Todd Tarantino

Poor professor. I took his class cause of the silver star, but after looking at these reviews, none of them say he's a good teacher, including students who liked him. (I don't understand why CULPA did that.). His class is okay if you already know everything before taking it or want to learn on your own, but even for ear training, he doesn't really teach and just expects you to get it from unknown sources. We were tested on dictations before doing a single one in class and this was a recurrent theme: testing then teaching....or not teaching and testing then testing again. He also seems like a very busy guy and maybe should teach more advanced classes cause he doesn't have the patience for curious students looking to learn something new and has a marked dislike for people taking even Introductory Ear Training as an elective while coming from another department.

Profeasor Tarantino is truly a master at his craft & he is a very nice guy. However, it doesn't translate into his ability to teach; I truly wish it did. The first couple of classes start slowly and pretty easily. However, once you get about a third way through class, it becomes insane how the class is paced. The only way I made it through his "Fundamentals Of Western Music" class was the piano background I had when I was a kid. He teaches the material rather quickly and he doesn't slow down one bit. When asking questions about topics you are confused on, he doesn't really answer you unless you phrase your question EXACTLY to his liking - if you are "completely lost" on a topic, and ask him to explain, your question will be answered with a series of questions...I understand it's to help you figure it out on your own, but sometimes that's not what one needs, especially if you understand incorrectly by the end of the conversation. All the lessons are contingent on knowing the material from the previous lessons. If there is a concept you miss out on, it will haunt you especially with the last half of the semester! If you feel left behind, get a tutor or get a group of students together to study with. Be prepaired to dive into music theroy very heavily. Honestly, the class should be called "Fundamentals of Weatern Music Writing and Composition". It would describe the material you…

Tarantino is quirky and very smart. He explains the musical vocabulary very much in his own way, and he is visibly passionate about the material as he speeds through it, desperately trying to cover more than is possible. Be ready to ask questions often because if you don't you will get left in the dust, so to speak. Also, he knows a hell of a lot, so ask questions anyway just to tap into the storehouse that is his brain. Having a musical background does not guarantee boredom, nor does it guarantee an easy A. He has tweaked his class to appeal to both musical and non-musical, and he stimulates interesting, organic (not forced) discussion, simultaneously allowing those with things to say time to speak and making sure to include all of his students. The midterm is a bit scary. Study longer and harder than you think you should, particularly on the listening portions. Seriously. Pop quizzes occasionally. Prepare by knowing the big picture (development of Western music) and the important names, and approximate dates. He set up his personal website so that you don't have to buy the book, so return the favor by doing the reading. You'll get more out of discussion with him that way.

When I hear Professor Tarantino's name, I just want to laugh. The first thing I learned about him is that he doesn't care about his students. He was 5-10 minutes late to every 50 minute class and cancelled several others for personal convenience, all the while complaining there wasn't enough time. One student also gave him a doctor's note for missing classes for bronchitis that turned into pneumonia (the cough sounded atrocious), stating that he should not go to a singing class at 9am when it hurt him to speak, and Tarantino said he reserved the right to have his absences still affect his grade. To add icing to the cake, Tarantino offered no office hours for the class and no way to help any of us catch up, showing that he cared so little, he was fine with breaking university-wide rules. Still, this wouldn't be so bad if he wasn't also a constant jerk in every other way, telling students that they didn't care about the course when they were clearly trying to satisfy his impossibly high standards. Moreover, this was made particularly ironic because despite his insults and anger even when we laughed at OURSELVES for being off-pitch, he himself muddled pitches and could not even meet his own standards in any way. For example, after giving us an exam on dictation skills without ever having us do a single dictation in class or teaching how to do so during our "learning" (one student…

Professor Tarantino is a decent lecturer and a nice guy. My only complaint is that he occasionally hesitates to give us solid musical definitions or rules of thumb because he doesn't want to restrict his students' musical creativity. As a result, I felt the class on the whole didn't have a firm grasp on what he was actually doing with his examples. Of course, if this isn't your first music theory class, then this won't be a problem. I recommend Tarantino's class for people who have some experience in music theory. He's an easy grader.

