I have been fortunate to have had the opportunity to teach a diverse selection of courses which vary in both topic and format. During the 2011-2012 academic year I will teaching four different courses at Occidental College, including music appreciation, a social and technological history of recorded sound, and courses in both 19th- and 20th-century music history. While a graduate student, I taught a number of classes at the University of California, Santa Barbara. During the 2007-2008 academic year I redesigned the curriculum and taught the lectures for Music 15, a popular music appreciation class with an enrollment of over 400 students. That same academic year I served as the Music Department's Lead Teaching Assistant, directing the department'sl TA Orientation and leading an educational methods seminar (Music 501) for new graduate students. I have also taught an introductory writing course for UCSB's Writing Program.
In my teaching I strive to make effective use of all of the modern instructional and multimedia technologies available to me. For an example of some of the course materials I have created for past courses, see the links at the bottom of this page.
Occidental College (2011-2012)
Fall 2011
CSP 17: "From the Phonograph to Auto-Tune: Exploring the Cultures of Recording Music"
Course Description: Writing in 1906, the American composer John Phillip Sousa expressed grave concerns about what he termed the “menace of mechanical music.” According to Sousa, newly developed devices like the player piano and the phonograph threatened to remove “the human skill, intelligence, and soul” from music, reducing it to little more than “a mathematical system of megaphones, wheels, cogs, disks, and cylinders.” A century later, musicians and audiences have embraced technology in ways which would have been inconceivable in Sousa’s time. How has the proliferation of such technologies affected our modern musical culture? And what effect has it had on the relationship between musicians and audiences? By looking at contemporary literature, films, archival materials, and sound recordings this course will explore the evolving relationship between music and technology over the course of the 20th century—from the phonographs and player pianos of the past to today’s culture of digital sampling and Auto-Tune.
Music 262: "Western Music and Culture in the 19th Century"
Course Description: This interdisciplinary course will survey the music of the long 19th century, from the French Revolution to the beginning of World War I. We will commence by considering Beethoven's response to Napoleon, the "Eroica" Symphony, in the context of post-Revolution European geo-politics, and end with the musical cultures of turn-of-the-century Vienna, Paris, and New York City. Topics to be explored include the following: the Industrial Revolution and emergent technologies (including photography); landscape painting and poetry; nationalism (including "folk" music); aesthetics and philosophy; science and medicine; the expansion of tonal and formal musical language, and the essaying of new musical forms; the public concert, and music for home performance; and Richard Wagner and artistic responses to his music and writings.
Spring 2012
Music 119: "Why Music Matters"
Course Description: This course provides a general introduction to the elements and history of Western music over the last three centuries. Students will focus on learning how to listen to music, with an emphasis of identifying musical forms, genres, and styles. This focus will serve the larger goal of the course, which is to show how understanding music can not only lead to our greater enjoyment of it but also help us to better understand history and culture. Students with no musical experience are especially welcome.
Music 262: "Western Music and Culture in the 19th Century"
Course Description: This course will survey Western musical practice of the 20th century, commencing with the wide-ranging artistic responses to the music and writings of Richard Wagner, in Europe and in the United States, and the emergence of a "musical modernism," as new forms and new pitch systems take hold. Themes of the course will include the following: new technologies, war, politics, gender and sex, class, race, world musical practices in Western practice (and vice versa), and the shifting status of "art" music vis-à-vis "popular" music. The deep study of music scores and performances will be supplemented with attendance at relevant recitals and concerts.
University of California, Santa Barbara (2004-2011)
Below is a list of the teaching position I held while I was a graduate student at UCSB:
Teaching Assistant (Principal Instructor), 2010-2011
Writing 2: “Academic Writing”
Teaching Associate (Instructor of Record), 2007-2008
Music 15: “Music Appreciation” (Undergraduate Lecture)
Lead Teaching Assistant (Music Department), 2007-2008
Music 501: “Directed Teaching in Music” (Graduate Teaching Seminar)
Teaching Assistant, 2006-2007
Music 112D: “History of Music: The 18th Century” (assisting Prof. Stefanie Tcharos)
Music 112E: “History of Music: The 19th Century” (assisting Prof. Derek Katz)
Music 112F: “History of Music: The 20th Century” (assisting Prof. Derek Katz)
Teaching Assistant, 2004-2006
Music 15: "Music Appreciation"
