MUSC204 | PlanetTerp

Information	Review
Brendan Kibbee MUSC204 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 12/23/2025	Pretty easy gen ed. There are weekly assignments which are basically just completion. They take 20 minutes max, just read the article and respond to the prompt. Never more than a few sentences. You have to do 3 playlist assignments were basically you just find a song related to the weeks topic and doing a short write up about how it relates. Then there is the concert report. Once again very chill and easy; you just have to write about a concert you attended. Participation is the only kind of annoying thing in this class. You have to go to all of the lectures (2x a week) and discussion (1x a week) to get the participation points. You can lose a few points here and there and be fine, but if you want an A expect to attend most if not all of the lectures and discussions. The final exam was also very easy. There were roughly 15 music samples where you had to identify the artist which he released to us before hand, so it was like 20 minutes of preparation. There was also an essay which again he released the prompt before hand, you just had to write it out during the exam period. This took like 30 minutes to prepare before the exam. Overall I would recommend this for an easy DSHU and DVUP gen ed.
Brendan Kibbee MUSC204 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 12/21/2025	I really liked this class. You can tell Professor Kibbee is very knowledgeable and passionate about music. Class has a lot of extra credit opportunities and class is mostly participation based. There are qr codes he uploads during class its easy to fill out but u cant really skip if u want high grade in class. There’s a final exam but it is very easy just got to remember songs and associate it with artist and quote. Then u have to write essay which is easy u can write basically anything related to the class content so u can pre determine your essay. But overall easy class take it for easy gen ed
Matthew Valnes MUSC204 Expecting a B Anonymous 05/25/2025	I really liked this class until I accidentally screwed up the word count on my paper (that I spent hours on) and he gave me a zero. This class has great potential, but Professor Valnes treats it so transactionally that it’s honestly offensive. You need to cater to his incredibly specific standards. If you do that, you’ll probably get an A. But if you make even one small mistake, your grade will plummet. Something I also didn’t like was that what is deemed to be “black culture” was very subjective. It’s a fluid concept, and there shouldn’t be a hard cutoff, as this teaching team suggests. I’m disappointed in my experience and I hope that this Professor takes some serious time to reflect on how he is running this class.
Matthew Valnes MUSC204 Expecting an A Anonymous 03/31/2025	Easy Class
Matthew Valnes MUSC204 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/11/2024	I have absolutely zero music background, but I LOVED this course. You def don't have to go to lectures since the slides are posted, but I would actually go for fun because they were so interesting. Discussions are once a week and they say they are mandatory, but lowkey nobody really showed up. I always did and they were super easy and chill. There is a participation grade, but it is easy to get credit. I NEVER spoke during lecture, but I'd make comments here and there in the discussion section and got full credit. Dr Valnes is clearly very knowledgable in the topic and he always created an environment during lecture where it felt safe to share thoughts and ideas. Even if an answer isn't exactly what he is looking for, he makes sure to still encourage the person and recognize the good in their answer. The grading was overall pretty easy and they made it very clear what you had to do to get the points, however, sometimes like very little things would make you lose a lot of points. I actually really liked this course though, I didn't think I would since I have no interest in music, but it was super cool and a great gen ed!
Matthew Valnes MUSC204 Expecting an A- Anonymous 12/10/2024	Relatively easy course. Two complaints: 1. Cartoonishly nitpicky with small details on assignments. On a major writing assignment I poured almost a full day of work into, I was given a zero for forgetting to put a word count at the bottom of the paper. 2. Cumulative participation grade that requires not only attendance but engagement at both lectures and discussions.
Matthew Valnes MUSC204 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 11/29/2023	Easy class, only thing that is mandatory are the discussions on Friday. I would take it, but the discussions are so pointless.
Sara West MUSC204 Anonymous 10/06/2023	She does teach in discussion but she grades way too harshly for assignments. If you are looking for an easy A, it's probably best not to take her.
Matthew Valnes MUSC204 Expecting an A Anonymous 08/02/2023	This class is exactly what you want from a gen-ed. Super easy (all of the exams are online and open-note), a totally reasonable amount of work, and very interesting material. The discussions are mandatory for a participation grade, but they're good to go to anyways. The course content is really interesting and will definitely expose you to some new music and/or ideas.
Matthew Valnes MUSC204 Expecting an A Anonymous 06/01/2023	Interesting class, discussion session is a must attend, assignments were good
Matthew Valnes MUSC204 Expecting an A- Anonymous 05/21/2023	This class would've been a lot better if Valnes was actually good at keeping the students accountable for discussions/work. He is also great at making a potentially interesting topic, like music, very boring. The students in this class, with me included, gradually lost interest over this class and eventually I'd say at least 70% of the people started skipping it. I'd say this class was an easy A but the experience of the class was extremely bland at best and I didn't quite agree with Valnes's idea of assigning a hard genre to a piece of music. All in all, very uneducational class, though if you want an easy A go for it. I would rather take a gen-ed class with a professor that seems to be at least a little bit passionate about the course subject though.
Matthew Valnes MUSC204 Expecting an A Anonymous 05/19/2023	Awesome professor, easy class, and easy on the grading depending on your TA. Although I doubt there is a bad MUSC204 TA out there. Take it with Valnes, he is very knowledgeable about the course. There are a couple of essays, none of them being super long until the last one which was at most only 1000 words.
Matthew Valnes MUSC204 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/24/2022	Professor Valnes is a nice and understandable professor. His MUSC204 class consists of readings and music to listen to before class. Although the readings are fairly long, I believe that the TAs and/or the professor will briefly talk about it in discussion or lecture. It is best to skim through the readings as best as you can because they may appear on the midterms. Dr. Valnes is clearly passionate about what he is teaching and is straightforward with the content that he teaches. If you take notes during lecture (he provides you the slides on ELMS too), the final exam and midterms should be easy because the questions are exactly from the notes. He also gave us a Spotify playlist filled with songs to review or listen to for the midterms since there was a listening portion. Personally, I thought his lectures were engaging and fairly interesting, as I took this particular class not just for the gen-ed requirement, but also because I liked music. Overall, Dr. Valnes does an outstanding job teaching and I would like to give credit to my TA as well for being as caring and helpful as Dr. Valnes.
Nicole Powlison MUSC204 Expecting an A- Anonymous 01/23/2022	Very nice professor and tries to make the class as easy as possible. She made the exams online when I took this class which made it very easy. The papers are graded fairly and doesn't take too long to do. Overall, very easy class.
Nicole Powlison MUSC204 Expecting an A Anonymous 01/17/2020	Great teacher, loved this class. The material was interesting, and there wasn't a ton of work required to do in this class. There are 3 exams which are easy as long as you study her study guide and 2 essays which are pretty straightforward. Would highly recommend this class with Dr. Powlison.

