| Information | Review |
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William Evans
MUSC240 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 05/09/2023 |
This is the best class I’ve ever taken. If you’re any bit interested in music production at all, please take this class. It will be the most fun experience of your life. Professor Evans is hilarious and way too chill to be real. He’ll give you as much extension time or absences you need and will help you catch up. (After all, you can’t brute force a creativity!) Like, I’m not going to lie, I expected a grumpy old guy, but he’s my favorite professor I’ve ever had. I don’t think any other course I take will ever top this. — Keep in mind that this is not a theory class, so if you’re looking to learn more about chord progressions and hands-on instrument playing, there isn’t much of that. It’s mostly focused on teaching you how to use digital music writing software (namely Soundtrap, Noteflight, and GarageBand, but you’re allowed to use other software that you already own if you want). — The main projects are simply different song compositions using the software indicated. He’s insanely lenient, though, and you’ll most likely be able to use a different software of choice if you ask. What I love the most is how liberal he is with everything: there’s no strict rubric for any assignment (there’s perhaps like one guideline and that’s it), so you can be as creative as you like! Never once did I feel that my potential or drive was being hindered by a fear that I’d accidentally get a bad grade for missing something. It’s virtually impossible to get anything less than 100% on an assignment unless you literally just don’t turn it in. He grades based on your own improvement, and not what he thinks is the standard, so it’s totally fine if you don’t know much about music. As long as you know how to read notes and what key signatures are, you’ll be vibing. That being said, he gives bonus points if he really likes your song! (I am currently at nearly 102%. It’s a great self-esteem booster, to be fair.) — There are no exams or quizzes or anything. The final project is just a 3-minute song using any software you want, and you have to do a 15 minute-ish presentation on it (your inspiration, the structure of the song, etc.). That may sound intimidating, but again, he’s extremely kind. I have bad anxiety, and he was happily willing to allot a separate time for me so that I can present it to him privately rather than to the whole class, which was amazing and incredibly helpful. — I’ve been wanting to get into making music for a long time, but even then, I did not expect I would like this course this much. I cannot recommend this course enough if you have any bit of desire to try writing songs. Please take this class and give my man Bill all the love in the world. Dude is the absolute GOAT, and I have no clue why he has anything below 5 stars. (Like, I can imagine how some people might not like the course content if it’s just not your thing, but he tries and succeeds to make it so entirely stress-free that I feel like no one could possibly have a bad experience with this class… unless you simply hate music, I guess? In which case, why would you even sign up? Yes, this is indirectly directly addressing the reviewer who gave him a 1 star rating. I am in your walls for scaring me like that, when he is quite frankly the exact opposite of what your review described.) |
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William Evans
HONR218M Expecting an A Anonymous 02/14/2020 |
I came into this course with essentially zero knowledge of music at any level (I played piano when I was in lower school), and Professor Evans was very receptive of this. the grading is all relative, so as long as you improve you get good grades. I also missed classes for religious holidays and he was willing to meet with me multiple times 1v1 to help me catch up. Overall the best honors seminar I've taken and cannot recommend it more. |
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William Evans
HONR218M Expecting an A nbarshain 10/31/2016 |
Professor Evans was great!! Super receptive to student concerns, and very encouraging of everyone's work, no matter what their skill level was. The class was set up very well, and the variety of projects in different fields (music notation software, Garage Band, film scoring) helped me expand my creativity out of my comfort zone. In general, I loved having a dedicated time each week to play with music, and I learned a lot of skills from the amount of time I put into my music. Plus, he guaranteed an A if you worked hard, and it was awesome not having to be stressed about grades! Normally I need the grade pressure for motivation to work hard, but in this class I had no problem working hard because I loved the assignments! |
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William Evans
HONR218M Expecting a B- Anonymous 11/10/2015 |
This is honestly one of the hardest and most frustrating courses. Although it is titled "Music Composition for Non-Music Majors", this class probably would have been challenging even for music majors. I have been learning piano for upwards of seven years now, and I still struggle. This class is not about music. What this class IS about is computer software and technology which, if you are not already familiar with audio and sound engineering or computer science, is very time consuming, frustrating, and unsatisfying. Now, nearing the end of a full semester of this course, I find myself only being able to string together two or three sounds into something that sounds like what a middle schooler could come up with. And the professor is not very responsive to student concerns either. If you have not already familiarized yourself with some kind of music composition software before, you will find yourself in a whirlwind of frustration and confusion even after the beginning stages of using the new software. And the professor is unavailable for student help - if you don't learn correctly on your first attempt as he teaches the material, you fall behind. And if you fall behind, you stay behind. And he teaches the material and answers student questions with such an arrogant demeanor that I have felt incompetent for not having understood the material. If you love music and want to learn composition, do it yourself. Steer clear |