Music Hum with Tarantino was enjoyable. He is sometimes not the greatest lecturer but knows what he's talking about and is a talented musician. If you say something dumb he will challenge it and make you elaborate. He is, like other reviewers have said, not the most organized professor, but he did send us modified syllabi and recording lists and attempt to keep us updated on the class schedule. He uses his own website on which he has detailed (though sometimes convoluted) analyses and descriptions of each composer and piece you need to learn. You should at least skim these and the assigned readings as there will be questions about both on the exams. The syllabus itself is interesting and will provoke a few good discussions if you get good classmates. He also provides study guides for the midterm and final that are basically just lists of terms you should know--helpful but not life-saving.

Prof. Tarantino is a kind of guy who always expects prepared students and therefore he never lingers in a specific topic and moves forward to the new thing just right before we can understand the previous topic. Sometimes I have a feeling that he is a genius that does sort of things (composing music LIVE--in the class) that I can't understand, but actually he can explain things really clear and easy if you talk to him after the class. Basically, he just loves to talk fast in class. If it were not professor Tarantino, I would have hated this way of teaching already. For some reason, having to catch up what he teaches becomes a very fun thing to do. Every time I come into his class I would expect myself to understand almost nothing, note down everything he puts on the board without much understanding, but then some self-study will combine with my flashbacks and everything will just 'click'. This way, I learn new things in this class really really quickly. From basic knowledge of music like intervals, chords, and key signatures to the complicated things like identifying roman numerals and harmonizing the whole song by myself, I learn them all in one class! It is not just like memorizing them for exams and forgetting them all afterward, but I feel like this is the real knowledge I will integrate it in my life. This is the first class I've taken in music, but I already feels like m…

Todd was truly a great person; unfortunately the Music Department stuck him with five classes to teach during the semester I took Music Hum with him, so he was a bit disorganized and frazzled. If you take the class seriously, do the readings, and listen to the music before class, you will find the class enjoyable. Todd brings in lots of fun factoids and stories to give the unit more context. He has a great sense of humor and loves it when students have an opinion and participate in class--even if what you say is completely idiotic. Many students in Music Hum are gunning for A's and complain constantly about how hard everything is. Honestly, if you give an honest effort, Todd will recognize that and reward you accordingly. The midterm will scare the daylights out of you. It is very, very difficult. However, it was curved dramatically (almost 20 points) it only gets easier after that. The final was a joke, and you have two response papers (3-5 pages) to turn in.

He was often harried/rushed/seemed more and more out of it as the semester went on. Maybe something was going on in his personal life, so I don't want to criticize him, but it definitely detracted from the class experience. He's definitely very passionate about the subject and a talented musician, and I enjoyed the class overall. Assignments were appropriate, but the grading on the midterm was very harsh - the questions asked were overly difficult and obscure. The music on the syllabus was great, and Tarantino was great at improvising on the piano to illustrate various concepts. I like that he made a class blog, but he soon stopped posting questions on it rather early in the semester. I definitely recommend taking Music Hum with him, but don't expect him to be organized.

The person who wrote the last review is obviously a little bitter and musically challenge. When I entered Todd's class, my only musical experience was my cd collection and did wonderfully. All you need to do well in this class is the ability to listen, both to Todd's instruction and the music. He explains well and even asked the TA to help explain things more simply when students didn't understand, so we often go additional information that way. Homework assignments are not graded but show your progress and effot, which he really takes into consideration for your grade. The papers are relatively easy if you put forth some effort and Todd is liberal with grading. He offers good criticism as well. The information is covered well. Exams were curved and reasonable if you tried at all and included music IDs, terms analysis, and music analysis. I enjoyed music hum more than I thought I would and Todd was a nice guy. It's tough being all the way on the 7th floor.