Brendan Kibbee
MUSC204

Expecting an A+
Anonymous
12/23/2025

Pretty easy gen ed. There are weekly assignments which are basically just completion. They take 20 minutes max, just read the article and respond to the prompt. Never more than a few sentences. You have to do 3 playlist assignments were basically you just find a song related to the weeks topic and doing a short write up about how it relates. Then there is the concert report. Once again very chill and easy; you just have to write about a concert you attended. Participation is the only kind of annoying thing in this class. You have to go to all of the lectures (2x a week) and discussion (1x a week) to get the participation points. You can lose a few points here and there and be fine, but if you want an A expect to attend most if not all of the lectures and discussions. The final exam was also very easy. There were roughly 15 music samples where you had to identify the artist which he released to us before hand, so it was like 20 minutes of preparation. There was also an essay which again he released the prompt before hand, you just had to write it out during the exam period. This took like 30 minutes to prepare before the exam. Overall I would recommend this for an easy DSHU and DVUP gen ed.

Brendan Kibbee
MUSC204

Expecting an A+
Anonymous
12/21/2025

I really liked this class. You can tell Professor Kibbee is very knowledgeable and passionate about music. Class has a lot of extra credit opportunities and class is mostly participation based. There are qr codes he uploads during class its easy to fill out but u cant really skip if u want high grade in class. There’s a final exam but it is very easy just got to remember songs and associate it with artist and quote. Then u have to write essay which is easy u can write basically anything related to the class content so u can pre determine your essay. But overall easy class take it for easy gen ed

Matthew Valnes
MUSC204

Expecting a B
Anonymous
05/25/2025

I really liked this class until I accidentally screwed up the word count on my paper (that I spent hours on) and he gave me a zero. This class has great potential, but Professor Valnes treats it so transactionally that it’s honestly offensive. You need to cater to his incredibly specific standards. If you do that, you’ll probably get an A. But if you make even one small mistake, your grade will plummet. Something I also didn’t like was that what is deemed to be “black culture” was very subjective. It’s a fluid concept, and there shouldn’t be a hard cutoff, as this teaching team suggests. I’m disappointed in my experience and I hope that this Professor takes some serious time to reflect on how he is running this class.

