Joshua Mailman

2-3 Mediathread assignments/week (need to complete 25 in total during the semester) 15% 2 Essays 30 % 5 Quizzes on Courseworks 15% Final 30 % Participation 10 %

Sure yes, this class is demanding and you may feel frustrated with the workload and start resenting the professor, but this class is doable, and Mailman is very passionate about music and teaching. For a 3 credit class you are going to have a workload more akin to a 5 credit class, and whilst there is a lot of preparation--reading the textbook, watching videos, doing the Mediathread assignments, there is also a lot of flexibility. Prof Mailman gives opportunities for extra credit both on homework and the exams. We had to write two papers, one on the opera which we went to together as a class and the other for a concert of our own choosing. He gave us ample time for both papers(several weeks) and provided detailed feedback. The final exam did literally take the whole 3 hours and was very content filled, yet there were many opportunities for extra points in one area if you may have struggled in another. I would say don't take this class if you are simply just looking to fulfil the core requirement and want to drift, but if you really want to learn about music, and are prepared for all the work that will come with truly developing a skill that you may have otherwise not pursued I would recommend this class.

2 papers, online quizzes that did not make any sense, final.

Worst professor I've ever had at Columbia. Or anywhere. As someone with a very intense musical background and intense musical appreciation, taking Music Hum with Professor Mailman actually made me like music less. This is not to say that Professor Mailman is not a hard-working professor who deeply cares about the material--this is to say that Professor Mailman brought an intensely arrogant attitude to our biweekly classes. He was very weirdly misogynistic which was extremely off-putting not to mention a dick. He came in with an attitude that everyone understood the jargon he was using even though my classmates were for the most part non-musicians. As a musician I felt alienated by Professor Mailman--I cannot imagine what my peers were feeling when he would throw around expert musical jargon and expect everyone to follow what he was saying. That said, classes were thoroughly thoroughly boring. Professor Mailman spoke in a monotonous (but simultaneously cocky) tone for a good hour and a half every class. He assigned a shitload of work that no one actually did and then he looked mad when he realized no one listened to the three hours worth of music he put on Courseworks. No shit. Professor Mailman also focused a great deal (too much) on the theoretical aspect of music. We spent three classes on Sonata Form and we didn't really talk about the ways in which music is a deeply person…

Daily homework which he doesnt collect but expects you to do (~6 hours per week) , 2 midterm "quizzes" , 2 concert reports, 1 ridiculous final

Very simply, if you want Music Hum to be an easy class drop/do not register for Mailman. This guy seemed to be on a mission to make this class a huge part of our lives this past semester. For every class, he expected that we would go through his homework assignments (literally 3 hours long) to prepare. He doubled/tripled the amount of music that we were responsible for by adding his own songs to the already challenging amount presented in the textbook. When preparing for exams, I would have 8 hours of music on iTunes that I had to be able to identify. Would study all night to maybe get half of them right. Ultimately, 90% of the class did not do the work. He can also be very annoying. For example, was angry when people showed up late when it was literally blizzarding outside. Decided he would start taking points off for coming in late and then suddenly stopped. Would get mad when people asked him to write larger. One thing that was cool was when he brought in a live jazz demo to perform for us. I really like jazz and was looking forward to this part of the class. We actually did not cover any jazz in class because he messed up and got way behind on the syllabus. This of course did not stop him from putting several questions, including an essay, on jazz in the final. When the jazz group came to perform, another music hum section came in to watch it with us. Their professor seeme…

2 concert reports, 2 quizzes, final, and participation. Textbook text+listening and supplementary listening+guiding questions. Quizzes and Final had annoying multiple choice section with randomly specific questions cherry-picked from the reading.

The tone of the 2 reviews reviews is not quite right imo, so some more info could be helpful. Professor Mailman did assign *way* too much work. He added an entire supplementary curriculum to the textbook and seemed to think it was reasonable - doing all of it would have taken a number of hours for each class. Coupled with the oft-held perception that Music Hum is easy, this definitely pissed people off and I was frustrated at times too with an assignment that was just way too long. On the other hand, success did not depend on doing every single bit of work. Also, I found listening to the pieces to be fun, and the times when I was even somewhat conscientious to the textbook and additional stuff, I found myself learning a ton. His curriculum was well-designed, and he took lots of question in class. At times his flexibility made things confusing because he was too nice to shut people down. I agree with the below reviewer that he was the hardest working professor I have had at Columbia. I often felt guilty for not putting in even a modicum of the effort that he was, and he is passionate about the music and teaching. He is a bit of an oddball but I found his humor awkwardly hilarious. He is definitely some sort of musical genius. Lastly (and, to be fair, at least in part because of the copious amounts of assigned work), the Fall 2013 class was a terrible one. 80% of the class did n…