I found this course, a purportedly easy GE, to be more difficult than expected. Professor Ruskin is undoubtedly an expert in ethnomusicology, but his lectures do not quite display his expertise. The lectures were often extremely boring, and I frequently observed that the fraction of students who actually showed up to the 9 am often fell asleep within the first thirty minutes. He uses slides, but he uses them to mostly display photos and video clips, so there was not much to take notes on, and he does not post the slides as some other professors do. Ruskin did often have guest lecturers and performers come in place of his lectures, and these were actually interesting and exciting and became my favorite part of the course. If you're bold enough you could volunteer to go up on stage and learn to play instruments or how to do certain dances. I did so, and that's what made this class feel more fun and worthwhile instead of agonizing and unnecessary.

As far as the workload goes, there were three papers, evenly spaced throughout the quarter, and two quizzes held in discussion. As long as you put in some effort, and depending on your TA, the papers were not all that bad. However, the directions and expectations for them usually required clarification from a TA or from Ruskin himself. The quizzes were simple and based off of the listening examples required as homework. Those were simply memorization. Ruskin also posted readings each week, but these were wholly unnecessary and students do not need to complete them in order to pass the class. There is no midterm, just a final. It is 100 points of multiple choice, which I expected to be easy, but was actually rather frustrating and harder than warranted. The listening section was easy, but the other multiple choice questions were formatted in a way that were difficult to answer with confidence. As one of the most engaged students in the class, I expected it to be a cake walk, but I left feeling irritated and unsure of myself.

Overall, this was an easy course that does not even require the student to attend lectures. However, the lectures were extremely boring, and if I did not have friends in the class with me, I would have hated it. I can't decide whether or not I would recommend that others take it, so if you do, good luck.

I went into this class interested enough by the course description to think that I was actually going to get myself up to willingly go to a 9 AM and go to lecture. Boy, was I wrong. I ended up showing up a total of three times. One of those times I fell asleep and another one of those times, I spent the entire two hours online shopping. It takes a special kind of talent to make an exciting subject look dull, but Professor Ruskin somehow managed to do it. Props to him.

The lecture slides aren't posted online, and good luck trying to get notes from anyone else in the class, because chances are, they didn't go either. And even if they did, the Internet connection in that building sucks. The readings are, though, and it definitely helps to do them when you're studying for the final. The final is multiple choice and there's a study guide for it, but the questions got pretty specific and were mostly in "which of the following are true?" format where every question seemed like a trick question. There's no midterm, though, and the quizzes you have before it are just based on identifying the listenings, so you go in without really knowing what to anticipate. Because of that, even actually going to lecture couldn't save you.

As far as assigned work goes, you get two papers and a playlist project where you just write a few notes on each of the songs. These are pretty easy, but different TAs do have different ways of grading that can work for or against you. I don't have complaints there, as I did very well on them and my GPA thanks me and the people behind the grading of my work for that. The only other thing I enjoyed about this class is, aside from still pulling an A- having gone to so few of the lectures, the ability to wow your friends with how cultured you are with all the playlists you'll have amassed of obscure music in languages you don't speak and countries you have no connection to.

The most boring class I've ever taken. If you aren't good at remembering obscure, unimportant facts and aren't a good audio learner (you have to memorize song artists, titles, and genres based on listening), don't take this class. I fell asleep in almost every lecture. Really not worth it.

This class really is not a lot of work. There are two papers and one playlist assignment, which are all worth a heavy part of your grade. I honestly think lecture was light because there would be occasional performances and listening to different types of music was really fun. I did not appreciate how much your grade depended on the papers which were graded by your TA. Do not let the grade distribution fool you as the majority of your grade depends on how your TA grades the papers your write. The final is a multiple choice but it is stressful if your paper grades were bad and rely on it to boost your grade. My advice would be to do well on the papers and your basically set.

I loved this class and would highly recommend it!! I have a musical background (played piano for ten years and had music history as part of my high school curriculum), which I think was beneficial for the quizzes/tests, but you can still ace the class without it. I really appreciate the breadth of material Professor Ruskin tried to cover with time constraints, and his lectures give you the opportunity to meet some stellar artists. He's also pretty flexible in letting you go outside of the provided topics for the final project. The papers are not difficult, the most important thing is that you write and convey your ideas well, and format everything (including citations) correctly.
Workload: a few quizzes (maybe 2-4?) which are just listening to clips of songs and writing down the artist, genre and country of origin, two papers (~5 pages each), a final exam (which is formatted like the listening quizzes + more detailed knowledge of the artists, individual songs, genres, instruments, and history within countries of origin), and a final project (where you make a playlist of songs from a chosen country and with information on each piece).

This is definitely one of the easiest GE's that I've taken. Professor Ruskin is not a super engaging lecturer, but if you are into music then you'll enjoy the material. There are a lot of assigned readings, but you don't need to read them thoroughly as long as you understand the main points. The papers are not graded toughly and the quizzes and tests are not difficult either as long as you've prepared. He also had a lot of cool guest lecturers, which kept the class more interesting. If you've never taken a music class at UCLA and are looking for a GE, I highly recommend this class.

I thought the class was going to be less work based on the ratings, but it turned out to require a good amount of reading and writing. My TA was a fairly nice grader, though, so it wasn't too bad. I can see how people could find this class overbearing at times, since the professor does require you to identify songs and memorize information about them, but it's nothing excessive. If you just attend lecture, take notes, and memorize the songs on his playlist, your grade should be fine. Even if you don't attend lecture, he gives you a review sheet with a list of terms that you should know for the final, and you can just fill out the list with information from Wikipedia.

Great choice for an easy GE. Took this class my fall quarter freshman year and found it very manageable especially in comparison with the lower div pre-med chem and math classes I was taking. Exams are multiple choice and mostly based on lecture material. There were readings but none of them were too intensive. Skimming them was fine enough to do fine on the midterm and final.

Easy. Relaxing. A good time. My TA was great and an easy grader. Ruskin is nice and knows his stuff. I recommend the class, but some parts were slow and boring. I didn't attend a couple of lectures because there isn't a final, but I learned a lot and now have a more widespread taste in music.

Ruskin is super nice but he's just kinda boring and as a result only like forty people ever came to lecture. My friend and I would go sometimes and some classes were really fun like when our guest lecturer was a Bollywood/modern dance instructor/choreographer Achinta and we had a blast learning from her. A good amount of classes were just Ruskin rambling through slides with a LOTTTT of background. The class depends mostly on your TA and mine (chris rorke) was very generous in giving my a 90, 95, 100, 95 on the first paper, second paper, playlist, and final paper respectively. I however fully wrote them under the wire and did not even proofread before I submitted them (in fact I finished my final paper within ten minutes of it being due and then did the extra credit in five minutes). Ruskin did offer 3% extra credit at the end for a super quick summary/opinion on any reading from the class. There was one listening quiz; I failed but still got an A in the class. Would recommend if you never want to go to class and are willing to write like 3000 words total for the whole course.