Matthew Valnes
MUSC204

Expecting an A
Anonymous
03/31/2025

Easy Class

Matthew Valnes
MUSC204

Expecting an A
Anonymous
12/11/2024

I have absolutely zero music background, but I LOVED this course. You def don't have to go to lectures since the slides are posted, but I would actually go for fun because they were so interesting. Discussions are once a week and they say they are mandatory, but lowkey nobody really showed up. I always did and they were super easy and chill. There is a participation grade, but it is easy to get credit. I NEVER spoke during lecture, but I'd make comments here and there in the discussion section and got full credit. Dr Valnes is clearly very knowledgable in the topic and he always created an environment during lecture where it felt safe to share thoughts and ideas. Even if an answer isn't exactly what he is looking for, he makes sure to still encourage the person and recognize the good in their answer. The grading was overall pretty easy and they made it very clear what you had to do to get the points, however, sometimes like very little things would make you lose a lot of points. I actually really liked this course though, I didn't think I would since I have no interest in music, but it was super cool and a great gen ed!

Matthew Valnes
MUSC204

Expecting an A-
Anonymous
12/10/2024

Relatively easy course. Two complaints: 1. Cartoonishly nitpicky with small details on assignments. On a major writing assignment I poured almost a full day of work into, I was given a zero for forgetting to put a word count at the bottom of the paper. 2. Cumulative participation grade that requires not only attendance but engagement at both lectures and discussions.

Matthew Valnes
MUSC204

Expecting an A+
Anonymous
11/29/2023

Easy class, only thing that is mandatory are the discussions on Friday. I would take it, but the discussions are so pointless.

Sara West
MUSC204

Anonymous
10/06/2023

She does teach in discussion but she grades way too harshly for assignments. If you are looking for an easy A, it's probably best not to take her.

Matthew Valnes
MUSC204

Expecting an A
Anonymous
08/02/2023

This class is exactly what you want from a gen-ed. Super easy (all of the exams are online and open-note), a totally reasonable amount of work, and very interesting material. The discussions are mandatory for a participation grade, but they're good to go to anyways. The course content is really interesting and will definitely expose you to some new music and/or ideas.

Matthew Valnes
MUSC204

Expecting an A
Anonymous
06/01/2023

Interesting class, discussion session is a must attend, assignments were good

Matthew Valnes
MUSC204

Expecting an A-
Anonymous
05/21/2023

This class would've been a lot better if Valnes was actually good at keeping the students accountable for discussions/work. He is also great at making a potentially interesting topic, like music, very boring. The students in this class, with me included, gradually lost interest over this class and eventually I'd say at least 70% of the people started skipping it. I'd say this class was an easy A but the experience of the class was extremely bland at best and I didn't quite agree with Valnes's idea of assigning a hard genre to a piece of music. All in all, very uneducational class, though if you want an easy A go for it. I would rather take a gen-ed class with a professor that seems to be at least a little bit passionate about the course subject though.

Matthew Valnes
MUSC204

Expecting an A
Anonymous
05/19/2023

Awesome professor, easy class, and easy on the grading depending on your TA. Although I doubt there is a bad MUSC204 TA out there. Take it with Valnes, he is very knowledgeable about the course. There are a couple of essays, none of them being super long until the last one which was at most only 1000 words.

Matthew Valnes
MUSC204

Expecting an A
Anonymous
12/24/2022

Professor Valnes is a nice and understandable professor. His MUSC204 class consists of readings and music to listen to before class. Although the readings are fairly long, I believe that the TAs and/or the professor will briefly talk about it in discussion or lecture. It is best to skim through the readings as best as you can because they may appear on the midterms. Dr. Valnes is clearly passionate about what he is teaching and is straightforward with the content that he teaches. If you take notes during lecture (he provides you the slides on ELMS too), the final exam and midterms should be easy because the questions are exactly from the notes. He also gave us a Spotify playlist filled with songs to review or listen to for the midterms since there was a listening portion. Personally, I thought his lectures were engaging and fairly interesting, as I took this particular class not just for the gen-ed requirement, but also because I liked music. Overall, Dr. Valnes does an outstanding job teaching and I would like to give credit to my TA as well for being as caring and helpful as Dr. Valnes.

Nicole Powlison
MUSC204

Expecting an A-
Anonymous
01/23/2022

Very nice professor and tries to make the class as easy as possible. She made the exams online when I took this class which made it very easy. The papers are graded fairly and doesn't take too long to do. Overall, very easy class.

Nicole Powlison
MUSC204

Expecting an A
Anonymous
01/17/2020

Great teacher, loved this class. The material was interesting, and there wasn't a ton of work required to do in this class. There are 3 exams which are easy as long as you study her study guide and 2 essays which are pretty straightforward. Would highly recommend this class with Dr. Powlison.

Reviews for MUSC204