Great class, super easy, engaging, good GPA booster and super interesting

Highly recommend this class! You watch interviews between the professor and famous songwriters and write your thoughts on them. The class is a lot of busy work, but worth it and the professor really cares. As long as you turn in all of the assignments, you will do really well in the course!

One of my favorite classes at UCLA! You watch about 2 documentaries from the rock era (James Brown, Bob Dylan, etc.. and also contemporary artists!) per week and analyze them in short written assignments. The class is half discussion, half special guests/lecture/watching portions of documentaries. It is a small class so everyone gets a chance to be heard. Professor Leaf even brings snacks for students as a mid-class break! All materials are provided or available online. This class is so unique and fun, and if you love music, the homework doesn't feel like work at all. Prof. leaf cares about his students so so much- he provides in depth feedback to each student for almost every assignment. He has so much knowledge about the music industry, I learned things I would've otherwise never known. Listening to his firsthand accounts of interactions with famous artists made this class interesting to go to each and every single week. I would 100% take this class again if I could!

Music Industry 105: Songwriters on Songwriting was and still remains one of my favorite classes at UCLA. It provided real honest advice and a look into experiences from songwriters and songwriting executives that you cannot get anywhere else. I recommend the class to all of my friends, whether they are looking for a career in the music industry or not, as it offers a great look into how music is made and is enjoyable (yes, that's right, "enjoyable"!) for students of every major with an interest in or love of music.

This class is so unique and fun- it focuses on the songwriting processes of musicians- and you get to hear about it directly from them! I was scared at first to take a music industry class because I'm a Bio major, but the class is fun to go to, every lecture is engaging and interesting, and the writing assignments are not difficult- you get to write about fun subjects like musicians and songs, not about boring books or articles. Part of your homework is just listening to songs by artists who you are going to see the next week! Best homework ever. Every week musicians and songwriters visit the class to talk about their process and life as a musician, and most perform for the class at the end! It's like a little concert! I highly recommend music industry 105 to all of my friends!

David Leaf is incredibly talented in his field and taking his class is an absolute treat. You basically get to listen to incredibly talented artists talk about their life's story and path to success, and then write what you leaned from them. This class is awesome even if you're a STEM major! It doesn't teach facts as much as life lessons that I personally still remember to this day! It's motivating, inspiring, interesting, and everything you could possibly want out of a class. Assignments (mostly reflections/writing) aren't that hard. Professor Leaf is also incredibly nice, I reached out to him over email (I took the summer online class) and he helped me find an internship! He even offered to meet up with me in the fall to talk about his career. Take this class, that is all.

I think the course has been changed from 109 to 188, but it's still the same class. Fantastic class overall. Leaf is really insightful and brings in a lot of quality guests. Workload is average, but you need to do the majority of the extra credit assignments to get an A (so they're not really "extra credit")

prof leaf is awesome and super knowledgable I loved all the topics we covered BUT you will be expected to watch at least 6 hours of film and interviews every week which is kind of a lot. you write a short essay every week on everything you've watched and there are some final projects. it was all kind of unorganized at first but it was overall a good class if you like the topic.

I was looking forward to taking this class, but as the quarter moved forward, I began to dread it. The subject material had a heavy focus on white men in the music industry; there was only one week that focused on an artist of color, and when we were assigned documentaries featuring female artists, they were never the sole focus of the week. The amount of work that was assigned to us also felt like it disrespected our time. One class had 9 hours of documentaries to watch as the prep work before watching the accompanying lectures. And this was after the professor said he had lessened the workload. I'm a full time student, and I took this class as a lower division GE but ended up having to spend more time doing work for this class than my two upper divs for my major. Also, for a class that relies so heavily on watching films, I was incredibly frustrated that none of the documentaries hosted on CCLE had subtitles or captions. This made doing the required watching for class difficult because at times it was difficult to follow the docs. I switched into this class so I wouldn't have to do a 10-page research paper in a different GE, I wish I'd just done that instead. Knowing what I know about this class now, I would not have taken it. My TA was amazing though, she made an incredibly frustrating class better, and I really appreciate the work she put in.

I personally loved this class. I have never taken any class like this before. Listening to the lecturers did not feel like a lecture; rather, it felt like a seminar that I would go to for my own amusement. Prof. Leaf was the best! He was very caring and took a personal interest in my life, which made the class a lot more inviting and welcoming.