Marlon Feld

As students dash in and take one of a circle of seats, Columbia instructor Marlon Feld of the music department fiddles with the stereo. The students then pull out handouts printed from the Internet and settle back, scanning the pages as a Haydn sonata fills the room.

The class is Feld's section of Music Humanities (http://www.columbia.edu/itc/music/feld/c1123), a core curriculum course in which all Columbia students, music majors and non-majors, are exposed to the "masterworks" of Western music. The lineup for today—Bach, Haydn, Shostakovich—may elicit giggles, snickers and sideways glances. Not an unexpected reaction for a lesson entitled "What is Funny?" taken from Feld's online course module "Music Laughs."

One student wonders about the increase in rhythm and pitch and its connection to the repeated lyric "coffee" in the soprano's escalating aria in Bach's Coffee Cantata. (A caffeine high?) And the occasional pause following a bizarre harmonic turn in the music in Haydn's "English" piano sonata in C major spurs another student to ponder if audiences of the day knew that the venerable Haydn was playing with them—for the seemingly serious piece has awkward pauses and faults, the kind amateur musicians make, intentionally written into the music.

With the help of digital technology, Feld is inspiring lively insightful discussion of classical music with a non-traditional approach.

For the past 60 years, generations of Columbians have learned about Western music's masterworks in chronological order. But Feld's classes challenge tradition by focusing on thematic comparisons of music rather than chronological discussions. This is accomplished through a multi-media course guide, essentially an online textbook specifically designed to inspire critical thought, compiled by Feld, graduate student William Atkinson and other collaborators. Each of the 15 modules stores music clips, lyrics, reviews by critics and essays by scholars, sometimes written by contemporary composers, which allow students to easily compare and contrast the music in each module online and print out the day's material before they come to class.

"These materials are based not on telling students what to hear, but rather on how teaching them to think about music critically," said Feld. "This critical approach plays a role in all good Music Hum classes, chronological or topical. But the online format centered around topics makes it easier for students to prepare analytical arguments and as a result enhances the class discussion."

If the class discussion is any indication, the non-traditional approach works. Feld's students flourish in the seminar style course, often driving and even dominating class discussion under his direction.

"Instead of being bored to tears listening to the same type of music over and over again in each class, and then going on to music that has no bearing on anything preceding it, we are able to recognize the connections between disparate ideas and time periods because Marlon organizes the class thematically," said Martin Andersen, CC'01. "The material has been massaged in a way that makes it easier to draw connections across time."

Feld has also expanded the definition of great Western music. Earlier in the semester when the class examined repetitive music, the Beatles' "Hey Jude" was discussed along with Beethoven's "Pastoral" Symphony, an 11th century organum and an 18th century trio sonata. "It is really nice to see that the same technical things one can find in 11th century music can also be found in music from the present day," said Andersen.

What Feld has created is a sort of living textbook reflecting the expertise of Columbia music professors who advised him as well as other collaborators who worked on the project. The resource also includes additional online material and links provided by the Columbia Center for New Media Teaching and Learning (CCNMTL), which assisted with the user-friendly module design. All this results in a free learning environment for students, who can see a few concerts with the money they save and for instructors, who can use the materials or re-adapt them for their own classes.

Feld also benefits from the online format, which allows him to revise his curriculum from semester to semester based on student feedback. Over the winter break, he added an outline of Western music history complete with online sound files.

Feld is one of many music instructors, who, despite the time commitment, are transferring their expertise online. (Feld, Atkinson and the CCNMTL staff committed hundreds of hours over the past summer to developing the online resource.)

"I don't know of any other department that uses the Web as richly and diversely as Music Hum does. I can say that the benefits are phenomenal," said Ian Bent, chair of Music Humanities and a digital maverick in his own right. Before the CCNMTL, Bent worked with AcIS to create the online archive of music terminology called Sonic Glossary.

"In the long run, I think the [Music Hum] staff will collectively develop a large body of online material that will reduce our dependency on published textbooks," said Bent. What Bent, Feld and others in the music department have embarked on might well be the future for music teaching."