Gail Archer

I had no idea what to expect from this class coming in, but it was INCREDIBLE. I truly was fascinated by every lecture. Professor Archer is entertaining, warm, and so truly passionate about what she teaches. I am now minoring in music thanks to this class.

Gail is the best ever! She is insanely talented and knowledgeable, a wonderful teacher, and a joy to work with. The choir is a kind, warm place to spend your time, and while there is an emphasis on excellence and a lot of dedicated work, Gail is always telling stories, cracking jokes, and making things fun. She is such an icon, and so much fun to be around. If the opportunity to learn from Gail ever presents itself to you, take it!

While Gail seems to have many great reviews on this site, this review is specifically for the Chamber Singers class, which might one of the most boring, unrewarding, and frustrating choir experiences I've ever had. First of all, auditions are not required for the choir. At first, this might seem like a good idea, but since the group is so small, one or two bad singers can really ruin the choir's sound, and it did. The levels of musicality among students varied so widely that it was usually impossible to have a decent musical or educational experience in the class. Second, beware that the style of music changes each semester. My semester happened to feature very dissonant, contemporary music that was both aesthetically hard to adjust to and difficult to sing. Meanwhile, the choir next semester sang strictly baroque music, if I remember right. Either way, each semester can be a completely different experience just based on the music selection Third, many people seem to say that Gail is a musical genius, which might be true. In my class, however, the only thing that shone through was her ability to sightread. What a frustrating experience. She was clearly never prepared for our class and consistently played wrong notes and rhythms for us, making our learning of the music way more time-consuming than it needed to be. Unfortunately, I can't say many good things about this class, so…

Columbia has the potential to have one of the finest choirs of any school in the country. We're in New York! There should be plenty of singers to choose from. Sadly, we don't, primarily because the choir is not ballanced. There is no effort to recruit male voices. Most guys don't even know we exist because the choir does not get very much publicity or exposure. Furthermore, with all those GS students on campus who've sung professionally (i.e. Broadway), we could be fantastic. But no one tries to reach out to them, and get them to join. Gail is a gifted musician who is very caring about music. However, she is not practicle in terms of recruiting talanted voices. Christ, NYU has a better choir than Columbia. I still love choir, and think Gail is great. However, there is room for improvement.

gail is such a lovely person, so passionate about what she is teaching, and so invested in the well-being of her students. though the subject matter of this class is rather niche (and i wouldn't suggest taking it if you don't have a fairly strong interest in medieval and renaissance music), her joy makes it fairly easy to feel invested in the lectures. she is also generous when grading and with her time, providing lots of office hours and also taking us to various museums around the city outside of class time. however, this class does have some problems. the lectures feel very disorganized, for one thing. each typically focuses on a different composer or other important figure, but they are not really connected much—you have to do that work for yourself. it was the kind of thing where during the lectures i felt totally engaged and then afterwards i couldn't really articulate what i had learned. the prompts for each assignment is rather vague, also. they're designed so that people with zero familiarity with music can take this course, so they are mostly subjective rather than analytical, which i struggled with, but that also means they're pretty easy to do well on. the major problem with this class, though, was the final. it was a take home final (thank god) and it took me the whole three hours. gail gave us a study guide for this exam in october and told us multiple times sinc…

I couldn't say enough good things about Gail and the choir. Rarely have I met a person who is more devoted to her career, her students, music and life in general. Always bubbly, extremely knowledgable and able to draw out a nice sound from her choir, Gail does what is needed to make a quality choir with intensely busy students. Her semi-relaxed philosophy when it comes to attendance and practice time seems a little bit too lax, but after listening to her explain her methods, they make perfect sense. She's relaxed and always pleasant because it gets more people to join, and we always pull it off wonderfully when the concert comes around. As an outlet for the experienced and unexperienced alike, I fully recommend the choir to everyone (guys especially - we need more of you!). As another reviewer said, we are a family, and we'll welcome you with open arms.

OK, for all you whiny people who complain about how condescending Gail is and how she talks to the class like she would to kindergarteners, look closer. that's not condescension. that's her OWN almost childlike awe for the music and the stories behind it. and in a school full of jaded, "smarter-than-thou" profs, Gail's enthusiasm is incredibly refreshing.

This woman needs a gold nugget. What a delightful, engaging, funny, and intelligent professor. As someone with a little bit of experience playing an instrument, I recognized a fair amount of the terms and composers we discussed, but Prof Archer's comprehensive overview of music from classical, romantic, and contemporary classical music was really enjoyable and I learned so much. Her lectures involve some music listening and looking at scores (you would probably take more away from this if you read music, but it's definitely not necessary for the course) which kept them entertaining. She is such an incredibly passionate and kind woman and you can tell that she loves what she does and she loves music. Easily one of the best professors I have taken classes with and a truly wonderful class.

Gail is fantastic. The choir is like a family - she loves us all, and it shows in her treatment of the group. She picks great music, is very patient with the choir as we learn the pieces, and always has some insight to offer in any situation. She arranges to feed us once a month - we get lasagna and salad and bond as a choir. There's a lot of student leadership, and she always encourages us to get involved. There is absolutely no reason for you to not take this class. Trust me.

Those reviewers who are so enthusiastic about Gail are to be admired. After two semesters of her choir, I have given up in complete hopelessness (she was on leave between the two, or it would have happened sooner). The choir is decent, I guess, but two hours twice a week is way too long to spend in the same room as Gail. She is so patronizing, and all she can EVER talk about is herself. If you're into spending too much time listening to a (not so brilliant) diva gush about how wonderful she is and too little time singing, take this class... Otherwise, steer clear!