. Seriously, like most GE's, the grades are based off of the TAs, and not the professors. I had a terrible TA, and if you get him (Pablo Infante), then try to switch, or else go to all his office hours, and be bros with him. He is a very subjective grader, and took off points on my papers, and tests without any explanation. This class is attendance-based, so you have to go to all of the discussions. If you miss one discussion, then you lose almost a full percent. This may not seem like much, but it is in the end, so go to all discussions. In terms of Professor Taylor, his lectures are incredibly boring. I often fell asleep, despite trying very hard to stay awake. He does use slides, and like he says, the test questions are based off of the lectures. Now, I did score well on all parts of this class, however, I received about 92-93% on the two papers, and all tests. I finished with a 92% in the class, but the cut-off for an A is a 93. If you see this course, and think "Yay an Ethno course!", think again because this course is more based on advertising. No seriously, all the material is on advertising, not actual music. But to be fair, the title is Music and Media.

I did not like this class. The lectures were so boring. The professor doesn't write much on his slides, so pretty much try to write down everything he says. There are two essays you have to write, and you pretty much regurgitate everything he says in a certain order and you'll get an A. On the midterm and final, it's all short/long answer, so just write down everything you can think of about the prompt. Even if it's short answer, you have to write down a lot in my opinion to get things right. On my midterm, I got marked off on almost all my questions even though I basically said the right things, so just write a lot. You aren't allowed regrades for some dumb reason. Also for the exams, you have to memorize songs and their names, artists, years, and their importance. That part was okay. In the discussion sections, you have to write a weekly response to the readings. The readings are also so long and boring. My TA was really nice though. He was pretty chill. Overall, I guess it was okay, but I do not recommend this class.

Professor was supposed to teach this and for whatever reason didn't at the last minute. Substitute professor was okay. Selling the required book Music, Sound, and Technology in America with no writing in it. If the review is still up, it's still for sale.

K*************

This class was alright in terms of difficulty, but extremely boring. Lectures are almost two hours long, and about half of the enrolled students attend lecture. And of the students that do attend lecture, a lot of them are on their phones or simply browsing the web instead of paying attention to the professor. Professor Taylor is super passionate about the subject, but his clarity is lacking. His lecture slides have no words, only a picture and a title. So if you miss class, you're screwed and cannot make up that missing info. It's also hard most of the time to digest what is important and what isn't, since he tends to ramble on for ages. Nevertheless, the midterm and final was pretty fair and not too difficult, and yet still given a tiny generous curve. The two papers were also graded pretty fairly, with most people getting As and Bs. But honestly, I would not recommend this class with this professor because of his lack of clarity and the dullness of the lecture.

I love music and have taken many classes in the music department but this was by far the worst one. Do not take this if you are looking for a fun GE

whack

Oh no, this class was boring. Professor Taylor uploads two weekly videos about the history of musical devices and consumerism. Your papers and participation are graded by the TA. There are three to four papers that must be turned in. All the TA's follow a grading rubric (some grade harshly). The lecture videos are one hour, so good luck on that. You can pass the class if you are invested in it or love the history of music.