I’m sure you all have heard how Music History is the “death class” of the music department.  It is true; many music majors have failed at least one of the Music History courses, including myself.  Dr. Deadman is a very demanding teacher, but her class is very organized, which can definitely work in your favor.  She posts anything and everything to D2L, including all of the learning objectives for each day of the class.  Here are a few tips that you should remember so you don’t have to retake any Music History classes:

-        Read the learning objectives in the syllabus.  Most of the time, those are where she draws the quiz questions from.

-        At least skim the text book.  Many students don’t even open their textbook, which often makes her angry in class because nobody knows the answer to any of her questions.  Plus, it’ll help you get a leg up on the quiz information.

-        REALLY pay attention to the places she focuses on in the musical examples.  (Oh by the way, ALWAYS bring your anthology to class.  It’ll save you a lot of headaches).  A lot of the times, the places she talks about the most in the musical examples, she puts on the quiz and asks questions about them.

-        Make sure you do all of the assignments that will earn you “free points.”  These include heuristic writing exercises.  On a lot of these assignments, she’ll just give you credit for doing them and putting forth at least a little effort.  This will really give you a hand if your quiz grades are terrible (like mine haha).

-        Get a good night sleep the night before a quiz.  Yes, her quizzes are hard.  They’re more like tests.  And, they’re the hardest tests you’ll ever take in your music core classes.  It’s very tempting to want to spend all night studying the night before.  If you sleep better (especially if your class is at 8:15), you’ll actually retain more information.  So put the notes down and get some shuteye!  Oh, and make sure to eat breakfast the next morning =)

-        If you’re swamped and need an extension on an assignment, ASK HER.  She won’t bite, I promise.  Most of the time, if you give her a good enough reason and you do it before the assignment is due, she will give you that extension.  She’s really good about that.