- mandatory attendance in person
- 2 hour long lectures broken into two 1-hour blocks with 5-10 minute break in between
- super boring lectures
- easy homework assignments from the required textbook
- open note/internet exams -- large time window given, heavily reliant on lecture content

As much as I wanted to enjoy this class, I found Professor Tramo to be very unclear and, personally, the content was boring to me. The exams are all online and he gives you a ton of time to do them (midterm you had like 2ish days to do it and final was 7-8 hours), so that was nice to not have in person exams. In particular, I found the final to be confusingly worded and quite unclear, especially when it came to the brain anatomy identification, so that was frustrating. I would just make sure you understand what the graphs in his slides are saying as that tended to show up a lot of his exams. Overall, the class was alright for a science GE. I think it's easier than some of the other science GE's you could take, but definitely not the most interesting, which is exacerbated by the fact that the discussions and lectures have graded attendance.

Boring as fuck, easiest class ever but i haven't learned jack shit.....prob the worst professor I had at UCLA...if u actually want to learn, please avoid.

Easy GE! Professor was nice, but content was not very interesting.

Lectures: Professor uses slides during lecture. Attendance is mandatory and is checked through a google form link that is posted through a QR link in the lecture slides. Lecture content was pretty boring.

Discussion: Attendance is also mandatory for discussion and is checked in the same way (through a google form link and QR code on the slides). TA Rachel Scott was very caring and helped keep the material actually engaging.

Homework: There is weekly individual homework that consists of questions from the textbook. Very easy and took maybe 10-15 minutes to complete each assignment.

Paper: Since there are no exams, the biggest assignment is the group paper on a topic of your choice. The paper is supposed to be a bit long, and my group members waited until last-minute to complete their parts of the paper, so it was all a bit disorganized and stressful. There are a few group homework assignments leading up to the paper, which are fairly short.

This is an easy A, because the requirements are very low. Otherwise, I didn't learn much. The grading was very soft, and there are no exams. Through the course, I felt nobody cared about anything. The assignments are only there so grades can be assigned.

The downside is that you won't get any type of response from anyone. This is the worst since there is also a group project for a 7000–8000 word paper. There was no syllabus until 2 days before submission. Nobody cared if someone on your group decides to not show up and do work.

Our group had 4 people, and the situation was absolutely bad. One dude just decided to write 1000 words with no claims and be done. He doesn't do any more work, and the TA and Professor absolutely have not cared. After the submission, when I checked Turnitin, I found that almost an entire page of stuff written by another group member is filed with plagiarism! At last, it only seemed that the TA cared even less and gave us a solid grade.

Two takeaways: this class is an easy A but very boring. Participation is required (you have to attend 40/50 hours of lectures and discussion to get 100%) and Tramo is not the greatest lecturer. The first hour of every class is spent repeating what was covered last time. He plays videos and audio clips at an ungodly volume level, even though part of the class covered how loud noises damage our ears. Even more, he will try to talk during the videos, but nobody can hear a word he says, even from the front row (keep in mind, he's yelling into a microphone at this point). Fortunately, there are no exams, so you can get through the class without ever taking notes. The real learning happens in discussion sections (shout out to Rachel Scott, amazing TA). Be aware that 50% of your grade is a group final paper and everyone gets the same grade. The paper has to be 7000-8000 words, but it's split among up to 5 members. The rubric is very straightforward and it's easy to get a good grade as long as your group members do their part. The weekly assignments are straight from the textbook and are pretty easy. There are also readings from a book called Musicophilia which are actually pretty interesting.

THIS IS FOR MUSIC INDUSTRY 103 - MUSIC & BRAIN

At first, I thought he was a really awesome guy with a super interesting class. The class was small so I really was expecting to learn a lot. However, he tried to fit too much random things into the class, such as physics of music and the definition of creativity. The class was very unorganized and most of the time I had difficulty following because of the lack of a real base for the info.

That being said, there are MANY really interesting moments to this class also (be cautious, he avoids all topics of psychology of emotions in music and focuses on the neuroscience behind listening to music). Also, the homework and grading is very easy... take home multiple choice test. My friends and I got A-'s however. I was expecting an A because I attended all the classes.

Music Industry 103

Ditto the person below me. The syllabus description seemed cool and the professor seemed to know his shit at the beginning.

Turns out there is no rhyme or reason to his teachings, the lectures are long and boring. The man just likes to hear himself drone on and on.

Additionally: warning to all students interested in this class. You may think its an "easy A". There is a cost. He is rude, inappropriate, abuser of his power, hostile, and totally unprofessional. He has publicly shamed students in the classroom for "not looking at him" when he speaks. And when I asked for a grade breakdown so I could know what I got on the final and the presentation, he sent an email back accusing me of being too interested in my grade (well he used worse words than that) and refused to tell me... What the actual fuck? Is it against the law to know your grade?

I took this up with the Dean of Students and the department chair. UCLA is great but the bureacratic nonsense is bullshit. Nobody could do anything to discipline him, nor investigate on my behalf. Bullshit class with a fucked up man who will abuse his power if you appear to "challenge" him.

Consider yourselves warned.

NOTE: a background in music theory does help in understanding some concepts for class but isn't completely necessary
Dr. Tramo is a pretty fun professor to have, can go on and on on tangents occasionally but for one seminar a week it isnt bad. Dr. tramo likes to bring in professionals from the industry which make lectures fairly interesting, and the majority of the class involves reviewing studies on the cognition of all aspects of music from rhythm and pitch all the way to creativity.
Exam was not difficult (he usually gives question/answers out during the seminars)

I'm a huge fan of the topic of music and the brain; however, I felt that this class really wasted my time and was a let down for someone like me who was eager to learn and interact with other students who wanted to learn.

This class is supposed to be a seminar - class based solely on discussion that is generated from weekly readings, or, in this case, scientific papers. We never had engaging student discussions due to Professor Tramo letting in 20+ more students than a typical seminar group. And so, it ended up being lecture style which was not great because Professor Tramo is a terrible lecturer. He goes off on tangents way too much, interrupts student presentations, (is monotone, for those of you who have trouble with monotone professors,) and is redundant. The class is 3 hours long and I find that the those 3 hours are not used efficiently; he isn't quite wary of time and I know it's not just in class because I've gone to one of his talks at a conference and he went over by 30 minutes. If it was actually a seminar, I think the class could have gone a lot better since students would have control.

Attendance counts. He actually memorizes people's names and keeps track.

Some cool things about him though is that he has connections in both music industry and UCLA Health and he likes to play the Beatles during breaks.

To conclude, if you really want to go in depth and learn about the material for music and brain, this class might not be so great. This class does provide a lot of material for scientific papers and if you are motivated to go out of your way to read all of them without getting the opportunity to discuss in class, then I'd say go for it. But then again, you could literally just go to his website and read all of those instead of sit in class for 3 hours being on Facebook.